Khomeini was very annoyed.
Despite his intervention preventing the Air Force from taking off during the Battle of the Susangerd Marshes, he never expected an entire armored division to be completely wiped out!
This was an armored division; in the entire Iranian regular army, there were no more than ten armored divisions. This particular division had been at full strength and possessed the strongest combat capability.
Thus, he signed the order to arrest Abolhassan without hesitation. How had Abolhassan been commanding the army? He hadn't won a single decent victory—how could this be allowed?
What surprised him even more was that the division commander who fled back, Rajavi, actually dared to lay hands on the Revolutionary Guard! With corpses littering the ground, the Revolutionary Guard symbolized his dignity and was absolutely inviolable!
He ordered a large number of Revolutionary Guard members to begin searching for the whereabouts of Abolhassan and Rajavi, who had already been branded as traitors to the Iranian Revolution.
At the same time, he ordered the Air Force to carry out retaliatory strikes against Iraq!
An armored division had been crippled; if he didn't produce some decent results, how could he console the Iranian people?
The eagles of Iran set out once more. This time, a squadron of F-14 Tomcats, two squadrons of F-4 Phantoms, and two squadrons of F-5 Tigers took off, totaling 20 aircraft. This was the limit of what they could deploy; aside from the necessary defense of their airspace, these were the only planes they could send. The powerful Air Force from the start of the Iran-Iraq War was now a hollow shell.
Except for the four F-14s configured for air superiority, the remaining fighters were fully loaded with bombs, prepared for ground bombing. The target for this mission was Baghdad!
Though the number of aircraft was small, with four Tomcats in the formation, they were fearless.
In the skies of the Middle East, the Tomcat was a god-like existence!
Before crossing the Iran-Iraq border, the formation encountered two MiG formations coming to intercept them.
As soon as the Tomcats switched on their powerful radars, the opposing MiGs immediately turned and fled in disgrace.
Under these skies, any aircraft encountering a Tomcat faced only one outcome: being shot down!
The F-14 Tomcat is a twin-seat, twin-engine, variable-sweep wing, supersonic carrier-based multirole heavy fighter developed by Northrop Grumman. It is primarily used for escorting naval strike groups, fleet air defense, interdiction, and close air support. Development began in late 1967, and it was delivered for service in May 1972. It utilizes a twin-engine, twin-vertical tail, variable-sweep mid-wing aerodynamic layout common to modern heavy fighters, with a wing sweep angle that automatically adjusts between 20 and 68 degrees.
Variable-sweep wing technology was a major research direction of this era. The smaller the sweep angle, the better the maneuverability at low and medium altitudes, though drag is high during high-speed flight; a large sweep angle provides the opposite. Thus, a variable sweep angle allows for excellent low-speed and high-speed performance. Besides the Tomcat, the Soviet MiG-23 also featured variable-sweep wings. However, limited by technological and especially electronic levels, the Tomcat's variable sweep was automatically controlled by a computer to any angle within its range, while the MiG-23 only had a few fixed angles that required manual adjustment.
The Tomcat's all-metal semi-monocoque fuselage and advanced structural design extensively used titanium alloys and some boron composites. Among the structural materials, aluminum alloy accounted for 39%, titanium alloy 24%, steel 39%, and the rest were composites. The aircraft was equipped with complex electronic equipment, the most sophisticated likely being the powerful Hughes AN/AWG-9 pulse-Doppler radar. It could intercept aerial targets within 120 to 315 kilometers and simultaneously track 24 targets ranging from ultra-low altitude to 30,000 meters at various distances, attacking six of them. It was also equipped with the AN/AWG-15 fire control system, the AN/ASW-27B data link system, and the CP-1050A central air data computer among other advanced modern electronics. Compared to the relatively primitive MiGs, these electronics were practically an unfair advantage.
Paired with the AIM-54A Phoenix Long-range Air-to-Air Missile, the Iranian Air Force could take out MiGs from a great distance before the MiGs even detected them; this was the gap in strength. Although most Tomcats now only carried Sparrow medium-range and Sidewinder Short-range Missiles due to a lack of Phoenix missiles, the Tomcat still maintained a complete upper hand in close-quarters dogfights.
When the MiG formations detected that unique radar signal emitted from the opposing formation, they immediately chose to turn back. It wasn't that they didn't want to fight, but they simply didn't have the capital to do so.
The formation successfully penetrated Iraqi airspace and immediately headed north, flying straight for Baghdad.
The pilots of the formation, having performed countless bombing missions, were very familiar with this route.
At this moment, air raid sirens were already wailing over Baghdad.
Since the start of the war, the air forces of both countries frequently bombed each other's capitals. Ordinary citizens had developed a routine response to such air raids. They fled into underground shelters and then simply waited for the sound of explosions.
The only saving grace was that neither air force was equipped with precision-guided bombs; relying only on ordinary gravity bombs, their accuracy was poor. Furthermore, a large amount of anti-aircraft fire was deployed in Baghdad.
Surrounding Baghdad were two anti-aircraft artillery regiments and two SA-6 Missile battalions. "This firepower can ensure that any aircraft daring to bomb Baghdad will be hit hard," said Air Force Commander Abid, turning a blind eye to the bombs falling overhead. (At this time, Iraq's Air Force and Air Defense Force had not yet been separated.)
To prevent friendly fire, Air Force fighters generally intercepted enemies at a distance. Once the opponent broke through the interceptors' defense, the rest was left to the ground-based anti-aircraft fire. This was typical Soviet style, effectively preventing friendly fire—as long as it was in the sky, they just had to shoot it down.
However, this method was highly inefficient. How many planes could anti-aircraft fire actually intercept? Only God knew.
Air defense was a choice made out of necessity. When did the Americans ever rely on air defense fire? Their focus was on the offensive! They would beat you down before you even got up; with a total offensive, there was simply no need for defense.
In the underground air defense command center, Saddam Hussein, his face grim, was issuing combat orders.
"Your Excellency President, why not let our Air Force take off to intercept the incoming planes?" Qusay asked cautiously.
"The Air Force?" Saddam glanced disdainfully at Abid. "When the Air Force meets a Tomcat, all they know is how to run."
Abid's face instantly flushed red.
"Your Excellency President, although our Air Force lacks strength, we can certainly use appropriate tactical maneuvers to disrupt the enemy's formation. Their Tomcats are there to escort the other bombers; if we lure the Tomcats away, we can still take a shot at the other planes," Qusay said.
Appropriate tactical maneuvers? Disrupting the enemy's formation? Abid looked miserable. Among the current Air Force pilots, who would dare take to the skies to face a Tomcat? That was practically suicide—except for those few arrogant pilots with powerful backing, but they were defiant and refused to follow orders. If not for their strong connections, they would have been purged long ago.
Just then, a piece of startling news reached the underground air defense command center.
At Shuaiba Air Base, a MiG-23 fighter from the 77th Fighter Squadron had defied orders and forcibly taken off to intercept the incoming Iranian Air Force. The pilot of this aircraft was Second Lieutenant Arslan.