Not all the assets used for this reenactment are 100% historical. Intruders are represented here by A-6A instead of A-6E and the insignia isn't accurate. MiG-25 is a mod of the 'P' variant. It borrows some elements from other modules in DCS World (for example, it uses F-15's radar display and RWR sounds). And USS Saratoga is actually USS Forrestal. These are not mistakes but approximations without which reenactments such as this one wouldn't be possible, so there's no need to comment on them and 'spot the errors'. I also apologize for the picture quality which sometimes gets heavily compressed. That's the YT compression algorithm which really hates night footage. That's why strong camera shake effect was applied along with film grain to reduce the consequences. Historically, the first night of Desert Storm was moonless and it was much darker than in the video, but I set it to full moon along with heavy gamma correction. The first upload looked much worse 😁 Thank you for your understanding!
@@ondrejdobrota7344 From what i've read about it he ejected but his death is a bit of a mystery. He either died due to injuries sustained during the ejection or exposure.
Ironically,I just spoke with a friend of mine who was an A-6 B/N off of Saratoga. VFA-81 was led by Cdr.Spock Anderson and VFA-83 was led by Cdr.Ripper Stumpf, later Blue Angels Squadron Leader. RIP Spike!!
The MiG-25 proved to be the aircraft that gave the coalition the most work in the January 1991 war. It shot down an F/A-18 and almost managed to take away the F-15's invincibility in another dogfight, in addition to being the aircraft with the lowest casualty rate on the Iraqi side unless I was mistaken. However, it is important to point out that the Iraqi MiG-25s avoided fighting with the F-14s as much as possible due to the AIM-54. A weapon that the USAF Eagles did not possess was still dependent on the problematic AIM-7 Sparrow.
@@showtime112 indeed they were (probably followed by Mirage F1 pilots) but surprisingly enough the most decorated ones were actually the Su-25 pilots (despite them coming into action at the last years of the Iraq-Iran war)
I don't know what you mean by a MIG-25 "almost managed to take away the F-15's invincibility in another dogfight". The MIG-25 wasn't designed for dogfighting or to be a fighter. It was designed to be an interceptor. It was designed for speed, not for maneuverability.
That’s actually really interesting to hear, you’d think it be the exports MiG-29s but it makes sense with Iraqi/soviet GCI tactics to prioritize the large radar, range, speed, and engines
You have to tip your hat to the Iraqi pilots, going up against vastly superior aircraft (perhaps 0.5 to 1 generation more advanced and with a numerical disadvantage.
Superiority of aircraft is relative. The Hornet had better avionics and maneuverability but the Foxbat had higher speed, service ceiling and range. And a more powerful radar if I am right.
The Iraqi airforce is renowned for having highly trained pilots who were determined to defend their country, a well known story of an Iraqi pilot who, out of ammunition, rammed an Iranian fighter that was heading to bomb targets civilian and military in Baghdad. There was a memorial erected for him, but that was destroyed after the Iranian backed puppet government was placed to pillage and destroy what was left of Iraq after the US invasion.
Captin Zuhir is atill alive today ... and it was a pleasure to meet him and listen to his story about that day ... also his interview on Arabian Hawks Channel was very inersesting ...
@@showtime112 It has to do something with them (Iraqi pilots) being afraid to speak as some were assasinated after Sadam was captured… I’m not very familiar with the events after the war but that’s what I’ve heard from Iraqis… maybe Iranians were involved, can’t remember exactly…
@@danielwymer1580 the MiG-25 was on radar at least with the Hornet's wingman, but it was thought that it was a possible allied aircraft. The aerial deconfliction was fantastic in this war, but this is an example, especially on the opening night, of it failing. The air-to-air shot was at beyond visual range, so no the Hornet never visually saw the mig
The must recent 2 actually It took down an f15 in samura air battle The us denied it even tho iraq insist it was shot down by a mig25 The us claim it esacped but was hit by a sam Iraq says it was hit by a mig25 near baghdad and managed to escape to the border and it hit the ground before reaching the border The us says the mig25 didnt hit it but it was hit by a sam site near the border Any way search for samura air battle i beleive the iraqi side of the story more
What an action packed episode! I never knew about this incident since none of the books I owned about the 1991 Gulf War mentioned it. Thanks for sharing this story.
The USN denied it for many years, then claimed it was a surface-to-air kill. It wasn't until the 2010s that it was globally accepted as an Iraqi BVR kill victory
@guaporeturns9472 Yeah, especially against a dead enemy, after Iraq was invaded in 2003 much of its former command structure was dismantled making the previous Iraqi military a thing of the past, the new military wasn't keen on proving the air claims of wars that they don't want to attach themselves to making it lost history.
The fighter controller prevented him from shooting because he thought it was a MiG-29. This is the video link of Pilot Daoud in Arabic, with automatic translation.ruclips.net/video/CAR9hfv1Zuc/видео.htmlsi=PohVwabVvK5X0UE7
@@showtime112 this is true from what i have read aswell , on top of the fact the iraqi's had gci equipment making it even more potent and in its environment . once again thanks for the vid love the MiG content!!
@@showtime112 Same tactics as the NVAF MiG21 units (if they could get away with it); vectored for one pass, fire missiles then get the hell out of there.
@@JitendraKumar-tt3ht Fair question. He survived the crash but was killed later. It was never released how most likely because the investigators could not make a determination.
MiG-25's successor MiG-31 with the R-37M still remains one of the most potent Russian fighters, it has claimed shootdown of Ukrainian Su-27 and MiG-29 at ranges of 217 and 160 kms. There is a video of a MiG-29 being disintegrated just few metres above ground which shows that the main issue with the MiG-25, look down/shootdown mode is not an issue with the Foxhound
They certainly solved some of the MiG-25's biggest problems with the 31. Detailed analysis of the Ukrainian conflict will be incredibly interesting in the years to come.
The hero Zuhair Daoud, my uncle, how much I love you. You are brave. He was defending his country with all courage, and the American forces completely controlled the skies of Iraq. He took off in an atmosphere supported by American fighters and shot down Scott Speicher. He could have shot down the American squadron leader. They called Zuhair and told him that he was their friend. Zuhair called and said that he was an enemy, not a friend. I am sure. Zuhair approached the pilot to examine him with his galactic eye, but the night was dark. I am sure. An F18 appeared on the screen. They discovered that he was an enemy, not a friend. Then, when Zuhair said, “I expected an F18. I was sure that I could have shot him down.” I touched the button. “F18 is American.” Why don’t they allow me to shoot down the second American pilot? The plane stopped successfully and he argued with the controller and said that you are the reason for the American plane’s escape. Secondly, the controller said, “I will make it up another time.”
I think that Zuhair was referring to A-6 that he could have shot down... I remember reading his testimony about the engagement and he said he could clearly see the light from the A-6`s cockpit (and pilots as well?).. To bad he didn`t shot it down, since he was 100% positive that he was dealing with enemy aircraft.. I mean, imagine downing TWO American aircrafts on a same mission! Now that would be something special.. Also, I would be curios to think what would Coallitions approach look like if Zuhair shot down two aircraft... Would it be even more cautious and change tactics that would ultimately have any sort of positive impact for Iraqi air force?
This was a great idea for a video! I never would have thought to make a reenactment about the only Iraqi Aerial Victory in the Gulf War. It is very sad that an American pilot died but still worth mentioning because it is a historical fact and does show that the Iraqi Air Force was experienced, competent and were not pushovers unlike many have come to believe. If you chose to continue making videos about the Gulf War a great idea would be the dogfight of Capt. Anthony “E.T.” Murphy who shot down two Iraqi SU-22 fighters in Desert Storm. I would very much like to see this if it is possible. Have you ever thought of interviews? They would make the videos more historic and gain views or ever more patreons for your channel. Remember, your objective is to make the videos just like the Dogfights series from the History Channel. That is what you're doing: gaining experience and perfecting your knowledge and skills with each video you post. Keep up the good work!
Thank you once again! The story you suggested might be covered in the future, especially since the Iraq map is coming to DCS. As for interviews, I agree they might contribute significantly. But I don't yet feel confident enough to do it, I have no experience with that (and no real talent for improvisation) :) But who knows, might happen someday.
Great video as always, but needs some additional information. Lt Zuhair Dawoud is not the only, and certainly not the last, pilot to shoot down a US combat aircraft after the Second Indochina War, as this honour belongs to Capt Nafie Al-Jubouri, an Iraqi Mirage F.1 pilot who also during the Kuwait War, on February 13th 1991, scored a maneuvering kill against a USAF EF-111A Raven, killing its crew, pilot Capt Douglas Bradt and EWO Capt Paul Eichenlaub, something officially recognized. Between Dawoud's kill on January 17th and Al-Jubouri's on February 13th, there were 2 more shootdowns, the F-15E lost on January 19th and the F-14A lost on January 21st, which although usually credited to SA-2 SAMs, credible sources make the argument that they were actually downed by Iraqi aircraft, the F-15E by a MiG-25 and the F-14A by a MiG-29. There have been also some claims that the RAF Tornado GR.1 lost on January 22nd was downed by an Iraqi MiG-29, but this doesn't seem particularly credible. As for exactly what happened to Speicher, the fact is that his status in the US changed several times. Initially he had been listed as KIA, but later, after the supposed end of the Kuwait War, was reclassified as MIA. Eventually the official line in the US became that he was held as POW by Iraq, something that although not widely known, was also used as an argument for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the then Bush Jr administration. What seems certain is that he ejected and was later buried in the desert by bedouins, who were the ones who in 2009 pointed out to the US occupation forces the place he had been buried. Either he was wounded in the shootdown and eventually died of his wounds after the ejection or he was killed by the bedouins who eventually buried him in the desert.
Neither of the cases you mention is officially confirmed by the American side. As for the F-14, I seem to remember that not even the Iraqis credit the shootdown to their fighter. While it is certainly possible that some of these Coalition airplanes were shot down by Iraqi fighters (and details might emerge in the future), Speicher is the only American pilot where the cause is clearly confirmed by both sides.
@@showtime112 Al-Jubouri's kill is confirmed, in 2021 the magazine Air Forces Monthly had a number of articles about operation Desert Storm and specifically the issues of April & May 2021 had articles dedicated to air to air combat, where Al-Jubouri's is described as confirmed, just like Dawoud's. The F-14 shootdown is thoroughly analysed in the Helion book In The Claws Of The Tomcat, and the convincing conslusion is that the F-14 was shot down by an R-27 AAM fired by a MiG-29 flown by LtCol Nabil, although the common version about the plane being shot down by an SA-2 SAM and that being also said by the Iraqis is mentioned as well. Unfortunately Iraqi sources are very unreliable, one thing we should not forget is that particularly during the first night of the war, US forces launched a large amount of TALDs (decoys), so for years after the war, the confusion among the Iraqis about what shot down what was enormous, with decoys being considered aircraft while a real kill like Dawoud's was ignored for years, the Iraqi authorities became aware of the Speicher case only when the US asked Iraq for information about him through the International Red Cross. As for the F-15E, it is specifically mentioned as shot down by a MiG-25 by USAF sources, namely Air University's Combat Search and Rescue in Desert Storm, a detailed analysis of all coalition aircraft losses and CSAR operations. All this material, Air Forces Monthly, In The Claws of the Tomcat and CSAR in Desert Storm can be easily found online.
@@showtime112 To be fully accurate, the last US combat aircraft shot down by an enemy aircraft in air to air combat should probably be considered the Predator UAV shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25 in December 2002, a few months before the invasion. This is of course a matter of classification as well, if shooting down an UAV can be considered the same as shooting down a crewed aircraft, what exactly we mean by saying combat aircraft etc, this Predator seems to have been armed with Stinger missiles, so it wasn't simply a reconaissance platform. As for Speicher's eventual fate, one other possibility, mentioned in the 1990s by the then head of the Iraqi Air Force, was that he may have been killed by wild animals like jackals.
He had no seat separation and his parachute didn't deploy. He body was underneath the canopy sticking out the ground like a tombstone. They couldn't find him for years before revisiting the crash site and started digging. There they found him.
Thank you for the comment! There are different suggestions as to what killed Speicher. It could have been the ejection itself or he could have been killed by Iraqis after landing.
Great video with cool graphics. I watched it on my mobile phone, will give it a go on my monitor later in the evening with the room lights turned off. 😉 Cheers! 👍🏻👏🏻💪🏻🍻🍻🙋🏼♂️
That the F-14 didn't have IFF is astonishing to me. Hopefully the USAF learned something from that incident and will get that radome spinning before they enter a combat zone. I guess the new E7 Wedgetail wouldn't even need to spin a radome. I think NATO bought some but I don't know about the USAF. Kudo's to that Iraqi pilot. To come up alone against a whole American strike group is very brave. In air to air combat the kill ratio was 35 to 1. Then we also killed 243 on the ground and they flew 122 to Iran which I never understood. Did they think Iran would give them back?
I think all Tomcats were Navy. At least that's what Google tells me. It is still very surprising that they didn't have IFF running. It's not like the US Navy and Air Force are at logger heads like the Japanese were in WW2.
Tomcat had IFF but no Non-Cooperative Target Recognition systems. Navy was really focused on operating as a carrier group, and not so much on joint operations with other services. If something is approaching our carrier and it didn't take off from it, it must be the enemy 😁 I remember being terribly puzzled when they started reporting on airplane defections to Iran. They must have expected them back because losing them to Coalition bombs seems less bad than giving them to someone you fought until yesterday. And you might fight again tomorrow.
Saddam was a paranoid man, in his last days in 2003 the Iraqi airforce had hoped to participate in the defensive war, they cannibalize some of their aircrafts to assemble an active fleet and even prepared strategies, until Saddam ordered the airforce to stand down and burry the aircrafts in sand, that was in hope that when he regains power those aircrafts would be useful for him against regional enemies. Worth noting that a lot of the Iraqi pilots were assassinated after 2003 by Iranian militias...
To this day, I have never seen a single source to solidy clarify if the mig was ahead or behind the F-18. All the reports seens to contradict each other.
While it's not clearly defined, to me it seems more logical that it was a stern attack. Dawoud flew south, fought Spock Anderson for a while, flew over his wingman and proceeded east. While this was happening, the Hornet formation continued north so, Dawoud was probably behind Speicher.
Whats even more interesting is that the model the used was the export downgraded one with vaccum tube electronics. The MiG-25 was incredibly successful with over 20 kills mostly peer or higher gen fighters and only lost to higher gen aircraft. The MiG-31 has shown it's teeth, probably the most combat proven modern jet. Shown itself to be the BVR king in Ukraine even doing better than Su-35S and Su-27SM
the mig 25 seems to be the only aircraft with some successes against 4th gen American jets ! perhaps a combination of powerful radar /high speed mig 31 might do well too ...against f-16 do not know if we will find out ... your scenarios give me material to recreate them in( strike fighter 2 modded using mission editor ) (that is when i get the time...!!! )
In this case, it was probably a combination of a powerful radar, speed and ineffective AWACS control on the Coalition side. I hope you enjoy the scenarios 😁
Well American piloted 4th Gen jets. I believe the Iraqis shot down 4 Iranian F-14s during the Iran-Iraq War. 1 shootdown each for Iraq’s MiG-21, MiG-23ML, MiG-25PDS, and Mirage F1. Turkey said Greece shot down a Turkish F-16C/D with a Mirage 2000 during the Aegean War, though the Greeks denied it.
@@debmalyadatta-j7p they are well documented the F-14 kills by Mig-23ML and there's 1 credit kill for Foxbat during a huge battle over Bagdad, the F-14 crew ejected after being hit by an R-40.
This is extremely well done and a very accurate reenactment. Two questions for you. First , was Lt. Cmdr. Speicher’s RWR not working properly? It seems like he didn’t know he was being targeted and didn’t appear to take any evasive action when the Iraqi MiG fired an R-40 missile at him. Second question. Are the crash investigators 100% sure he actually ejected before the F-18 crashed ? Do they have proof of an ejection attempt ? Also, If he did eject from the aircraft, how did he die ? To me , when and how he died remains the biggest mystery of this entire story.
Thank you for your positive feedback! As for your questions, we might never be able to give definite answers. Some sources suggest that his RWR might have been broken which could explain the 'easy' hit. Alternatively, Dawoud could have launched an IR version of his missile (although he says it was radar guided). Speicher could have actually taken evasive action, we don't know for sure. As for the ejection, that one is a bit more certain. The canopy was found quite far away from the fuselage which suggests an ejection was made. As for the cause of death, an autopsy couldn't have been made so again, the exact cause is unknown.
Wow, I knew that that F18 was the only Air-to-air loss for the Coalition of the war, but not that Daoud actually dogfighted another F18 and came so close in downing an A6 as well!
It's a mystery. There were all the signs that he had ejected, but his remains were some distance away from the rest of the wreckage and they were in too poor of a condition to determine a cause of death
Very briefed And Summarized Ideas: Although it was an interceptor fighter aircraft prioritized the speed over the maneuverability and the agility, with relatively limited G force tolerance especially at low altitude, thus the mig-25 wasn't designed for dog fighting, but an exports downgraded variant proved its qualities in this domain even against the most modern and advanced air supremacy fighter aircraft's like the f15 ( which by the way was not the downgraded export variants) where on many occasions the mig-25 successfully matched the f15 in maneuverability and outperformed it in speed... worth noting here that the Iraq Air Force didn't have more than 19 mig-25pd/pds complemented by 9 mig-25 rb for reconnaissance... while the mig-29 very poor performance could be attributed to several factors included but not limited to: 1- the very poor and outdated avionics systems, although Iraqi Air Force was utilizing the ground-controlled interception (GCI) network to enhance the pilots comprehensive awareness and perception, which would had played roles in limiting the impact of the plane poor avionics system, thus help guiding or navigating the mig-29 to its targets and enhancing the pilot overall awareness and battle management, but during that war the ground base radar systems functionality was very limited, and very often was either totally blacked out (or jammed), Or it was working intermittently under the influence of intense electronic interference, by a sets of very robust electronic countermeasures, or those radar systems was forced to shutdown its radar emitting to avoid being destroyed by enemy anti radiation missiles, Another method to maintaining the awareness without alerting the enemy to the presence of friendly fighter aircrafts in the air was through the utilizing of the OLS system or the infrared search and track system which had a detection range of 40-50km against targets in the size of fighter aircraft's, same feature could had been utilized as force multiplier... 2- the lacking the helmet mounted sighting system/display (HMS/HMD) paired with the r73 air2air missile with its high off-boresight" both systems was at that period of time a very unique feature and advantage that was exclusive to the Soviet/Russian pilots and to the world of infrared guided air2air missiles, over its western counterparts families of infrared guided air2air missiles, like the aim-9 sidewinder, this advantage or qualities would had placed the mig-29 in a better tactical position to engage the f15 in close air combat or within visual range engagements... 3- the low quality of the pilots flying the MiG-29, beside they were overwhelmed by the pressure of quantitatively and qualitatively superior coalition air forces, logically no mig-29 were able to enter within visual range engagements or fighting successful dog fights against the f15 especially when the first was being equipped with only r-60/ aa-8 aphids, the best thing the mig-29 pilots was capable of achieving in that war is utilizing the r-27 and the r-40 launching salvo allowing the G.C.I radars to guidance the air2air missiles, and withdrawal and landing in prepared air defense ambushing sites...
Odlican, MiG-25 umalo da obori i A6 iako je Dawudu cilj indikovan kao neprijatelj nije lansirao R40td zbog pogresne procene oficira za navodjenje. Nadam se da ces obraditi operaciju Samura gde su uspeli tesko da ostete jedan F-15C
Inace da se nadovezem, avion koji je napravio pometnju kod Irackog oficira za navodjenje je kao sto si i rekao MiG-29 koji je poleteo 8min posle poletanja Dawuda. Imao je zadatak da presretne 4 Tornada, medjutim usled slozenih ometanja i osetljivog N019 radara nije mogao da ostvari ni jedan zahvat da bi ostvario dejstvo sa R-27R1. Isto tako oficir za navodjenje je izgubio kontakt sa njim. Posle nekoliko neuspelih pokusaja zahvata i potere Tornada usled manjka goriva sleteo je na isti aerodrom kao i Dawood . Pozz
Hvala na komentaru! Radarski kontrolori s obje strane se nisu baš proslavili u ovoj bitci :) Bit će još dosta videa iz DS, pogotovo kad izađe mapa Iraka za DCS.
In such a confused environment filled with airplanes being very hesitant to make take the shot is understandable. Especially to AEW and GCI crews looking at the big picture and trying to make sense of it. Although undoubtedly frustrating to pilots with what they think (and often are), such clear targets in front of them. I often see Western commentary about other air forces or Soviet equipped forces being tied too much to GCI and being unable to make independent decisions. Yet, in this case, both sides seem remarkably similar in that behavior with regards to ROE. Rather remarkable that the often much maligned Foxbat ended up being the best flown of the Iraqi fighters with experienced aviators. And rather depressing Western media never covers this shoot down. Reminds me that I need to watch the video of the dogfight between the F-15 and MiG-29. A great video. If only you had a proper Foxbat module to do this justice.
Thanks a lot for another comment! The Foxbat module isn't great but this video was long overdue. I might remake it someday if a better MiG-25 appears. That is a good observation, while Western pilots tend to have more freedom in making their choices, they still depend on controllers.
That's not officially confirmed but likely to an extent. If I remember correctly, that Tornado loss is classified as 'unknown cause' or something like that.
@@showtime112Western airforce are notorious for not reporting aircraft downings from air-air battles, it took decades for them to admit the Hornet's case.
@@showtime112 It`s not. The Brits claimed that it was shot down on January 22. by SAM, whereas the Iraqis are confident that it was their MiG-29 which took it down three days earlier, on Jan 19.. and this isn`t the only case where Iraqis claimed that their aircraft was responsible for shooting down a coallition aircraft on some specific date, and the other side would attribute the loss on some other date, and always as a result of ground fire... or even friendly fire...
Any more information on what happened to Speicher? I see you said they found his remains, were there no search and rescue efforts or were they unable to find him?
The exact cause of death was never determined. He could have died from the consequences of the missile hit, ejection or he could have been killed by someone after landing. We'll probably never know for sure. As for SAR, no effort was made because there were no indications Speicher was alive or what his location might have been. Sending a rescue mission so close to Baghdad without any clue was likely to end with more losses.
Merhaba filmi kanalımıza yükleyebilir miyiz çünkü meslektaşım pilot olan Kaptan Zuhair Jalil Daoud ile aynı üste Zuhair ile birlikteydim ve bana filmi gönderdi.
That fact remains unclear and we'll probably never know what exactly he died of. Btw, YT didn't allow me to reply to your first comment. You must have been engaged in some suspicious activities :)
Could a video be created about the Saudi-Iranian aerial engagement or the Iranian attempt to breach Saudi airspace on June 5, 1984, during the Iran-Iraq War? On that day, the Iranian Air Force violated the Fahd Line in an attempt to enter Saudi airspace, deploying four F-4 Phantom II aircraft. The Royal Saudi Air Force intercepted the incursion with two F-15 jets, successfully downing two of the Iranian aircraft
Because his radar controller didn't give him clearance. He believed this might have been an Iraqi MiG-29. Especially in Soviet influenced systems, ground controllers have priority over pilots on such decisions.
ruclips.net/video/CAR9hfv1Zuc/видео.htmlsi=PohVwabVvK5X0UE7This is a link to the video clip of the Iraqi pilot. It is an audio interview in which he explains the story of the downing of the F18 plane, in addition to his biography as a pilot on the MiG-25 plane. The video is in Arabic, but there is automatic translation for the video.
@michaelwu9450 Are you kidding me , don't listen to what they said about Iraq in America because the media and military are lying . I Know what you don't know because I'm Arabian. now listen , the other planes are a English Tornado shot down by Iraqi Mig 29 in the north and there is a B 52 shot down by a Iraqi Mig 29 , and there is a F 15 shot down or by a Iraqi Mirage F1. All of that happen in gulf war and you Americans didn't know
30 of them in the air with all possible radars on ships, awacs, satellites and one old mig breaks their formation, kills a colleague and safely flies away home...''warriors''...as soon as it is not about some sandal countries, they become vulnerable and are no longer top guns, aces, etc...
It was reported that a Hornet was shot down on the first night but the loss was attributed to SAM missiles. Since not much more was known at the time, nothing more was reported either. It took a decade until the loss was attributed to an Iraqi interceptor.
Although I don't play air much but I always chech if they added it or plan to, it's my favorite jet and would honestly be a convincing reason to grind the Soviet air tech tree.
They had IFF, what they didn't have was so-called Non Cooperative Target Recognition systems. Details about those are still classified but they it seems can identify a specific aircraft type based on radar returns. F-15s had them back then.
thank you for your effort with this beautiful game animations however there are some big holes here in this story.. -It was shown in this video how MIG-25 does some dogfight maneuvers, this is far from truth as MIG-25 had very limited maneuverability due to being a pure Interceptor made for chasing supersonic US bombers, at high speeds and at very high altitudes -missile which was used in downing of the Speicher F-18 was most probably R-24T variant, not R, T stands for heat seeking or Thermal , R is Radar guided variant of the same missile. There is a very little chance Speicher F-18 not got alerted that he was locked by radar and missile fired upon him. He got probably other plane sneake from a high altitude ambush from behind, as this R-24T missiles were very old and cannot lock on target if fired in a head-on engagement but only in a tail-chase aspect. -those missiles had warhead with almost 100kg of explosive because they were made primarily for disabling and shooting down large air targets as bombers, so when this F-18 was hit there was no "spiraling down and etc.." it was vaporized instantly in the air. Hopefully this explains more about the entire story, cheers and nice joystick by the way 😍
- The fact that MiG-25 was poor at maneuvering doesn't mean it couldn't maneuver at all. Even Boeing 747 can maneuver, just not very well 😁 'Spock' Anderson clearly says he did a couple of circles with the MiG-25 and I believe him. There was another battle with F-15s led by 'Kluso' Tollini vs MIG-25s, where the MiGs also 'maneuvered'. But not nearly well enough to beat the Eagles. - Dawoud says the missile he fired was the radar version. - There is very clear evidence of Speicher ejecting. Also, bedouins found his body and buried it. Had the F-18 been 'vaporized' how could they have done that? I think there are some big holes in your arguments 😁
@@showtime112 so how he died when he apparently "ejected"? parachute did not open on the ejection seat maybe? 😬 you take all of this official evidence and statements for granted a bit..no matter what US side said or Dawoud said 🥸
@@showtime112 that's all fair enough, just saying that many things have no logic there, mentioned all the things that stink in the first reply, so having your opinion on things that have no logic to you is also fair enough I guess!?
the iraqi pilote was about to shut down a second f18 , the iraqi command center denied his request to engage , due to to the presence of iraqi mig 29 in the same area to avoid friendly fire
Yeah the only reason the f15 is considered so successful it's because they've only fought countries that don't have awacs like they do which allows the to engage in BVR way before they pick them up on Radar and Iraqi pilots only flew a couple times a year
The exact cause of death hasn't been officially determined. He either died of the injuries, or was executed after landing. Rescue attempt would have only been launched if his exact position was known, i.e. if he survived and had a working radio to contact someone. Otherwise, launching a CSAR in such proximity of Baghdad without having any idea of Speicher's location would have been a dangerous waste of resources.
@@northwind3602 I saw a video of a man that was in the 82nd airborne and he the moment he jumped out of the plane, you know, parachuting and training we noticed that he landed incorrectly, so he ended up hurting himself. He was even shouting help. He had his GoPro on. It’s possible that maybe Scott Spiecher landed wrong and broke his leg. Was probably maybe out there in pain calling for help but unfortunately to no avail was either expecting to get captured or realizing that his RWR wasn’t working his fate was sealed. There’s also the possibility that he ejected, but his parachute didn’t work so he just plummeted to the ground. Possibility he did reject land perfectly, but wandered a while didn’t even know went in circles same story his RWR still wasn’t working so he died of lack of water and food. There’s also the insane theory that he couldn’t eject from his aircraft so he ended up going down with his aircraft. Which is where the Bedouins come in they found his lifeless body and buried him by the wreckage
There was an F 15 that seen the fox bat going by and acquired a lock for a missile shot, but he was denied permission to take the shot by the people in charge in the AWACS !
In an air operation the sheer size of desert storm, something like this was inevitable. The blame does largely rest on the AWACS not providing adequate warning or engagement permission.
The F-14 shot down on January 21st 1991 was most likely downed by a MiG-29, so the Iraqi MiG-29s were not without success. All in all, it seems that the Iraqi Air Force scored at least 4 kills in 1991, 2 confirmed (the F-18 on January 17th and the EF-111 on February 13th) and 2 probable (the F-15E on January 19th and the F-14 on January 21st). There are some claims and the RAF Tornado GR.1 lost on January 22nd was also downed by a MiG-29, something not impossible due to the MiG-29 having a look down/shoot down radar, but not very likely, because in the first days of the war, when the Iraqi Air Force was at its most active, RAF Tornadoes attacked targets while flying at very low altitude, so AAA fire or simply a collision with the ground looks more likely.
@@maximilianmax6996 Wait, Iraqis claimed that their Mirage shot down EF-111 on the first night of the war and Americans claimed it was lost in February to a SAM
@@flanker8724 What I know is that the Italian Tornado IDS shot down in the early hours of January 18th 1991 was the first coalition/multinational force aircraft shot down that day, never heard or read anything about Iraqi aircraft being involved, logically it was downed by ground fire as the shootdown took place inside or very close to Kuwait, and that wasn't an area where Iraqi aircraft operated.
He definitely ejected. He might have been wounded by the missile hit but he was conscious after it. He might have died from the consequences of the missile hit, the ejection itself or he might have been executed after landing. He was buried by some Bedouins.
@@showtime112 there is a possibility he landed wrong. As soon as he ejected, he may have broken his leg on the ground. I saw a video or heard stories of people who have been through that same scenario. Like there is a video of a 82nd airborne trooper that pretty much finished his career when he crippled his leg in a parachute jump. The GoPro shows him exiting the plane and parachuting, but the way he landed pretty much will become a reminder of how to land properly. This guy didn’t land properly from pilots that served in Vietnam some who were captured by the Vietnam and North Vietnamese, who were at the Hanoi Hilton those who were moved to the jungle on a stretcher, mostly due to the fact that when they landed, they ended up landing to the point where they ended up breaking their legs. I don’t know how often these guys eject, but it is very possible that as soon as he hit the ground, he may have been shouting in pain for God knows how long and then died. But then again bless the Bedouins for giving him a proper burial.
Not all the assets used for this reenactment are 100% historical. Intruders are represented here by A-6A instead of A-6E and the insignia isn't accurate. MiG-25 is a mod of the 'P' variant. It borrows some elements from other modules in DCS World (for example, it uses F-15's radar display and RWR sounds). And USS Saratoga is actually USS Forrestal. These are not mistakes but approximations without which reenactments such as this one wouldn't be possible, so there's no need to comment on them and 'spot the errors'.
I also apologize for the picture quality which sometimes gets heavily compressed. That's the YT compression algorithm which really hates night footage. That's why strong camera shake effect was applied along with film grain to reduce the consequences. Historically, the first night of Desert Storm was moonless and it was much darker than in the video, but I set it to full moon along with heavy gamma correction. The first upload looked much worse 😁
Thank you for your understanding!
yo, can u read into the story of M.M Alam
1965 war
So Spiker ejected but parachute did not open or what?
@@ondrejdobrota7344 From what i've read about it he ejected but his death is a bit of a mystery. He either died due to injuries sustained during the ejection or exposure.
@@gamingtrashcan9030 Spoiler alert, there might be some elements of it very soon.
Ironically,I just spoke with a friend of mine who was an A-6 B/N off of Saratoga. VFA-81 was led by Cdr.Spock Anderson and VFA-83 was led by Cdr.Ripper Stumpf, later Blue Angels Squadron Leader. RIP Spike!!
The MiG-25 proved to be the aircraft that gave the coalition the most work in the January 1991 war. It shot down an F/A-18 and almost managed to take away the F-15's invincibility in another dogfight, in addition to being the aircraft with the lowest casualty rate on the Iraqi side unless I was mistaken. However, it is important to point out that the Iraqi MiG-25s avoided fighting with the F-14s as much as possible due to the AIM-54. A weapon that the USAF Eagles did not possess was still dependent on the problematic AIM-7 Sparrow.
As I commented elsewhere, the best Iraqi pilots were apparently in MiG-25 squadrons. This apparently showed.
@@showtime112 indeed they were (probably followed by Mirage F1 pilots) but surprisingly enough the most decorated ones were actually the Su-25 pilots (despite them coming into action at the last years of the Iraq-Iran war)
@@showtime112 : Makes sense, since the MiG-25 was the hardest Iraqi aircraft to fly.
An F-16D bagged a Foxbat after the War . First time the AMRAAM was used in air combat ..
I don't know what you mean by a MIG-25 "almost managed to take away the F-15's invincibility in another dogfight". The MIG-25 wasn't designed for dogfighting or to be a fighter. It was designed to be an interceptor. It was designed for speed, not for maneuverability.
During OSW, we were briefed that Iraq put its most experienced pilots in the MiG-25. Certainly a dangerous foe.
That’s actually really interesting to hear, you’d think it be the exports MiG-29s but it makes sense with Iraqi/soviet GCI tactics to prioritize the large radar, range, speed, and engines
I remember being surprised learning about that. You'd expect the best ones to go to MiG-29s or maybe Mirages.
You have to tip your hat to the Iraqi pilots, going up against vastly superior aircraft (perhaps 0.5 to 1 generation more advanced and with a numerical disadvantage.
It is true, they weren't cowards.
Superiority of aircraft is relative. The Hornet had better avionics and maneuverability but the Foxbat had higher speed, service ceiling and range. And a more powerful radar if I am right.
@@pyadav285 absolutley not the F15 would wack the shit out of an mig 25 , which makes this all the more impressive
@@oreosplease4076 The F15 and F18 are different in capability.
The Iraqi airforce is renowned for having highly trained pilots who were determined to defend their country, a well known story of an Iraqi pilot who, out of ammunition, rammed an Iranian fighter that was heading to bomb targets civilian and military in Baghdad. There was a memorial erected for him, but that was destroyed after the Iranian backed puppet government was placed to pillage and destroy what was left of Iraq after the US invasion.
Captin Zuhir is atill alive today ... and it was a pleasure to meet him and listen to his story about that day ... also his interview on Arabian Hawks Channel was very inersesting ...
It's a real shame that due to recent historical events, most of Iraqi pilots who fought in the wars of 1980s and 90s can't share their experiences.
@ but many started to talk and do voice interviews with this channel… another point of view is available now to consider!
Please share the link to the Arabian Hawks channel if you can. Can't find it on RUclips.
@@pyadav285 It's in the description of this video. The all-Arabic one.
@@showtime112 It has to do something with them (Iraqi pilots) being afraid to speak as some were assasinated after Sadam was captured… I’m not very familiar with the events after the war but that’s what I’ve heard from Iraqis… maybe Iranians were involved, can’t remember exactly…
Holy cow!! Never knew a foxbat took out the hornet in battle! 😮 thanks for the enlightenment mate
Thank you for watching!
They don’t believe the hornet ever saw the Mig25 or the missile it fired !
Eagles be like: I'm glad it was Hornet. That guy could have ruined my perfect record!
@@danielwymer1580 the MiG-25 was on radar at least with the Hornet's wingman, but it was thought that it was a possible allied aircraft. The aerial deconfliction was fantastic in this war, but this is an example, especially on the opening night, of it failing. The air-to-air shot was at beyond visual range, so no the Hornet never visually saw the mig
I didnt know until today ...
Rather ironic how US aerospace was changed so much in response to the Foxbat, and the most recent shootdown of a US aircraft ended up being from one
I see your point
Also somewhat emblematic of the changes the Foxbat motivated that it was the last one. Iirc the MiG-25 was also the first victim of an AMRAAM kill
@@atomf9143 Also was the first aircraft to shoot down a drone
@@clevtrog The MQ-1 shootdown? In direct A2A combat yeah, since the drone shot back. Kinda funny how that worked out.
The must recent 2 actually
It took down an f15 in samura air battle
The us denied it even tho iraq insist it was shot down by a mig25
The us claim it esacped but was hit by a sam
Iraq says it was hit by a mig25 near baghdad and managed to escape to the border and it hit the ground before reaching the border
The us says the mig25 didnt hit it but it was hit by a sam site near the border
Any way search for samura air battle i beleive the iraqi side of the story more
What an action packed episode! I never knew about this incident since none of the books I owned about the 1991 Gulf War mentioned it. Thanks for sharing this story.
Read my comment above.
Thank you! It took a while for the story to come to light. These battles (and especially the night ones) tend to be quite confusing.
The USN denied it for many years, then claimed it was a surface-to-air kill. It wasn't until the 2010s that it was globally accepted as an Iraqi BVR kill victory
@@i.setyawan American military is not keen on admitting losing aircraft to other aircraft.
@guaporeturns9472 Yeah, especially against a dead enemy, after Iraq was invaded in 2003 much of its former command structure was dismantled making the previous Iraqi military a thing of the past, the new military wasn't keen on proving the air claims of wars that they don't want to attach themselves to making it lost history.
Great video as always. I never knew that Lt. Dawoud came very close to shooting down an A-6 Intruder as well
The fighter controller prevented him from shooting because he thought it was a MiG-29. This is the video link of Pilot Daoud in Arabic, with automatic translation.ruclips.net/video/CAR9hfv1Zuc/видео.htmlsi=PohVwabVvK5X0UE7
Thank you very much! Yes, it could have been a very heavy blow to the USN formation.
Iraqi MiG-25 also managed to damage one F-15 during Samurra air battle.
really good vid , enjoyed the reenactment on dcs aswell, the Foxbat was a force to be reckoned with but alot of people dont like to give it credit..
Thank you! The best Iraqi pilots were apparently assigned to MiG-25 squadrons so the airplane actually showed something.
@@showtime112 this is true from what i have read aswell , on top of the fact the iraqi's had gci equipment making it even more potent and in its environment . once again thanks for the vid love the MiG content!!
@@showtime112 Same tactics as the NVAF MiG21 units (if they could get away with it); vectored for one pass, fire missiles then get the hell out of there.
"A lot". Please.
@@Omega1-1Styx
... "as well"
My last OIF deployment was at COB Speicher. Rest easy, Spike.
Thank you for sharing that!
What happened after he was shot down. I mean how did he die?
@@JitendraKumar-tt3ht Fair question. He survived the crash but was killed later. It was never released how most likely because the investigators could not make a determination.
MiG-25's successor MiG-31 with the R-37M still remains one of the most potent Russian fighters, it has claimed shootdown of Ukrainian Su-27 and MiG-29 at ranges of 217 and 160 kms. There is a video of a MiG-29 being disintegrated just few metres above ground which shows that the main issue with the MiG-25, look down/shootdown mode is not an issue with the Foxhound
They certainly solved some of the MiG-25's biggest problems with the 31. Detailed analysis of the Ukrainian conflict will be incredibly interesting in the years to come.
i waited for this re-enactment for so long. thanks!
Thank you! The mod recently came out which enabled the control over the MiG-25 in DCS, that's what I was waiting for.
Great video by show time 112 thank you so much for making all of this videos
Thank you for watching and commenting!
Such a great channel, excellent storytelling and the recreations are just exceptional
I really appreciate such words of support, thank you!
The hero Zuhair Daoud, my uncle, how much I love you. You are brave. He was defending his country with all courage, and the American forces completely controlled the skies of Iraq. He took off in an atmosphere supported by American fighters and shot down Scott Speicher. He could have shot down the American squadron leader. They called Zuhair and told him that he was their friend. Zuhair called and said that he was an enemy, not a friend. I am sure. Zuhair approached the pilot to examine him with his galactic eye, but the night was dark. I am sure. An F18 appeared on the screen. They discovered that he was an enemy, not a friend. Then, when Zuhair said, “I expected an F18. I was sure that I could have shot him down.” I touched the button. “F18 is American.” Why don’t they allow me to shoot down the second American pilot? The plane stopped successfully and he argued with the controller and said that you are the reason for the American plane’s escape. Secondly, the controller said, “I will make it up another time.”
@@rama7267Yes, he is still alive.
Really?
@@rama7267 نعم عايش الحمدالله
I think that Zuhair was referring to A-6 that he could have shot down... I remember reading his testimony about the engagement and he said he could clearly see the light from the A-6`s cockpit (and pilots as well?).. To bad he didn`t shot it down, since he was 100% positive that he was dealing with enemy aircraft.. I mean, imagine downing TWO American aircrafts on a same mission! Now that would be something special.. Also, I would be curios to think what would Coallitions approach look like if Zuhair shot down two aircraft... Would it be even more cautious and change tactics that would ultimately have any sort of positive impact for Iraqi air force?
Btw, that GCI controller didn`t make up...
I wonder why Zuhair wasn`t given the opportunity to fly again?
Very good video. It was worth the wait 👏👏👏
I'm glad you think so, thank you!
Great reconstruction! I like the delayed sound barrier breaking effects! Looks and sounds realistic!!
Thank you very much for your positive feedback!
Thank you for your service Lt. Zuhair Dawoud, brave pilot.
Wonderful video as always 👍
Thank you for your feedback!
This is a reenactment that I've been waiting for for a long time! It seems many are still learning about this.
It's been suggested many times. I even thought it was too well known but it doesn't seem so.
- Has problems navigating home due to lack of fuel…..
-Has afterburner on the whole time….
That could have been a part of the problem 😁
His problems were minor compared to his opponent's
This was a great idea for a video! I never would have thought to make a reenactment about the only Iraqi Aerial Victory in the Gulf War.
It is very sad that an American pilot died but still worth mentioning because it is a historical fact and does show that the Iraqi Air Force was experienced, competent and were not pushovers unlike many have come to believe.
If you chose to continue making videos about the Gulf War a great idea would be the dogfight of Capt. Anthony “E.T.” Murphy who shot down two Iraqi SU-22 fighters in Desert Storm. I would very much like to see this if it is possible.
Have you ever thought of interviews? They would make the videos more historic and gain views or ever more patreons for your channel.
Remember, your objective is to make the videos just like the Dogfights series from the History Channel. That is what you're doing: gaining experience and perfecting your knowledge and skills with each video you post.
Keep up the good work!
Thank you once again! The story you suggested might be covered in the future, especially since the Iraq map is coming to DCS. As for interviews, I agree they might contribute significantly. But I don't yet feel confident enough to do it, I have no experience with that (and no real talent for improvisation) :) But who knows, might happen someday.
It is not the only Iraqi aerial victory. Iraqis shot down at least 1 F15, 2 Tornados and 1 F111
@@pacus123 None of these have been confirmed by the Coalition.
Thank you for sharing this story. This is the firt time I listen about that.
Thank you very much! I was afraid the story was too well known but apparently, it can still find audience.
Great video as always, but needs some additional information. Lt Zuhair Dawoud is not the only, and certainly not the last, pilot to shoot down a US combat aircraft after the Second Indochina War, as this honour belongs to Capt Nafie Al-Jubouri, an Iraqi Mirage F.1 pilot who also during the Kuwait War, on February 13th 1991, scored a maneuvering kill against a USAF EF-111A Raven, killing its crew, pilot Capt Douglas Bradt and EWO Capt Paul Eichenlaub, something officially recognized. Between Dawoud's kill on January 17th and Al-Jubouri's on February 13th, there were 2 more shootdowns, the F-15E lost on January 19th and the F-14A lost on January 21st, which although usually credited to SA-2 SAMs, credible sources make the argument that they were actually downed by Iraqi aircraft, the F-15E by a MiG-25 and the F-14A by a MiG-29. There have been also some claims that the RAF Tornado GR.1 lost on January 22nd was downed by an Iraqi MiG-29, but this doesn't seem particularly credible.
As for exactly what happened to Speicher, the fact is that his status in the US changed several times. Initially he had been listed as KIA, but later, after the supposed end of the Kuwait War, was reclassified as MIA. Eventually the official line in the US became that he was held as POW by Iraq, something that although not widely known, was also used as an argument for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the then Bush Jr administration. What seems certain is that he ejected and was later buried in the desert by bedouins, who were the ones who in 2009 pointed out to the US occupation forces the place he had been buried. Either he was wounded in the shootdown and eventually died of his wounds after the ejection or he was killed by the bedouins who eventually buried him in the desert.
Neither of the cases you mention is officially confirmed by the American side. As for the F-14, I seem to remember that not even the Iraqis credit the shootdown to their fighter. While it is certainly possible that some of these Coalition airplanes were shot down by Iraqi fighters (and details might emerge in the future), Speicher is the only American pilot where the cause is clearly confirmed by both sides.
@@showtime112 Al-Jubouri's kill is confirmed, in 2021 the magazine Air Forces Monthly had a number of articles about operation Desert Storm and specifically the issues of April & May 2021 had articles dedicated to air to air combat, where Al-Jubouri's is described as confirmed, just like Dawoud's. The F-14 shootdown is thoroughly analysed in the Helion book In The Claws Of The Tomcat, and the convincing conslusion is that the F-14 was shot down by an R-27 AAM fired by a MiG-29 flown by LtCol Nabil, although the common version about the plane being shot down by an SA-2 SAM and that being also said by the Iraqis is mentioned as well. Unfortunately Iraqi sources are very unreliable, one thing we should not forget is that particularly during the first night of the war, US forces launched a large amount of TALDs (decoys), so for years after the war, the confusion among the Iraqis about what shot down what was enormous, with decoys being considered aircraft while a real kill like Dawoud's was ignored for years, the Iraqi authorities became aware of the Speicher case only when the US asked Iraq for information about him through the International Red Cross. As for the F-15E, it is specifically mentioned as shot down by a MiG-25 by USAF sources, namely Air University's Combat Search and Rescue in Desert Storm, a detailed analysis of all coalition aircraft losses and CSAR operations. All this material, Air Forces Monthly, In The Claws of the Tomcat and CSAR in Desert Storm can be easily found online.
@@showtime112 To be fully accurate, the last US combat aircraft shot down by an enemy aircraft in air to air combat should probably be considered the Predator UAV shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25 in December 2002, a few months before the invasion. This is of course a matter of classification as well, if shooting down an UAV can be considered the same as shooting down a crewed aircraft, what exactly we mean by saying combat aircraft etc, this Predator seems to have been armed with Stinger missiles, so it wasn't simply a reconaissance platform. As for Speicher's eventual fate, one other possibility, mentioned in the 1990s by the then head of the Iraqi Air Force, was that he may have been killed by wild animals like jackals.
@@maximilianmax6996 Thank you so much for providing this info
awesome video as always dude
Haha it just started you haven't watched it yet How do you know it's awesome?
@@JSFGuyevery video this guy has made has been awesome it's reasonable to expect the latest one to be also haha it's really that simple haha
Thank you for the confidence 😊
That's quite a compliment, thank you so much! 😊
@@npickle54 You can't say something is that you haven't experienced that's all there is to it. You just had to say something apparently.
Another great video ! Pilot skill is everything
Thank you very much!
Love your videos!!!😊
I'm glad to hear it, thank you!
The Foxbat is a beast.
Great video again. Do we know for sure the serial number of the MiG-25? I've seen "25211" suggested, but is this written down or said anywhere?
Thank you very much! I can't remember seeing the specific serial number for the MiG.
Wow! Great stuff! I hadn’t heard about this until now!
I'm glad to hear you liked the video!
@@showtime112 What about doing one about this incident?
ruclips.net/video/TCHfJdXpQz8/видео.html
AWESOME beginning AWESOME afterburner 😮
Thanks, I appreciate the support!
You did not shoot down an American fighter till Saddam says you shot one down. lol
That also goes for pretty much anything in Iraq back in the day 😁
Definitely one of your more interesting episodes 👍👍👍
Thank you very much for your feedback, it's a proper compliment!
Great story. The pilot's whereabouts were a deal. I read somewhere that he was even a POW. But another chapter of aerial warfare
He had no seat separation and his parachute didn't deploy. He body was underneath the canopy sticking out the ground like a tombstone. They couldn't find him for years before revisiting the crash site and started digging. There they found him.
He was from the same city as me (Kansas City , Mo) Speicher was KIA. His remains were found not till 2009 by US Marines .
The locals had buried him in the desert. There were rumors he was a POW and when Iraq was invaded, they made it a high priority to locate him.
Thank you for the comment! There are different suggestions as to what killed Speicher. It could have been the ejection itself or he could have been killed by Iraqis after landing.
EXCELLENT video and thanks for keeping Aviation history alive. Greetings from Mexico City.
Greetings and my appreciation for your continuous support!
Another great video, thanks! 😊
Puno hvala!
very well-made and thorough, gj
Thank you very much for the positive comment!
Great video with cool graphics. I watched it on my mobile phone, will give it a go on my monitor later in the evening with the room lights turned off. 😉
Cheers! 👍🏻👏🏻💪🏻🍻🍻🙋🏼♂️
Thanks again! That's the best way to watch the video for sure 😁
That the F-14 didn't have IFF is astonishing to me. Hopefully the USAF learned something from that incident and will get that radome spinning before they enter a combat zone. I guess the new E7 Wedgetail wouldn't even need to spin a radome. I think NATO bought some but I don't know about the USAF. Kudo's to that Iraqi pilot. To come up alone against a whole American strike group is very brave. In air to air combat the kill ratio was 35 to 1. Then we also killed 243 on the ground and they flew 122 to Iran which I never understood. Did they think Iran would give them back?
I think all Tomcats were Navy. At least that's what Google tells me. It is still very surprising that they didn't have IFF running. It's not like the US Navy and Air Force are at logger heads like the Japanese were in WW2.
Tomcat had IFF but no Non-Cooperative Target Recognition systems. Navy was really focused on operating as a carrier group, and not so much on joint operations with other services. If something is approaching our carrier and it didn't take off from it, it must be the enemy 😁
I remember being terribly puzzled when they started reporting on airplane defections to Iran. They must have expected them back because losing them to Coalition bombs seems less bad than giving them to someone you fought until yesterday. And you might fight again tomorrow.
Allegedly, Iraqi MiG-29's had quite a few friendly shots due to the lack if IFF.
Saddam was a paranoid man, in his last days in 2003 the Iraqi airforce had hoped to participate in the defensive war, they cannibalize some of their aircrafts to assemble an active fleet and even prepared strategies, until Saddam ordered the airforce to stand down and burry the aircrafts in sand, that was in hope that when he regains power those aircrafts would be useful for him against regional enemies. Worth noting that a lot of the Iraqi pilots were assassinated after 2003 by Iranian militias...
To this day, I have never seen a single source to solidy clarify if the mig was ahead or behind the F-18. All the reports seens to contradict each other.
While it's not clearly defined, to me it seems more logical that it was a stern attack. Dawoud flew south, fought Spock Anderson for a while, flew over his wingman and proceeded east. While this was happening, the Hornet formation continued north so, Dawoud was probably behind Speicher.
Whats even more interesting is that the model the used was the export downgraded one with vaccum tube electronics.
The MiG-25 was incredibly successful with over 20 kills mostly peer or higher gen fighters and only lost to higher gen aircraft.
The MiG-31 has shown it's teeth, probably the most combat proven modern jet. Shown itself to be the BVR king in Ukraine even doing better than Su-35S and Su-27SM
Another excellent video 🫡
Thank you very much!
the mig 25 seems to be the only aircraft with some successes against 4th gen American jets !
perhaps a combination of powerful radar /high speed
mig 31 might do well too ...against f-16
do not know if we will find out ...
your scenarios give me material to recreate them in( strike fighter 2 modded using mission editor ) (that is when i get the time...!!! )
In this case, it was probably a combination of a powerful radar, speed and ineffective AWACS control on the Coalition side. I hope you enjoy the scenarios 😁
Well American piloted 4th Gen jets.
I believe the Iraqis shot down 4 Iranian F-14s during the Iran-Iraq War. 1 shootdown each for Iraq’s MiG-21, MiG-23ML, MiG-25PDS, and Mirage F1.
Turkey said Greece shot down a Turkish F-16C/D with a Mirage 2000 during the Aegean War, though the Greeks denied it.
@@kurousagi8155 read about the mirage f1 in iran iraq war , but did not know about mig kill/claims on f-14s
@@debmalyadatta-j7p they are well documented the F-14 kills by Mig-23ML and there's 1 credit kill for Foxbat during a huge battle over Bagdad, the F-14 crew ejected after being hit by an R-40.
I hope fighters systems have much greater spatial awareness today compared to in 1991. They at least know when an aircraft is enemy ?!
Some aircraft had such systems back in 1991 too. But RoE still dictated that AWACS needed to declare an airplane hostile, especially at night.
This is extremely well done and a very accurate reenactment. Two questions for you. First , was Lt. Cmdr. Speicher’s RWR not working properly? It seems like he didn’t know he was being targeted and didn’t appear to take any evasive action when the Iraqi MiG fired an R-40 missile at him. Second question. Are the crash investigators 100% sure he actually ejected before the F-18 crashed ? Do they have proof of an ejection attempt ? Also, If he did eject from the aircraft, how did he die ? To me , when and how he died remains the biggest mystery of this entire story.
Thank you for your positive feedback! As for your questions, we might never be able to give definite answers. Some sources suggest that his RWR might have been broken which could explain the 'easy' hit. Alternatively, Dawoud could have launched an IR version of his missile (although he says it was radar guided). Speicher could have actually taken evasive action, we don't know for sure.
As for the ejection, that one is a bit more certain. The canopy was found quite far away from the fuselage which suggests an ejection was made.
As for the cause of death, an autopsy couldn't have been made so again, the exact cause is unknown.
Wow, I knew that that F18 was the only Air-to-air loss for the Coalition of the war, but not that Daoud actually dogfighted another F18 and came so close in downing an A6 as well!
Nice explanation!
Glad you think so!
Great work as always @showtime112, so nicely presented, and a very interesting story.
I appreciate your positive feedback!
You never explained how Speicher was killed. You imply that he ejected safely.
Another commenter said it was failure of the parachutes to separate (and open to function) from the ejection seat.
That has never been officially determined. Either, he was killed from the consequences of the ejection, or he was executed after he landed.
It's a mystery. There were all the signs that he had ejected, but his remains were some distance away from the rest of the wreckage and they were in too poor of a condition to determine a cause of death
A 1000lb, 20' long missile with a 220lb warhead designed to take down B52 bombers ripped his aircraft apart at Mach 1.
Very briefed And Summarized Ideas:
Although it was an interceptor fighter aircraft prioritized the speed over the maneuverability and the agility, with relatively limited G force tolerance especially at low altitude, thus the mig-25 wasn't designed for dog fighting, but an exports downgraded variant proved its qualities in this domain even against the most modern and advanced air supremacy fighter aircraft's like the f15 ( which by the way was not the downgraded export variants) where on many occasions
the mig-25 successfully matched the f15 in maneuverability and outperformed it in speed...
worth noting here that the Iraq Air Force didn't have more than 19 mig-25pd/pds complemented by 9 mig-25 rb for reconnaissance...
while the mig-29 very poor performance could be attributed to several factors included but not limited to:
1- the very poor and outdated avionics systems, although Iraqi Air Force was utilizing the ground-controlled interception (GCI) network to enhance the pilots comprehensive awareness and perception, which would had played roles in limiting the impact of the plane poor avionics system, thus help guiding or navigating the mig-29 to its targets and enhancing the pilot overall awareness and battle management, but during that war the ground base radar systems functionality was very limited, and very often was either totally blacked out (or jammed), Or it was working intermittently under the influence of intense electronic interference, by a sets of very robust electronic countermeasures, or those radar systems was forced to shutdown its radar emitting to avoid being destroyed by enemy anti radiation missiles, Another method to maintaining the awareness without alerting the enemy to the presence of friendly fighter aircrafts in the air was through the utilizing of the OLS system or the infrared search and track system which had a detection range of 40-50km against targets in the size of fighter aircraft's, same feature could had been utilized as force multiplier...
2- the lacking the helmet mounted sighting system/display (HMS/HMD) paired with the r73 air2air missile with its high off-boresight" both systems was at that period of time a very unique feature and advantage that was exclusive to the Soviet/Russian pilots and to the world of infrared guided air2air missiles, over its western counterparts families of infrared guided air2air missiles, like the aim-9 sidewinder, this advantage or qualities would had placed the mig-29 in a better tactical position to engage the f15 in close air combat or within visual range engagements...
3- the low quality of the pilots flying the MiG-29, beside they were overwhelmed by the pressure of quantitatively and qualitatively superior coalition air forces, logically no mig-29 were able to enter within visual range engagements or fighting successful dog fights against the f15 especially when the first was being equipped with only r-60/ aa-8 aphids, the best thing the mig-29 pilots was capable of achieving in that war is utilizing the r-27 and the r-40 launching salvo allowing the G.C.I radars to guidance the air2air missiles, and withdrawal and landing in prepared air defense ambushing sites...
Odlican, MiG-25 umalo da obori i A6 iako je Dawudu cilj indikovan kao neprijatelj nije lansirao R40td zbog pogresne procene oficira za navodjenje. Nadam se da ces obraditi operaciju Samura gde su uspeli tesko da ostete jedan F-15C
Inace da se nadovezem, avion koji je napravio pometnju kod Irackog oficira za navodjenje je kao sto si i rekao MiG-29 koji je poleteo 8min posle poletanja Dawuda. Imao je zadatak da presretne 4 Tornada, medjutim usled slozenih ometanja i osetljivog N019 radara nije mogao da ostvari ni jedan zahvat da bi ostvario dejstvo sa R-27R1. Isto tako oficir za navodjenje je izgubio kontakt sa njim. Posle nekoliko neuspelih pokusaja zahvata i potere Tornada usled manjka goriva sleteo je na isti aerodrom kao i Dawood . Pozz
Hvala na komentaru! Radarski kontrolori s obje strane se nisu baš proslavili u ovoj bitci :) Bit će još dosta videa iz DS, pogotovo kad izađe mapa Iraka za DCS.
@@showtime112 Jedno pitanje - zar nisi vec obradio i ovaj dogadjaj a i Sammura bitku?
@@flanker8724 Nisam.
Great video 👍
Thanks Chups!
you will not see that on History channel
Yup, no aliens or reality stars here :)
Is there a link to the MiG-25 mod you used?
There it is: www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3340763/
In such a confused environment filled with airplanes being very hesitant to make take the shot is understandable. Especially to AEW and GCI crews looking at the big picture and trying to make sense of it. Although undoubtedly frustrating to pilots with what they think (and often are), such clear targets in front of them. I often see Western commentary about other air forces or Soviet equipped forces being tied too much to GCI and being unable to make independent decisions. Yet, in this case, both sides seem remarkably similar in that behavior with regards to ROE.
Rather remarkable that the often much maligned Foxbat ended up being the best flown of the Iraqi fighters with experienced aviators. And rather depressing Western media never covers this shoot down.
Reminds me that I need to watch the video of the dogfight between the F-15 and MiG-29.
A great video. If only you had a proper Foxbat module to do this justice.
Thanks a lot for another comment! The Foxbat module isn't great but this video was long overdue. I might remake it someday if a better MiG-25 appears. That is a good observation, while Western pilots tend to have more freedom in making their choices, they still depend on controllers.
Fog of war is a real thing no matter how advanced military technology gets.
That dogfight didn`t happen according to Iraqis...
Some sources also state an Iraqi Mig-29 shot down an RAF Tornado GR1 on the 19th of January 1991... not sure how true that is ..
That's not officially confirmed but likely to an extent. If I remember correctly, that Tornado loss is classified as 'unknown cause' or something like that.
@@showtime112Western airforce are notorious for not reporting aircraft downings from air-air battles, it took decades for them to admit the Hornet's case.
@@showtime112 It`s not. The Brits claimed that it was shot down on January 22. by SAM, whereas the Iraqis are confident that it was their MiG-29 which took it down three days earlier, on Jan 19.. and this isn`t the only case where Iraqis claimed that their aircraft was responsible for shooting down a coallition aircraft on some specific date, and the other side would attribute the loss on some other date, and always as a result of ground fire... or even friendly fire...
Any more information on what happened to Speicher? I see you said they found his remains, were there no search and rescue efforts or were they unable to find him?
The exact cause of death was never determined. He could have died from the consequences of the missile hit, ejection or he could have been killed by someone after landing. We'll probably never know for sure. As for SAR, no effort was made because there were no indications Speicher was alive or what his location might have been. Sending a rescue mission so close to Baghdad without any clue was likely to end with more losses.
@showtime112 tragedy, I can only imagine what was on his mind when he got on the ground
Merhaba filmi kanalımıza yükleyebilir miyiz çünkü meslektaşım pilot olan Kaptan Zuhair Jalil Daoud ile aynı üste Zuhair ile birlikteydim ve bana filmi gönderdi.
I never knew this wow, the Mig 25 almost got a second kill in this engagement.
Thank you for the feedback! Dawoud was quite lucky but also quite unlucky in this engagement.
After read some info about this kill many years ago, the only info about pilot fate was ....KIA.
But did not explain during éjection or at ground???
That fact remains unclear and we'll probably never know what exactly he died of. Btw, YT didn't allow me to reply to your first comment. You must have been engaged in some suspicious activities :)
@showtime112 about my first comment, was just at work in Post office Sorting center to unload and...load parcels in trailer truck😬
ST 112 , no way I can booooo.
Thank you very much for your donation!
Ty for your service speicher.
On collaborating on yet another US led regime change that caused thousand of innocents deaths? Nothing to thank about
Could a video be created about the Saudi-Iranian aerial engagement or the Iranian attempt to breach Saudi airspace on June 5, 1984, during the Iran-Iraq War? On that day, the Iranian Air Force violated the Fahd Line in an attempt to enter Saudi airspace, deploying four F-4 Phantom II aircraft. The Royal Saudi Air Force intercepted the incursion with two F-15 jets, successfully downing two of the Iranian aircraft
What's the MiG 25 mod?
why didn`t Daoud engage with cannon fire? The Intruder was visually identified.
It doesn't have cannons
Because his radar controller didn't give him clearance. He believed this might have been an Iraqi MiG-29. Especially in Soviet influenced systems, ground controllers have priority over pilots on such decisions.
@@Aguijon1982 UR right! Just checked that.👍
On 22 Sept 1987 a Navy F14 shot down a Air Force F4 . Why dosent that count?
Blue on blue doesn't count.
Heard of a story of a F14 pilot named “Maverick” frying a couple MiG 28’s in 1986
I think he saved his main rival Iceman from certain death :)
Why wasn’t Speicher alerted when he was locked up? Maybe I missed something
That's uncertain. Some sources suggest that his RWR wasn't working.
@ I see.. thanks
ruclips.net/video/CAR9hfv1Zuc/видео.htmlsi=PohVwabVvK5X0UE7This is a link to the video clip of the Iraqi pilot. It is an audio interview in which he explains the story of the downing of the F18 plane, in addition to his biography as a pilot on the MiG-25 plane. The video is in Arabic, but there is automatic translation for the video.
is this the recently released mig-25 dcs mod?
It is.
@@showtime112 sorry I meant mig-25, thanks!
Not the only one , there are other 2 or 3 American planes have been shot down
Not by other aircraft in the gulf war
@michaelwu9450 Are you kidding me , don't listen to what they said about Iraq in America because the media and military are lying . I Know what you don't know because I'm Arabian. now listen , the other planes are a English Tornado shot down by Iraqi Mig 29 in the north and there is a B 52 shot down by a Iraqi Mig 29 , and there is a F 15 shot down or by a Iraqi Mirage F1. All of that happen in gulf war and you Americans didn't know
30 of them in the air with all possible radars on ships, awacs, satellites and one old mig breaks their formation, kills a colleague and safely flies away home...''warriors''...as soon as it is not about some sandal countries, they become vulnerable and are no longer top guns, aces, etc...
we don't see this on history channel
They prefer reality shows 😁
Lol😂
The F-18 was beaten by their own Controller. He should have been totally weapons free and left to engage the minute he had radar lock.
In this episode, radar controllers on both sides performed rather poorly :)
Very good video
Thank you for the positive comment!
I was watching the Gulf War unfold live on CNN every night...how come I never heard of this?
It was reported that a Hornet was shot down on the first night but the loss was attributed to SAM missiles. Since not much more was known at the time, nothing more was reported either. It took a decade until the loss was attributed to an Iraqi interceptor.
Still we don't have Mig-25 in Warthunder sad reality 😢
It would be one of my first choices if I were asked what to add.
Although I don't play air much but I always chech if they added it or plan to, it's my favorite jet and would honestly be a convincing reason to grind the Soviet air tech tree.
I've heard about this before on another channel.
Must take some balls to take off on your own to go up against the US Navy and USAF.
Iraq put its best pilots on the Mig-25s, they had experience from the Iraqi-Iranian war against western jets.
Tomcats didn't have iff?
They had IFF, what they didn't have was so-called Non Cooperative Target Recognition systems. Details about those are still classified but they it seems can identify a specific aircraft type based on radar returns. F-15s had them back then.
Merhaba, filmi Arapça kanalımız Falcons of the Air'de yayınlayabilir miyiz, çünkü ben pilotum Zuhair Jalil Daoud
What about Scott spicheir?
thank you for your effort with this beautiful game animations however there are some big holes here in this story..
-It was shown in this video how MIG-25 does some dogfight maneuvers, this is far from truth as MIG-25 had very limited maneuverability due to being a pure Interceptor made for chasing supersonic US bombers, at high speeds and at very high altitudes
-missile which was used in downing of the Speicher F-18 was most probably R-24T variant, not R, T stands for heat seeking or Thermal , R is Radar guided variant of the same missile. There is a very little chance Speicher F-18 not got alerted that he was locked by radar and missile fired upon him. He got probably other plane sneake from a high altitude ambush from behind, as this R-24T missiles were very old and cannot lock on target if fired in a head-on engagement but only in a tail-chase aspect.
-those missiles had warhead with almost 100kg of explosive because they were made primarily for disabling and shooting down large air targets as bombers, so when this F-18 was hit there was no "spiraling down and etc.." it was vaporized instantly in the air.
Hopefully this explains more about the entire story, cheers and nice joystick by the way 😍
- The fact that MiG-25 was poor at maneuvering doesn't mean it couldn't maneuver at all. Even Boeing 747 can maneuver, just not very well 😁 'Spock' Anderson clearly says he did a couple of circles with the MiG-25 and I believe him. There was another battle with F-15s led by 'Kluso' Tollini vs MIG-25s, where the MiGs also 'maneuvered'. But not nearly well enough to beat the Eagles.
- Dawoud says the missile he fired was the radar version.
- There is very clear evidence of Speicher ejecting. Also, bedouins found his body and buried it. Had the F-18 been 'vaporized' how could they have done that?
I think there are some big holes in your arguments 😁
@@showtime112 so how he died when he apparently "ejected"? parachute did not open on the ejection seat maybe? 😬 you take all of this official evidence and statements for granted a bit..no matter what US side said or Dawoud said 🥸
@@iviciaable The exact reason was never determined. I present facts as they can be found, other than that is just pure speculation.
@@showtime112 that's all fair enough, just saying that many things have no logic there, mentioned all the things that stink in the first reply, so having your opinion on things that have no logic to you is also fair enough I guess!?
MiG 25 is scary bird.
the iraqi pilote was about to shut down a second f18 , the iraqi command center denied his request to engage , due to to the presence of iraqi mig 29 in the same area to avoid friendly fire
Yeah the only reason the f15 is considered so successful it's because they've only fought countries that don't have awacs like they do which allows the to engage in BVR way before they pick them up on Radar and Iraqi pilots only flew a couple times a year
Brilliant as always. Thanks
3:18 CMON COUGAR!!!!!!!
Yes, the outcome of this battle was determined by AWACS failure to properly track and recognize an enemy fighter.
What is the name of the game..?
DCS World
Why did the American pilot died? How come no recuse effort were made? 😢
Read my comment above.
The exact cause of death hasn't been officially determined. He either died of the injuries, or was executed after landing. Rescue attempt would have only been launched if his exact position was known, i.e. if he survived and had a working radio to contact someone. Otherwise, launching a CSAR in such proximity of Baghdad without having any idea of Speicher's location would have been a dangerous waste of resources.
@@showtime112 He may have died from his wounds and was not executed because he fell in a remote desert area.
@@northwind3602 I saw a video of a man that was in the 82nd airborne and he the moment he jumped out of the plane, you know, parachuting and training we noticed that he landed incorrectly, so he ended up hurting himself. He was even shouting help. He had his GoPro on. It’s possible that maybe Scott Spiecher landed wrong and broke his leg. Was probably maybe out there in pain calling for help but unfortunately to no avail was either expecting to get captured or realizing that his RWR wasn’t working his fate was sealed. There’s also the possibility that he ejected, but his parachute didn’t work so he just plummeted to the ground. Possibility he did reject land perfectly, but wandered a while didn’t even know went in circles same story his RWR still wasn’t working so he died of lack of water and food. There’s also the insane theory that he couldn’t eject from his aircraft so he ended up going down with his aircraft. Which is where the Bedouins come in they found his lifeless body and buried him by the wreckage
I remember when I was in Iraq in 09 they recently found his remains.
That's terrible for the hornet pilot. The mig should have not been allowed to get that close. What a screw up.
These battles are quite confusing but in this case, AWACS should have recognized it as hostile.
There was an F 15 that seen the fox bat going by and acquired a lock for a missile shot, but he was denied permission to take the shot by the people in charge in the AWACS !
Command got that man killed, Rest in Peace
In an air operation the sheer size of desert storm, something like this was inevitable. The blame does largely rest on the AWACS not providing adequate warning or engagement permission.
@@danielwymer1580 It’s extremely confusing in a situation like that.
Its crazy to think the Mig-25 actually shot down a F-18 and the Mig-29s were shot down without ever touching any American aircraft
The F-14 shot down on January 21st 1991 was most likely downed by a MiG-29, so the Iraqi MiG-29s were not without success. All in all, it seems that the Iraqi Air Force scored at least 4 kills in 1991, 2 confirmed (the F-18 on January 17th and the EF-111 on February 13th) and 2 probable (the F-15E on January 19th and the F-14 on January 21st). There are some claims and the RAF Tornado GR.1 lost on January 22nd was also downed by a MiG-29, something not impossible due to the MiG-29 having a look down/shoot down radar, but not very likely, because in the first days of the war, when the Iraqi Air Force was at its most active, RAF Tornadoes attacked targets while flying at very low altitude, so AAA fire or simply a collision with the ground looks more likely.
The best Iraqi pilots were flying MiG-25s and in this particular case, AWACS kinda helped with their failure to identify the MiG as a hostile.
@@maximilianmax6996 Wait, Iraqis claimed that their Mirage shot down EF-111 on the first night of the war and Americans claimed it was lost in February to a SAM
@@maximilianmax6996 Are you familiar with downing of Italian Tornado to Iraqi aircraft?
@@flanker8724 What I know is that the Italian Tornado IDS shot down in the early hours of January 18th 1991 was the first coalition/multinational force aircraft shot down that day, never heard or read anything about Iraqi aircraft being involved, logically it was downed by ground fire as the shootdown took place inside or very close to Kuwait, and that wasn't an area where Iraqi aircraft operated.
Why couldnt they find the downed pilot? I mean, did he survive the missile?
He definitely ejected. He might have been wounded by the missile hit but he was conscious after it. He might have died from the consequences of the missile hit, the ejection itself or he might have been executed after landing. He was buried by some Bedouins.
@@showtime112 there is a possibility he landed wrong. As soon as he ejected, he may have broken his leg on the ground. I saw a video or heard stories of people who have been through that same scenario. Like there is a video of a 82nd airborne trooper that pretty much finished his career when he crippled his leg in a parachute jump. The GoPro shows him exiting the plane and parachuting, but the way he landed pretty much will become a reminder of how to land properly. This guy didn’t land properly from pilots that served in Vietnam some who were captured by the Vietnam and North Vietnamese, who were at the Hanoi Hilton those who were moved to the jungle on a stretcher, mostly due to the fact that when they landed, they ended up landing to the point where they ended up breaking their legs. I don’t know how often these guys eject, but it is very possible that as soon as he hit the ground, he may have been shouting in pain for God knows how long and then died. But then again bless the Bedouins for giving him a proper burial.
@@monkeycat48 True, this could have happened as well. We'll never know exactly I guess.
Interesting story!
Thank you for the comment!
Two Mig-25s were shot down by F-15s
So, basically it was a single Mig taking on several incoming US planes...
In this particular part of the Iraqi airspace, yes. A MiG-29 was also near but it didn't achieve anything.
The only guys podcast that gets off on downed American aircraft !
Yeah, and now we know that Hornet production is discontinued.
This is incorrect, look up Lt. Timothy Dorsey, he shot down a U.S. combat aircraft in 1987.
Blue on blue doesn't count.
@ ask the F-4 crew if they agree
Why f18 rwr dont workıng? Real life!?
Some sources suggest that Speicher's RWR wasn't working and that might be the reason why he was shot down.
Some species of Bat actually poke hornet nest at night to eat them