Milos Sipos — новинки

On 24 February 2022, eight years after invading the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine and organising an illegal referendum in support of a subsequent Russian annexation, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Both Western and Russian intelligence services expected the invasion to quickly topple the democratically elected government in Kyiv and, with the help of collaborators, to overrun the Ukrainian armed forces in a matter of between 3 and 14 days.

Early on 24 February, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (VSRF) launched a series of missile and artillery strikes on the main air bases and dozens of other military facilities in Ukraine. Immediately afterwards, the VSRF launched a ground invasion, with its forces advancing on Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Melitopol, and Kherson. Although following a build-up that had begun in April 2021, and expected by many, the onslaught still came as a major surprise for the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian armed forces, and the majority of its allies in the West, and also for the mass of officers and other ranks of the VSRF, many of whom believed that they were only to participate in exercises.

However, the deeper the Russians rolled into Ukraine, the more resistance they encountered: while some Russian units performed as expected, elsewhere whole armies began falling apart when ordered to advance at maximum possible speed without the necessary firepower and logistic support. After suffering catastrophic losses while failing to reach downtown Kyiv, and failing to reach and enter Chernihiv and Kharkiv, the war in northern and north-eastern Ukraine quickly settled down into a bloody stalemate. In the south, the Russians initially advanced at an astonishing rate, securing Melitopol during the second day of their invasion, and Kherson only a few days later. It was only once President Putin attempted to accelerate the rate of advance through ordering heliborne operations deeper into Ukraine that the VSRF suffered a severe blow in the fighting for Voznesensk and Mykolaiv, and its advance in this part of the country also came to an end.

Richly illustrated with colour photography and full colour artworks, and providing a detailed study of the organisation and order of battle of the armed forces involved on both sides, Volume 2 of War in Ukraine provides the first detailed account of the first two weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Officially established on 22 April 1931, around a core of 5 pilots and 32 aircraft mechanics, the Royal Iraqi Air Force was the first military flying service in any Arab country.

Wings of Iraq, Volume 2 tells the story of the Iraqi Air Force between 1970 and 1980. In doing so it examines the air force’s involvement in the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and then the showdown with the Iranian-supported Kurdish insurgency in northern Iraq in 1974-1975. These two affairs taught the Iraqis that numbers alone did not make an air force. Correspondingly, during the second half of the 1970s, Baghdad embarked on a project based on full technology transfer from France, which was intended to result in preparing the IrAF for the twenty-first century.

This process hardly began when the new ruler in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein at-Tikriti, led his country into an invasion of neighbouring Iran, embroiling it in a ruinous, eight-year-long war. This volume details the events leading up to the beginning of that war and its opening moves in the air.

Although virtually ‘born in battle’, collecting precious combat experience and playing an important role in so many internal and external conflicts, the Iraqi Air Force remains one of the least known and most misinterpreted military services in the Middle East. Richly illustrated, Wings of Iraq, Volume 2, provides a uniquely compact yet comprehensive guide to its operational history, its crucial officers and aircraft, and its major operations between 1970 and 1980.

Nominally at least, the bloody and ruinous eight-year war fought between Iran and Iraq was a confrontation dominated by operations on land. The traditional impression is that the resources devoted to naval warfare were minute in comparison to those of its major land battlefields. As so often, the reality is almost diametrically opposite. Certainly enough, the horrendous casualties incurred in major land offensives make the Iran-Iraq War one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century. It escaped public attention that the mass of what was happening on these battlefields was decided by naval warfare and that indeed, the consequences of that naval warfare led to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and the country’s subsequent downfall into chaos and civil war.

During the first year of the Iran-Iraq War, Iranian naval activity began to prove decisive for the country’s ability to continue waging the war. Not only was its primary point of exporting crude oil – Khark Island – in the northern Persian Gulf, but Iran became heavily dependent on hauling reinforcements and supplies from ports in the lower and central Gulf, foremost Bandar-e Abbas and Bushehr, to the modern and huge port of Bandar-e Khomeyni in the north. This in turn prompted the Iraqis to attempt interrupting both of these flows. Iraqi deployed the full spectrum of their arsenal including the Aéorspatiale AM.39 Exocet anti-ship missile, which saw its first combat deployment at least six months before its use during the Falklands War. However, much of this story this has remained unknown beyond superficial insight into the ‘Tanker War’.

The first part of Volume 1 of this mini-series concentrates on providing the background and context of the conflict, and of the naval capabilities of the two belligerents: through a detailed study of both navies, but also the two air forces. It provides a precise analysis of their capabilities and intentions, and sets the scene for the naval warfare of the following eight years.

The second part covers the first months of the war, including the famous air and naval Operation Morvarid, undertaken with the aim of destroying the two primary Iraqi oil-loading terminals in the northern Persian Gulf.

Based on extensive first research with help of previously unavailable documentation and interviews with veterans, and richly illustrated, this volume provides unique insights into modern-day naval warfare, including many lessons-learned still valid in the present day.

Officially established on 22 April 1931, around a core of five pilots and 32 aircraft mechanics, the Royal Iraqi Air Force was the first official native military flying service of any Arab country.

Founded to support the Iraqi armed forces and the British against revolts by local tribes, it saw extensive combat and gradually grew into a potent force. During the Anglo-Iraqi War of 1941, it became involved in its first conventional campaign in support of an anti-British coup but was destroyed as a fighting force. It was still recovering when deployed in combat again, this time against Israel in the course of the Palestine War of 1948-1949.

During the 1950s, the Royal Iraqi Air Force experienced a phase of unprecedented growth through the acquisition of several batches of modern British-built aircraft. The 14 Tammuz Revolution of 1958 toppled the British-imposed monarchy and cut the ties to London. For the next five years, the Iraqi Air Force (IrAF) maintained close links to the USSR and became the first Arab air force to operate types like the MiG-19 and MiG-21, and was the first equipped with Tupolev Tu-16 medium jet bombers.

Through the 1960s, the IrAF played a dominant role in internal Iraqi politics, determining the fate of the nation to an unprecedented degree, became involved in the June 1967 War with Israel, and were instrumental in the putsch of 1968 that brought the Ba’ath Party to power.

While virtually ‘born in battle’, the Iraqi Air Force remains one of the least known and most misinterpreted military services in the Middle East. Richly illustrated, Volume 1 of Wings of Iraq provides a uniquely compact yet comprehensive guide to its operational history, its crucial officers and aircraft, and its major operations from 1931 to 1970.

Volume 2 will continue the story of the Iraqi Air Force through the 1970s and the tumultuous times of the Iran-Iraq War, and the 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars.

Originally envisaged as a privately funded project for a possible future NATO-fighter, the Dassault Mirage F.1 evolved into one of the most aesthetically attractive and commercially most successful combat aircraft of the 1970s and 1980s. Developed into more than a dozen of different variants and sub-variants – each of them custom-tailored to requirements of air forces that flew it – it also became a type that saw intensive combat service in numerous wars on no less than three different continents. Iraq became the biggest export customer for Mirage F.1. One way or the other, the Iraqi Air Force significantly contributed – and financed – the further development of this type, but also influenced research and development of a number of further systems that followed in its wake – most of which eventually found their way into operational service in France. While the Mirage F.1 has attracted at least some coverage in English language publications, its acquisition and combat deployment by Iraq still remains a topic with not a few controversies. The purpose of this volume is to redress the balance and provide an in-depth insight into the acquisition process, development and equipment of custom-tailored variants made for Iraq, training of Iraqi personnel on the type, and its combat deployment during wars against Iran, 1980-1988, and against the US-led, so-called Gulf Coalition, in 1991 and afterwards. Originally envisaged and acquired as a ‘pure’ interceptor, before long the Mirage F.1 in Iraqi service proved a highly capable multi-role platform aircraft, and was widely deployed not only for ground attack but also anti-shipping purposes, as an aerial tanker, and for delivering long-range pin-point attacks. Illustrated with over 120 photographs and many colour profiles, this book provides a unique, single point of reference on camouflage, markings, and armament configurations of Mirage F.1s in Iraqi service.