Operation Focus
| Operation Focus | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Six-Day War | |
|
|
| Operational scope | Preemptive air strike |
| Planned by | IDF |
| Objective | Destroy Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian aircraft |
| Date | June 5, 1967 |
| Executed by | Israeli Air Force |
| Outcome | Decisive Israeli victory; Israeli air supremacy over Egypt, Syria and Jordan |
Operation Focus (Hebrew: מבצע מוקד, Mivtza Moked) was the opening airstrike by Israel at the start of the Six-Day War in 1967. It is sometimes referred to as "Sinai Air Strike". At 07:45 on June 5, 1967, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) under Maj. Gen. Mordechai Hod launched a massive airstrike that destroyed the majority of the Egyptian Air Force on the ground. By noon, the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian Air Forces, with about 450 aircraft, were destroyed. It was also very successful in disabling 18 airfields in Egypt, hindering Egyptian Air Force operations for the duration of the war, and remains one of the most successful air attack campaigns in military history.
In three main waves of aerial attacks, and several smaller waves in the days following the operation, a total of 452 aircraft were destroyed, most of them on the ground. This left the IAF in almost complete control of the skies, and able to effectively assist the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) ground units.
The operational success was achieved by concentrating on the initial destruction of the runways with a new kind of weapon, a rocket assisted anti-runway warhead. The prototype French/Israeli anti-runway weapon program uses rocket braking over the target to point the warhead directly toward the runway being attacked; at a set altitude, a second accelerator rocket ignites and drives the warhead through the pavement of the runway before it detonates. The explosion creates a small crater over a large new sinkhole, meaning the damaged runway section must be completely removed before the sinkhole can be repaired rather than a normal bomb crater which is simply filled in and patched. Once the runways were disabled, entire air bases' complements of aircraft were effectively grounded and fell victim to subsequent attack waves, resulting in near-total Israeli air supremacy.
...
Wikipedia