Operation Mole Cricket 19

Part of the 1982 Lebanon War

Part of a Syrian SA-6 site built near the Beirut-Damascus highway, and overlooking the Beqaa Valley, in early 1982.

Date	June 9, 1982
Location	Beqaa Valley, Lebanon
Result	Decisive Israeli victory

Belligerents

Israel

Syria

Commanders and leaders

Strength

≈90 fighter aircraft (mostly F-15s and F-16s)
1 Remotely Piloted Vehicles squadron
UAVs

≈100 fighter aircraft (mostly ground attack MiG-21 and MiG-23, some MiG-23M air-to-air fighters)
30 SAM batteries

Casualties and losses

Two F-15 damaged
At least one UAV shot down

29 planes shot down
17 SAM batteries destroyed

Operation Mole Cricket 19 (Hebrew: מבצע ערצב-19‎‎, Mivtza ʻArtzav Tsha-Esreh) was a suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) campaign launched by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) against Syrian targets on June 9, 1982, at the outset of the 1982 Lebanon War. The operation was the first time in history that a Western-equipped air force successfully destroyed a Soviet-built surface-to-air missile (SAM) network. It also became one of the biggest air battles since World War II, and the biggest since the Korean War. The result was a decisive Israeli victory, leading to the colloquial name the "Bekaa Valley Turkey Shoot".

The IAF began working on a SAM suppression operation since the end of the Yom Kippur War. Rising tensions between Israel and Syria over Lebanon escalated in the early 1980s and culminated in Syria deploying the SAM batteries in the Beqaa Valley. On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, and on the third day of the war, with clashes going on between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Syrian Army, Israel decided to launch the operation.

The battle lasted about two hours, and involved innovative tactics and technology. By the end of the day, the IAF had destroyed seventeen of the nineteen SAM batteries deployed in the Beqaa Valley and shot down 90 enemy aircraft with minimal losses. The battle led the United States to impose a ceasefire on Israel and Syria.

In the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Egypt had 20 mobile SA-6 SAM systems, backed up by 70 SA-2s, 65 SA-3s, and upward of 2,500 anti-aircraft batteries and about 3,000 SA-7s. Syria deployed another 34 SAM batteries. In the first three days, the IAF lost 50 aircraft in about 1,220 sorties, a loss rate of four percent. The SA-6s, SA-7s, and ZSU-23-4 guns hit 53 of Israel's prewar total of 170 A-4 Skyhawks and 33 of its 177 F-4 Phantoms. As a result, the IAF found it difficult to provide air support to the ground troops. When Egypt tried to push beyond the range of its SAM batteries on October 14, it lost 28 aircraft. Ezer Weizman, a former IAF commander, said that "the wing of the fighter plane was broken by the SAM". Between 1973 and 1978, the IAF undertook a major project to try to find an answer to the SAM threat.

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Wikipedia