Egyptian Air Corps

[P3D]

In one of Frederick Forsyth's novel (The Negotiator) the main plot was some Politburo members/generals planning the invasion of Iran and doing a covert op thingy without upper approval.

[miketr]

http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Point-Harold-Coyle/dp/0671665537/

Wasn't bad when I first read it and it had the Soviet Invasion of Iran during the Iran - Iraq War.

Michael

[Nobody]

The Orange Republic offers it's ground attack fighter Junkers Africa JuA-4.

... ARD ...  

Interesting choice as abbreviation, it's surely going to confuse me if used in the future.
ARD (wiki)

[Carthaginian]

Nobody,

Nice aircraft... definitely the 'Strike Eagle' of the present time.
If relations between the CSA and Orange hadn't soured over the succession of a black VP under Roosevelt, the CSA would definitely be interested.

Much like the USA selling the F-14 to Iran in order to have them fly against Iraqi MiG's.

I've not read anywhere about there being a stated case for the sale based on trying out US weapons systems in Iran. Certainly if that was the strategy, Israel would have been the better option, just based on figuring out who was most likely to use them in anger. Then again, the Israelis did buy the F-15.

Israel has never really been a fan of long-range fighting in the air, nor have we supported (for some unGodly reason) giving them that tech... perhaps we are afraid that they'd conquer the entire Middle East if we did? ;) The IAF seems to prefer close-in action and the F-14 was not (in its early incarnations) very conducive to this; it was also half again as expensive as the F-15. These are both reasons that 'stripped down' versions of the F-16, in its many incarnations, are so popular with the IAF- they are 1/2 as expensive as the F-15, and only 1/3 as expensive as the Tomcat and are designed to fill a variety of roles (whereas the F-15 and F-14 were originally specifically intended as a fighter and an interceptor, respectively).

I'm pretty sure that the combination of doctrinal differences, cost prohibitions and lack of desire meant that selling Israel any of the F-14 line was not an option.

The Shah, on the other hand, had the money and desire to order the F-14.
I've never looked at any of the operations undertaken by the Imperial Iranian Air Force, so I'm not sure what kind of tactics they would have used, but I'm pretty sure that the F-14 fit within their requirements better than those of Israel (if only by the virtue of them purchasing the F-14). Whether or not the US intended Iran to fly against Iraqi MiG's, the net result of the tensions in the area and the fact that both sides possessed the aircraft in question would have probably crossed the minds of anyone in the US government that were involved with the sale... call it a 'desirable, if unintended, side effect.'

[damocles]

That is more or less true. The Heyl HaAvir loves the cannon and the dogfight missile in the air, and the toss bomb in the ground attack.

The Mirages were designed very much in that line and they did well against the Fishbeds they faced used that exact way in the air, though they suffered against Russian SAMs in ground attack.

The main Egyptian preference (They chose the Mig 21) was the slash with missiles ambush attack and run like blazes fighter as they did not like to mix it up.

Which is odd because their missiles (Atolls) were no good. But then their cannon were not that good either. The Sidewinder knockoffs were better than the NR-30s, so missiles it was. New air forces learn a certain style and stick with it when it works.
 
So the F-16 as the next choice was logical for an in your face Israeli air force. That and the development of the Pythons was the result.
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The Iranians chose the F-14 after the Shah, (who was a pilot) took a joyride in the plane to kill MiG 25s. He chose the plane and as absolute monarch his choice was the law.  The Iranians made the best of a decision that on reflection makes no sense to me. They learned how to use a fleet area defense bomber killer as a long range BVR overland interceptor. 

The Iranians actually did this: They used the F-14 as an AWACS

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0077.shtml

My opinion (and it is only opinion) is that the Iranians could reverse engineer the Sparrow and that is the only reason why they might still use the Tomcat after Phoenix failed.   
   

[Carthaginian]

Wow... 100* off the plane's heading.
Helluva dogfight missile.
Maybe we should start buying IAF material.

I know they know how to build ground vehicles and rifles, and their tanks are second to none.
Too bad they don't know beans about handguns. The DE is trash, no matter how big the bore.