On the 22th of September 1980 Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, began its invasion of Iran thus starting the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam Hussein had multiple reason for starting this conflict like gaining full control of the Shatt al-Arab river that forms the border between Iran and Iraq in southern Iraq and was (still is) vitally important for Iraqi oil exports. Another major reason was stopping the Iranian Islamic Revolution from spreading into Iraq, something that Ayatollah Khomeini was very much calling for. And lastly Saddam sought to annex the Iranian province of Khuzestan.
The main reason Saddam believed that the invasion would be successful was because the Iranian Armed Forces had been severely weakened by the Iranian Revolution in January of 1979 and the purges that followed it. Also the Iranian people were very divided on the new government and so it appeared that Iran would collapse very quickly at the slightest bid of outside aggression. Thus Saddam Hussein ordered his forces to invade Iran, supremely confident that complete victory would come very quickly.
On the ground the Iraqi Army would achieve initial success in capturing some of the border areas but the expected Iranian collapse didn't materialise and the Iranian Army would give heavy resistance. One area in particular where things didn't go the Iraqi's way was the air war.
During Shah Pahlavi's reign, Iran had very good relations with the USA. Allowing the Iranian Air Force to not only buy state of the art aircraft like the F-14 Tomcat, F-4 Phantom II and the F-5 Tiger. But this also meant that Iranian pilots would receive their training in the USA as well.
The Iraqi Air Force had correctly anticipated this threat and had tried to destroy the Iranian Air Force on the first day of the war. But this attack was fairly ineffective at actually destroying Iranian aircraft and airbases, though it did succeed at destroying a large supply of Iranian aviation fuel.
On the next day of the war the Iranian Air Force managed to strike back using almost all of their available aircraft in Operation Kamann 99, striking various targets across Iraq. Continued Iranian air attacks would also hamper Iraqi Army operations on the ground.
In the air the Iraqi Air Force found it very difficult to challenge Iranian air power. Suffering heavy loses whenever they tried to venture into Iranian air space. Later on in April 1981 the Iranian Air Force would launch another major operation against Iraq, this time striking the major H-3 airbase in Western Iraq.
However this state of affairs wouldn't last, a combination of the Iraqi Air Force starting to rearm and expand from 1982 onwards and the Iranian Air Force having a lot of trouble maintaining it's aircraft due to a lack of spare parts. Would start seeing the balance of power shift towards the Iraqi Air Force. But they would never be able to challenge the Iranian Air Force head on.
Artistically I struggled with this one quite a bid. I thought I had a good idea in my head but when I started actually drawing it, I had trouble translating my vision into an actual drawing. Though I am pleased with the end result.
As for the characters. On the left we have F-4 Phantom II-Sama, due to having phantom in the name I thought it would be fitting to give her a more "creepy wizardy" appearance, which I think also fit's nicely with the American nickname for the F-4 which is "the world's leading distributor of Mig parts".
In the middle is Su-22-Sama, I choose the Su-22 because it being a ground-attack aircraft it was a lot more vulnerable to Iranian fighter aircraft and many of them would be shot down during the war.
And lastly we have F-14 Tomcat-Sama. Due to the cat part of Tomcat having her be a catgirl was a fairly straightforward decision. I also wanted her to appear a bit more muscular and tomboy-ish because the F-14 was definitely the strongest of Iranian fighter aircraft.
Also I want to stick to the Iran-Iraq war a bit longer. I am thinking about drawing full-body art of the F-4 and F-14 characters because I want to refine their designs a bit more, I think I have a good idea but I couldn't really bring it about in this drawing.
Also I want to do some art about the Iraqi Air Force as well, because as I alluded to previously, they weren't all doom and gloom. I am thinking that maybe I will do something about the Iraqi strategic bombers, the Tu-16 and Tu-22, since they would be quite successful during this war. Especially the Tu-22 since most analysis of that aircraft describe it as pretty bad, but in this war it did achieve some success regardless of those faults.
Only 10 more Operation Karbala's and I am sure they will get there XD.
(I feel like you are making a very clear reference to something but since I am media illiterate I don't get it, sorry. Instead have a joke about stupid Iranian military operation names)
99% of mass offensives fail before they Overrun Iraq
(Nah it was the least clear reference I could have made😠but it was just Iran generally wanting to reach Baghdad after they pushed them out of Iran. And we'll take the truly comedic joke and the art lol)
On the 22th of September 1980 Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, began its invasion of Iran thus starting the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam Hussein had multiple reason for starting this conflict like gaining full control of the Shatt al-Arab river that forms the border between Iran and Iraq in southern Iraq and was (still is) vitally important for Iraqi oil exports. Another major reason was stopping the Iranian Islamic Revolution from spreading into Iraq, something that Ayatollah Khomeini was very much calling for. And lastly Saddam sought to annex the Iranian province of Khuzestan.
The main reason Saddam believed that the invasion would be successful was because the Iranian Armed Forces had been severely weakened by the Iranian Revolution in January of 1979 and the purges that followed it. Also the Iranian people were very divided on the new government and so it appeared that Iran would collapse very quickly at the slightest bid of outside aggression. Thus Saddam Hussein ordered his forces to invade Iran, supremely confident that complete victory would come very quickly.
On the ground the Iraqi Army would achieve initial success in capturing some of the border areas but the expected Iranian collapse didn't materialise and the Iranian Army would give heavy resistance. One area in particular where things didn't go the Iraqi's way was the air war.
During Shah Pahlavi's reign, Iran had very good relations with the USA. Allowing the Iranian Air Force to not only buy state of the art aircraft like the F-14 Tomcat, F-4 Phantom II and the F-5 Tiger. But this also meant that Iranian pilots would receive their training in the USA as well.
The Iraqi Air Force had correctly anticipated this threat and had tried to destroy the Iranian Air Force on the first day of the war. But this attack was fairly ineffective at actually destroying Iranian aircraft and airbases, though it did succeed at destroying a large supply of Iranian aviation fuel.
On the next day of the war the Iranian Air Force managed to strike back using almost all of their available aircraft in Operation Kamann 99, striking various targets across Iraq. Continued Iranian air attacks would also hamper Iraqi Army operations on the ground.
In the air the Iraqi Air Force found it very difficult to challenge Iranian air power. Suffering heavy loses whenever they tried to venture into Iranian air space. Later on in April 1981 the Iranian Air Force would launch another major operation against Iraq, this time striking the major H-3 airbase in Western Iraq.
However this state of affairs wouldn't last, a combination of the Iraqi Air Force starting to rearm and expand from 1982 onwards and the Iranian Air Force having a lot of trouble maintaining it's aircraft due to a lack of spare parts. Would start seeing the balance of power shift towards the Iraqi Air Force. But they would never be able to challenge the Iranian Air Force head on.
Artistically I struggled with this one quite a bid. I thought I had a good idea in my head but when I started actually drawing it, I had trouble translating my vision into an actual drawing. Though I am pleased with the end result.
As for the characters. On the left we have F-4 Phantom II-Sama, due to having phantom in the name I thought it would be fitting to give her a more "creepy wizardy" appearance, which I think also fit's nicely with the American nickname for the F-4 which is "the world's leading distributor of Mig parts".
In the middle is Su-22-Sama, I choose the Su-22 because it being a ground-attack aircraft it was a lot more vulnerable to Iranian fighter aircraft and many of them would be shot down during the war.
And lastly we have F-14 Tomcat-Sama. Due to the cat part of Tomcat having her be a catgirl was a fairly straightforward decision. I also wanted her to appear a bit more muscular and tomboy-ish because the F-14 was definitely the strongest of Iranian fighter aircraft.
Also I want to stick to the Iran-Iraq war a bit longer. I am thinking about drawing full-body art of the F-4 and F-14 characters because I want to refine their designs a bit more, I think I have a good idea but I couldn't really bring it about in this drawing.
Also I want to do some art about the Iraqi Air Force as well, because as I alluded to previously, they weren't all doom and gloom. I am thinking that maybe I will do something about the Iraqi strategic bombers, the Tu-16 and Tu-22, since they would be quite successful during this war. Especially the Tu-22 since most analysis of that aircraft describe it as pretty bad, but in this war it did achieve some success regardless of those faults.
top ten moments of su-22 reaction before getting exploded:
Don't you just hate it when the sky starts speaking Persian.
We reaching Baghdad with this one
Only 10 more Operation Karbala's and I am sure they will get there XD.
(I feel like you are making a very clear reference to something but since I am media illiterate I don't get it, sorry. Instead have a joke about stupid Iranian military operation names)
99% of mass offensives fail before they Overrun Iraq
(Nah it was the least clear reference I could have made😠but it was just Iran generally wanting to reach Baghdad after they pushed them out of Iran. And we'll take the truly comedic joke and the art lol)