16
SAM SUCCESSES AND A MIG DEBACLE
A. Was there a “standstill” commitment?
The 18 July engagement registered strongly with the Soviet servicemen: Lt Ivan
Skobanev, an electronic-warfare specialist, recorded in his diary on 21 July that his
brother Valery, who was serving at division headquarters, informed him of the battle
and casualties the next day, and at taps “we observed a minute of silence in their
memory.” Kon’kov, a driver with a Shilka detachment on the canal front, heard vivid
stories about the SAM-3 crew leader “who visibly went gray” after losing all his seven
men (the eighth Soviet fatality was an officer in charge of the radar antennas, who
ventured out to fix them in the midst of the attack). Afterward, when combat was
expected the troops were issued a 50-gram ration of alcohol “to counter shock and
fear.”^1 But although Tolokonikov’s divizyon was due to be relieved, “the boys asked to
stay on duty. Their mood was very combative.”^2
Valery Skobanev had a special interest in the incident due to the electronic warfare
(EW) pod that came down with Hetz’s Phantom. As head of a spetsnaz (special ops)
“radio-technical intelligence center,” he was charged with countering Israeli systems.
In April 1970, the Soviets’ experimental and “super-secret” Smal’ta jammer was
brought to Eg ypt for battlefield tests, particularly for suppression of the Israelis’
Hawk missiles, which were considered roughly analogous to the SAM-3. The Hawks
had since May ’69 shot down at least four Eg yptian planes, some of them over the
canal or east of it, from mobile launchers near the east bank. In order to monitor the
Hawks’ parameters at close range, Valery was put in command of a joint Soviet–
Eg yptian group that included factory experts and KGB operatives; the latter were not
even listed in the group’s complement, and the others also carried no papers. Their
orders were to blow up their hardware if Israeli raiders tried to capture them—which
they feared might happen mainly because of leaks from Eg yptian quarters. On one
occasion, they mistakenly took up a position at some distance from the planned
location, and claimed witnessing Israeli helicopters land at the other spot. Returning
to base, Skobanev found a report already prepared with a list of the Soviets captured
or killed, omitting the KGB agents.^3