Thanks Overscan, unfortunately that seems to be beyond me at the moment, even if nothing would please me more than being able to support good russian aviation writers by buying their books. Also thanks for the translations, all very interesting and makes you wonder what other fascinating details are in the russian books.
I am a big fan of MiG-23, these days, virtually russian websites have more or less the basic information about it, the MiG-23 russian websites are relatively easy to read in google translator, nowadays it does a pretty good job, some websites can give you even the MiG-23 technical manuals, the technical manual is hard to translate because it is based on pictures, thus you can not copy and paste as a regular HTML text, to do it you either have to rewrite the whole text, i did that, or to go to some websites where they discuss it. Today the MiG-23 is an old aircraft, very well studied in the west and east, so to be honest you have pretty good information available,
I have bought several book about it, from Polish ones which i only bought it for the pictures, Russian ones that i can read a bit, and from English editions to Japanese books, the Japanese book even says the MiG-23 managed to fight well in some operations because they tried to mix western and Russian accounts.
The main controversy of the MiG-23 information either in websites or books is mostly its combat record, to be honest many Russian sources contradict Israeli or western combat records, very few say the MiG-23 had troubles in combat.
Once I talked to a Russian ex-MiG-23 pilot in Airforce.ru Forum, he was very nice but he did not say more than Hello I was a MiG-23 pilot first because my Russian spoken skills are bad and second he only said that, and in that forum, they have pretty good historical records of MiG-23 about the Afghan operations by the VVS, there are good accounts in several websites, the problem is if you do not speak Russian well to be honest is hard look in forums, because the information some times is here and there but you have to look for it in many, many pages.
The combat record is so controversial that some websites even post blatant lies, once i was caught and cheated by one, they had supposedly pictures of MiG-23s attacking A-4s, i posted the pictures in that forum but several Russians told me the website is fake, you have been fooled.
Well it was an embarrassment for me true, but i learn many Russians also search for the truth, like any human.
Since I can read Spanish well, i researched the Cuban MiG-23 experience, well in Angola it was more or less a kind of small success for the MiG-23 in combat record.
I looked for Arab sources, this lead me to a video in Arabic where they have have video evidence of a MiG-25 being shot down and a very nice video by an American program about the F-15 where they show wreckage of MiG-23 wings in 1982, there are few pictures of MiG-23 shot down in 1982.
I have Yefim Gordon`s book my self, I mean the book is good, it is basically a gathering of information of many other books and websites, it has the Russian version of the MiG-23 combat record, where they say most of the victims in 1982 were the MiG-23BN version, basically the early MiG-27, the account says the MiG-23MF managed to down F-16s along side a few F-4s and A-4s in the late 1970s early 1982, while later in 1985 the MiG-23ML was even able to down F-15s.
The combat record is controversial because while you read the combat manual of MiG-23 in Bulgarian version, it says F-4 was more or less an equal to the MiG-23 in the 1980s, the MiG-23 in the 1980s had only longer range missiles to F-16A but it was mostly outclassed by the F-15.
Other aircraft like A-4s or Mirage F1 were relatively easy prays and very likely real victims of even the MiG-23MS.
So when you read the account in his book, well If you are open well you can believe with some luck it did down at least a few F-16s, but the account says there were only 6 MiG-23MF downed in 1982 and 4 or 5 MiG-23MS.
So to be honest is very controversial its combat record, there are claims MiG-23MLs downed even 1 or 2 F-14s in the Iranian-Iraq war.
My personal conclusion is the MiG-23 was a very good aircraft as good as the F-4E, it could handle aircraft like F-4E, A-4s or Kfirs well, the Panavia Tornado was more or less an easy pray, the Tomcat I do not know, F-16 in the 1980s, was only inferior in beyond VR combat, in close combat only at very high speeds, the MiG-23 could fight the F-16, the Fighting Falcon F-16 was better than MiG-23 at subsonic speeds and low to medium altitudes , well the MiG-23 was not so good versus F-16A but it is a little bit believable it downed F-16s. Against the F-15 only at high speeds the MiG-23 could fighted it, at low speeds was not really a match to the Eagle.
Mirage F1 was not as good as MiG-23.
Now if you buy the book for pictures it depends what version you like personally I like the MiG-23ML version flown to finland in 1978 or the one that went to France the same year.
The Russian gray MiG-23MF well i loved it, but the book is not full of those ones, so if I buy it it is only for the extra information it might have that is rarely not available in websites or might be but I am lazy to research and translate.
I do not know about this new book, it looks it has more pages so I guess it might have more information perhaps I will buy it if I have chance.
this video is excellent i highly recommend it to you
Saludos
theaviationgeekclub.com
