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Impressed by America's AQM-34 Ryan Firebee UAV, Israel secretly purchased 12
Firebees from the U.S. in 1970, modified them, and designated them Firebee 1241
UAVs. These Firebee 1241s played an important role in the 1973 Yom Kippur War
between Israel, Egypt, and Syria, both as reconnaissance vehicles and as new
kinds of UAVs: decoys. On the second day of the war the Israeli Air Force
deployed their fleet of armed Firebees to lead attacks against Egyptian air
defenses along the Suez. The Egyptians fired their entire inventory of
surface-to-air missiles at the Firebees—43 missiles in all. The Firebees
successfully evaded 32 of the missiles and destroyed 11 with their Shrike
anti-radar missiles.
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