(Text: Michael Wegerich)
On the MiG-21M / MF we had fulfilled almost all the conditions for proficiency class II (comparable with LCR – Limited Combat Ready in NATO) and were already allowed to fly daytime interception missions against air targets outside and inside clouds during exercises. Although in aerobatics training we were flying the first demanding manoeuvres such as oblique loops and oblique climbing turns, we were still miles away from training in combat manoeuvres for dogfighting.
On one mission during an exercise the interception simply would not work. I did not understand the idea behind the ground control commands, which forced me into constant violent changes of course, and I could not see my target on the radar scope either. I was flying outside the clouds about 2000 m above a smooth layer of stratus. Desperately I searched the radar screen and the airspace ahead of me for the target. According to the commands from the command post, the distance to the target was decreasing unusually fast, and I knew that in a few seconds I would be past the target without having seen it. But suddenly I saw a black silhouette about 1500 m lower, offset slightly to the left, flying towards me on a reciprocal course. I reported the target to the command post and received permission to attack. The apparently black aircraft against the white clouds looked like the silhouette of an F-111. I asked myself, "where would an F-111 come from here?" In preparing for the forthcoming theory exam for proficiency class II, I had studied possible air adversaries and their recognition features. An F-111 was among them. I had expected a MiG-21, but not an aircraft like that. I could no longer work with the radar sight for the forthcoming manoeuvre. I decided on a gun attack using the gyro sight. For armament I did not even have a training missile, only the gun camera for filming the gun shots. The weapon system and the sight were quickly switched. With this target I would have liked a live gun. With its swing wings in the forward position, the target came ever closer. Just before it disappeared under the left edge of my canopy, I wanted to begin an oblique split-S to the left. I applied left aileron and, with a short delay but still while rolling inverted, pulled the stick back hard. After a few seconds I realised that this would not be an oblique split-S but a spiral. Diving almost vertically, I saw the target fly through below me with unchanged parameters. I briefly neutralised the stick, removed the bank and began to pull out energetically. From above and behind, slightly to the right, I approached the target at a high closing speed and was in danger of overshooting. I yanked the throttle back to idle, extended the airbrake and already had my hand on the landing gear lever when I saw an afterburner light. So it was not an F-111 after all, because that has two engines. It could only be a MiG-23. Almost at the same time as the afterburner lit, the swing wings moved to the rear position of maximum sweep, and the target pulled up to the right and flew exactly through my line of sight at 350 to 300 m. I followed the target only slightly, and the aiming point slid slowly across the target's fuselage at the height of the wing root. After landing I told the other pilots about the unusual target aircraft. Nobody else had had a MiG-23 in their sights up to that point. The next day, when I came on duty, photo prints of a MiG-23 were already going round the squadron. In high quality and good exposure, the MiG-23 could be seen behind the sight circle. They were pictures from my gun camera film. Everyone wanted to see the silhouette of a MiG-23. Such a picture was something unusual for us. We knew the target silhouettes of enemy aircraft and that of the MiG-21, but nothing more. Information on the most modern Soviet weapon systems was very sparse. Until then I did not even know that fighter wing JG-9 at Peenemünde had been equipped with MiG-23s for two years. My target was a MiG-23 of JG-9.
Only officer students at the military academies, who were being trained for higher command positions and also had access to Western literature in the military libraries, could inform themselves in this way about modern Soviet and their own weapon systems. The principle was to release only as much information as was necessary for the immediate fulfilment of the mission. This ensured a high degree of secrecy regarding one's own structures, capabilities, plans and intentions of the leadership, as well as modern weapon and command systems. Information could not spread, deliberately or through carelessness, or even fall into enemy hands. In the event of capture, the knowledge a soldier could reveal even under torture was only small. In order not to allow NATO to draw conclusions about the performance of the MiGs or the training level of NVA pilots, it was also forbidden, when encountering NATO aircraft over the Baltic, to engage in any manoeuvres; instead the flight mission was to be carried out, a report made and, if flight safety was compromised, to give way and restore safety. Indeed, secrecy was very important, but it carried the risk of misjudging an air situation and possibly acting wrongly in the air out of ignorance about one's own forces. A situation like the brief misjudgement of a target, which in an emergency could lead to shooting down one of our own aircraft, never happened to me again in my later military life. I used all sources for my knowledge, including those of a military academy.