[1] After role of aviation expanded during and after the First World War, Egypt saw at that time the formation of a limited force of anti-aircraft artillery enabling it to defend its main cities and economic centers in Cairo and Alexandria.

The air defence battles were fought for the densely populated cities, with Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Suez specially important.

In June 1941 the German Air Force fiercely developed its attacks on Egypt to cause a moral and material impact for the benefit of the Axis powers, resulting in huge losses of lives and property and did not succeed in achieving actual casualties with military targets, facilities and ports due to the fierce resistance of the anti-aircraft artillery that forced the invading planes to drop their bombs away from vital goals.

Following the outbreak of the Suez Crisis, the Egyptian anti-aircraft artillery forces had to face a large number of modern French and British aircraft, which Egypt's old artillery systems that date back to World War II were no match for, to the point that coalition aircraft were strafing Egyptian soldiers and vehicles with their cannons at low altitudes.

The Israeli Air Force only faced little resistance from obsolete anti-aircraft artillery systems, which were not suitable for dealing with modern, maneuverable high speed aircraft, resulting in a painful loss of life, land and equipment.

199 issued on 1 February 1968, establishment of the Egyptian Air Defence Forces as a separate branch, standing alone, avoiding the previous weapons and units scattered among departments.

[5] And confined all the means and weapons and equipment anti-air attacks under one command to ensure coordination and unification of responsibility and in order to achieve success, and in the 23 June 1969 was appointed Lieutenant General Mohammed Aly Fahmy as the first EADF commander, who took it upon himself to reorganise the forces and the management of cadres and personnel training and increase their level of tactical and tactical mission and technical, with a broad technological base capable of accommodating modern air defence weapons as soon as possible in order to deprive Israel of air superiority.

[4]: 10 The General Command of the Armed Forces began to support the EADF with modern types of weapons, electronic equipment and anti-aircraft missiles that fly at low altitudes, and the EADF continued to establish sites fortified with the expansion of the country from Aswan to Alexandria and from Port Said to Matrouh, and the state devoted its material and engineering capabilities to build these sites in the shortest possible time, with the preparation of roads and the establishment of telecommunications.

The Israeli leadership focused its air strikes on the canal line with the aim of sticking to the ceasefire lines and tightening its grip on that front, and identified the tasks of the Israeli Air Force in destroying Egyptian military sites, especially field artillery shelters, and preventing the establishment of new anti-aircraft missile bases in the channel area, and isolating important areas on The Egyptian front and paralyze any moves aimed at introducing or mobilizing forces in the region.

After the Six day war, Egypt managed to form a huge AA Belt of one division placing dozens of SAM battalions (Six missiles each) on the west bank of the Suez Canal.

By October 8, the Israeli Air Force warned all their pilots not to fly over Port Said due to the density and danger posed by the Egyptian SAM sites.

[8] These weapons were supplemented by 400 older Soviet-made S-75 Dvina (SA-2) SAMs with a slant range of forty to fifty kilometers and about 240 SA-3s, which provided shorter-range defense against low-flying targets.

Egypt was also introducing its own composite gun-missile-radar system known as Amoun (Skyguard), integrating radar-guided twin 23mm guns with Sparrow and Egyptian Ayn as Saqr SAMs.

By the end of 2008, with the support of the United States (through Foreign Military Financing and private contractors and firms) all missile, radar, observation posts, command and control systems were to be linked into a complex multi-level, national computerized early-warning air defence command and control system via modified EC-130H Hercules (modified to AWACS-like specifications) transport aircraft, EW AWACS E-2C Hawkeye 2000, EW ECM Beechcraft 1900 ELINT, and an underground sheltered-reinforced fiber-optic network.