So, Jow Forums. As most of you might know, both the Air Force and the Navy lacked dogfighting skills during the Vietnam War.
So my question is: What did lead to this lack of skills? I mean, they had to dogfight the shit during WW2 and Korea. And it wasnt until the late 50s/early 60s when Air-to-Air Missiles became a thing.
Did they, at some point, just say "fuck it, we got missiles now" and drop a big chunk of dogfighting lessons or what?
I mean: between the end of Korea and the "real" start of Vietnam in '65 were only 12 years. How can both the Navy and the Air Force lose the dogfighting-edge that quick?
Overemphasis on interceptors because in the 50s and early 60s everybody thought that air power’s most important role in the next war would involve stopping Soviet bombers coming over the North Pole.
I watched Top Gun, too. Politicians setting overly restrictive ROE was most of the problem, and air to air performance was not generally bad.
Jackson Nelson
SAC Bomber mafia, led by the likes of LeMay. Dogfighting doesn't real according to them, so you don't need fighters that can turn as much as you need manned missiles like the F-104 and Delta Dart.
Carter Gomez
I hear ya. But one should think the veterans of Korea among their ranks would have made a difference, wouldn't they?
>During the final months of Operation Rolling Thunder in late-1968, the enemy shot down 22 Air Force aircraft at a cost of 20 MiGs. >In every case, the MiGs’ victories were initiated from astern of an unaware target. This was a dismal turn of events, with the U.S. Air Force’s overall kill ratio dropping from 4.1-1 to 2.3-1
Bentley Barnes
There were many factors: -Air Force dogfight training had some high accident rates. To reduce them, they stopped training pilots to maneuver at high AoAs required to dogfight. -I believe that some 50s and 60s aircraft were simply poorly suited to medium- and slow-speed fighting. The Air Force wanted high technology interceptors and fighter-bombers (F-104, F-105, etc.) The F-4 was fine according to every Phantom driver I've talked to, we just had a doctrine problem of not teaching dogfight skills. -Yes, there was the general belief that missiles had replaced cannon as primary armament. To be fair, they weren't wrong, just too early. The technology was not mature yet (the AIM-4 required some double-digit number of switches to be activated before firing...this is not convenient when you're fighting for your life). Missile reliability was also terrible. Ripple-firing all 4 Sparrows to hope one guided became a reality. -ROE was a problem. The AIM-7 was not allowed to be employed at the ranges it was designed for because pilots had to visually identify aircraft as hostile.
Cameron Johnson
>ywn get a chance to prove yourself in glorious air-to-air combat >mfw
>pilots had to visually identify aircraft as hostile >ROE was a problem Do you want 2 friendly kills for every 1 casualty of any other kind? Because that's what you get with Vietnam-era C&C quality if you allow this.
Austin Hernandez
Organizationally, the Air Force was in a bit of mess by the time Vietnam rolled around. Training stressed safety first, so anything that involved high speed, high G maneuvers required in dogfighting was left completely out of the curriculum. In addition, a lot of the WWII and Korean War veterans were cycling out by the time Vietnam rolled around, and the few that stayed initially had trouble adjusting to the Phantom since they were used to gunfighters like the Crusader.
It also didn't help that later on in the war, the USAF would just toss bomber pilots into Phantoms to make up for pilot shortfalls, which caused a steep dive in overall pilot quality.
Josiah Hernandez
missles...
Matthew Watson
>the USAF would just toss bomber pilots into Phantoms
Care to tell us a little more about that? I always wondered how they have done this when the F4 also became some sort of bomber.
Ryder Hernandez
Wait what?
So they were afraid that their rookie pilots would kill themselfes and/or the plane during training thus cancelling dogfighting alltogether?????
Daniel Price
Bump
Bentley Lee
they didn't belive in dogfighting. They thought missiles (muh hitech gadgets)would do the job.
Nathaniel Brooks
Soon, buddy.
Jacob Price
>How can both the Navy and the Air Force lose the dogfighting-edge that quick? The Korean war still had WWII vets flying but by the time Vietnam came along, very few were left. At the time, interceptors were king. They zoom up fast and launch big fat missiles at big fat bombers. There was no need for juking and turning. The US suffered losses over vietnam due to restrictive terrain and engagement rules. Commie jets could take off from China and loiter unmolested until they flew over vietnam. Veteran Russian "volunteers" also flew some of the Migs. There's also more AA in Vietnam than in Germany.
Josiah White
I thought most Aircraft got downed by SAMs. How successfull was the NVAF?
Tyler Bennett
Don't be silly, sparrows weren't that effective.
Gabriel Phillips
They were preparing for the war that they THOUGHT they were going to have to fight, instead of preparing for the wars that they actually were fighting. I would bet that the majority of us living in 1958 would be expecting all out war with the Soviets too.
We are still guilty of this today imo. What enemies have we been fighting since the fall of the soviet union? Do we REALLY need the F-22 and F-35 to defeat them?
Aside from that - training for dog fighting is inherently dangerous, especially to new pilots. I'm not sure if it was Robin Olds himself who said it, but, something to the effect of "You're not killing enough pilots." was a criticism of the lack of real dogfight training.
Aaron Stewart
A bomber man was in charge at the time, he didn't like fighters. Safety was just an excuse.
Luis Evans
This. The SAC mafia saw fighters the same way the modern Air Force sees the A10
missiles were supposed to make dogfighting obsolete, turns out the missiles weren't quite as advanced as to achieve that, plus the new fighters didn't have guns because dogfighting was supposed to be obsolete, too bad the USAF/USN forgot to tell the North-Vietnamese that their cannon-armed fighters designed with dogfighting in mind were obsolete, you try dogfighting with a two-seater armed with only missiles when the enemy has cannons & is flying circles around you.
Jose Richardson
even the best dogfighter in the world would have hard time dogfighting in a plane that doesn't have guns, especially against an enemy whose plane *has* guns.
Yes, tell me exactly what percentage of kills were accomplished with guns? From 1965 to 1968 the USAF had 59 kills and 15 air to air losses only using missiles and gun pods. In 1972-73, when the F-4E arrived which was gun armed and more maneuverable than the F-4C/D, the k/d dropped to 49:21. 46% of kills were accomplished with sparrow missiles. In the 72-73 era, aircraft with the capability to perform noncooperative IFF checks managed 57% of all USAF F-4 kills, and managed 71% of those kills with sparrows.
The USN never added an internal gun, and had a K/D ratio 3x that of the airforce. The difference? The navy actually trained how to fly for air combat.
Ayden Richardson
Penn, circa 1961
after a disasterous stint as the SecDef, he changed his name and entered into a homosexual relationship with a mute magician.
Kevin Evans
In any air war, the majority of your sticks are going to be guys that have been in the service for well under a decade. Only Squadron XOs and COs would have possibly been Korean and WW2 vets (at best) so it wasn't like the average driver had a shit ton of combat experience.
And the majority of the Mig's kills were against fighters being used as bomb trucks, not in head-to-head shoot outs with OCA.
Admiral Richardson's (the CNO during the last part of Vietnam) book talks about his first cruise as skipper of the Enterprise to Vietnam and literally every squadron commander in the air wing was killed or captured (granted, mostly by SAMs and AAA) by the end of the cruise. A greater than 100% casualty rate. And that was the experienced, Navy guys which according to the received wisdom, were on average the best American pilots of the war.
Jonathan Reed
The Navy was the much better Air Force back then huh? Better kill stats, fewer fuckups...
Liam Morris
>greater than 100 percent casuality rate
Tyler Hill
Are you dumb or something?
>100 Men unit on January 1st = 100% >loses 30 Men until March 1st = 30% losses >gets 30 men replacement on Mai 1st >Loses 50 men until July 1st = 80% losses >gets 50 men replacement on Agust 1st >loses 40 until September 1st = 120% losses
Oh miracle, and the unit is still 60 Men strong
Precentual losses are always counted from the first day of action you giant mong
Jackson Howard
Can't blame it on the jets either because the Israelis with Phantoms and Mirages raped far superior numbers of Soviet fights, in one case engaging 22 Soviet piloted MiGs with 14 F4s and Mirages and shooting down five while only having one plane damaged.
Robert Jones
>when your client state Is far better with your jets than you are, but it's OK because they face rape the rival superpower for you
"VPAF flew their interceptors with superb guidance from ground controllers, who positioned the MiGs in perfect ambush battle stations. The MIGs made fast and devastating attacks against US formations from several directions (usually the MiG-17s performed head-on attacks and the MiG-21s attacked from the rear). After shooting down a few American planes and forcing some of the F-105s to drop their bombs prematurely, the MiGs did not wait for retaliation, but disengaged rapidly. This "guerrilla warfare in the air" proved very successful. In December 1966 the MiG-21 pilots of the 921st FR downed 14 F-105s without any losses."
Woah
Sebastian Brown
Yeah. Thats impressive. But then again: F105s, especially carrying bombs, were about as agile as a dump truck. Go check on Operation Bolo which happend in 1967. US made F4 formations act, look and talk like they were F105s and when the Migs came, they were in for a nasty surprise. Why? Because they were actually up against fighters and not bombers.
