Forum: Air Power

Salute!

If Olds had been in the theater in 1972, he would likely have been the ace he wished to be.

Ritchie was "helped" a bit after bagging a few, and had the chance to build morale. Face it, we needed something at the tme. Like Olds, he was an arrogant SOB, but talented. maybe more than Olds. I flew with Steve during an indocrination program for we Zoomies a year before we graduated and went to pilot training. He was really good. Another troop from that group also did well, as did ol' Gums. The three of us flew two or three tours, so last tour we were experienced and calmer than our firt time.

I also went thru pilot training with Richter. Now there was a true warrior. See "There Is a Way".

**************

The big difference in 1972, when we started going up North again, was better A2A training, better coord with support folks like AWACS (Disco - original AWACS which had been used by Air Defense Command in the southern USA for a few years), the Navy's "Red Crown", and some nefarious outfits, mainly "Teaball".

So we had much better intell, much better training, and most of us were experienced vets. We also had real cannons in the Double Ugly.

Snake can add much more here, as I was a mudbeating puke, and depended upon his ilk to keep me free of Migs whilst I blew something up.

A biggie in the early years was the ROE requiring visual contact and so forth. By 1972 we had much better radar coverage and better systems onboard. So's the MIGCAP could fire head-on without fearing a freindly fire incident, or nailing a Soviet airliner coming outta Hanoi. The Oyster flight engagement was a good example. Sparrows flying out before the merge, etc. Another of my classmates ( Bob Lodge) was executed by the enema after bailing out on that flight, but he and Steve were leading the pack to be aces. Steve made it.

Snake should be able to help here, as I have stated.

Gums sends ...

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Snake's Up!!!!

To add to what old gums (toothless!!) says it was quite different in 72 then it was in 67-68 and although I never had the privilege of working with or talking to Olds I had quite a few chances to review old times with Chappie James and work with his son (Danny -- now a two star in the Texas Guard). Also met and talked at length with Steve over the years (and he's mellowed quite a bit over time Gums).

The big thing I noticed with the Bolo raid was that they threw the ROE overboard and everyone was a shooter. But the greatest thing was the spirit that they went there with and how that spirit grew between flights as the fight progressed. To get seven 21's in thirteen minutes deserved bragging rights for a long time to come and even built confidence in those slated to go to SEA and had never faced the elephant before.

The biggest thing we had in 72 at Korat was first of all the many varied missions of each of the squadrons there. We had the mudmovers, air to air, fast fac's, the Weasels, Hunter-Killers, Disco, and the ECM birds all in the same briefings on the same air patch. So the after action get togethers was an on going study of changing tactics, new targets and threats, and ideas to improve operations and mutual support. It wasn't anything like your first meeting your counterpart at 20 grand crossing the Black on egress to Bulls-Eye hoping that he had his stuff together.

Next was that in 72 we had a very good mix of new guys to veterans on either their second or third tour downtown. And that re-assuring voice in lead to a scared SH$$less blue four on his first time down the boulevard of broken dreams was priceless. So was the past knowledge they willingly gave to the FNG's. It might have been a little old and dated but was still valued as another way to skin the cat.

Gummo --- I don't remember ever throwing out the ROE on a visual sighting before you shot in 72 unless as you say the shooters were well ahead of any friendlies and either Disco, or Red Crown were 1000% certain they were bad guys. It wasn't hard spotting a double ugly but the others needed eye balls on before you pulled the trigger. But then again I always went in in the gaggle so the rules were definitely adhered to in that case. But now with J-Stars, AWACS, and BVR munitions it must be a completely different world out there. My only hope is that in the next one (and it is coming!!!!) we don't make the same mistake we did before in not training our guys for the good old fashion dog-fight with a completely dissimilar aircraft.

Snake

http://www.afa.org/magazine/valor/1292valor.asp

Fisk

Fisk

Thanks for the Tally.

Great Article and kind of says it all.

Snake

Salute!

Here's another take on it from Thud Ridge:
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/7002/richter.html

What's that quote, "Lest we forget...", something like that.

Fisk's out

Salute!

Roger that, Snake. I'll have to confirm the urban legend about the ROE.

My understanding was that the Oyster flight had clearance to fire HO. I can see a scenario with the sweep flight and great coverage by Disco and Red Crown giving clearance.

Talking with the Desert Storm troops also gave me the impression that they fired HO BVR. Same for the Mig shootdown in Libya by the squids back in '86 or so.

For all you yutes out there. Listen up!!! The ROE prolly resulted in more MIA/KIA and POW's than any Mig or SAM ever built. Think about this if you ever have to command folks in actual combat.

later,

Gums sends ...

P.S. One of the neat things about Olds and James was they called themselves "Blackman and Robin". Still laugh about that one.

Hey Guys!!!!

Just had the opportunity to watch number three in the series "Dogfight" on the history channel (Friday nights out here) that pitted the Flying Tigers against several types of Japanese fighters. So far the first three offerings are pretty much what we've been saying all along -- ie -- we have always had the privilege of going into a battle with an inferior airship (in some way or another) and come out the winner on the other side. This has to say a boat load about recognizing our faults, recognizing the others guys faults and then going to school to exploit their faults and minimize ours.

And although all these presentations are of old battles the one infallible fact is that the great guys behind the sticks and their training were the ones that won the battles.

Snake

It does seem odd, for the longest time, other countries' stuff was better. Yet we almost always (I don't want to generalize to everything) came out on top in the conflicts. It all seems to be due to training. So now that we have the most bad @ss stuff in the world, well if things persist like they were going then it will be a slaughter in the skies. Though the rest of the world has also updated their training so it won't be as easy.

I'll bet you ten to one that we make almost the same mistakes again. First cut back DACT and the Aggressors because dogfighting will be out of date. Second, we don't need to teach DACT because of BVR's, J-Stars, Awacs and all the other gee-whiz weapons. What they seem to forget is that when all the electronic goods and treats go tits up its back to the grease pencil and eyeballs to do the job.

Anyone want to take the bet?????

Snake

Snake, I've got a couple of questions for you regarding VPAF:

1. Did they use the radar-guided AA-1 Alkali? Or just the IR AA-2 Atoll and guns?

2. What was the weaponry used by the MiG-19s? 2x 30mm guns only (MiG-19P) or did they also have the version with 4 AA-1 Alkali (MiG-19PM) and no cannons. There was also a wild rumor about adapting Atolls to MiG-19.

You must have had some kind of intelligence briefings about the enemy's equipment, maybe you can answer this.
Thank you.

The only things that were poked my way were either a heat seeker or tracer ball ammo. You got to remember that these guys primary attack was a one pass haul a$$ out of the deep six position. And since we would always have a high energy level in the threat area the heat plume must have been huge.

Never went against a 19. All of our engagements were against 21's.

Snake

Salute!

I never understood why the North Vee didn't use a radar-guided missile.

For sure, they had a target-rich environment.

1) Could have been afraid of friendly fire, but I DON"T THINK SO!

2) Could be they were concerned that the radar lock would give them away, whereas the Atolls were "stealthy".

A famous quote I have on tape from LB II is from a DeSoto MIGCAP bird. The two guys are talking in their parachutes ... First call from the chute was "This is Desoto x Alpha, could you tell what hit us?" heh heh.

It was no mystery, as Red Crown and Disco were calling out a "black" bandit and providing great location for others to intercept. My understanding was that "Blue" bandits were Fishbeds, but maybe when they were RTB they called all of them "black".

The Mig had sneaked up and hosed at the Desoto flight and nailed one.

We were all glad the guy hadn't picked on our SLUF flights, as we were meat on the table. SO my sincere thanks went out to Snake and the other MIGCAP troops for protecting us, even if it meant soaking up an Atoll, heh heh.

Maybe a Viet troop somewhere's around could enlighten us.

Gums sends

Quote:

I never understood why the North Vee didn't use a radar-guided missile.

Let me have a shot at this. They had 2 options:

AA-1 Alkali, an early missile, not too maneuvrable, with a range of only 6km. Could be attached to some versions of MiG-17(PF), MiG-19(PM) as well as MiG-21s (except the early MiG-21F-13 variant). Since the MiG-17 and 19 had only guns, and couldn't use the IR AA-2, the AA-1 would have been useful - they could carry 4. But than again the radar-equipped versions of those fighters were much more expensive and difficult to service that the ones with guns only.

R-3R - the SARH version of the AA-2, which could be carried only by later MiG-21s (PF, PFM, M, MF) not by the early MiG-21F-13. Well, since it had roughly the same range as the IR version, it gave no advantage to the attacker, only to the attacked - RWRs going off, time for evasive maneuvers...

Hope this helps.

Hey El-Gummo!!!

I just spent the better part of the last hour trying to find "Black Bandit" in the numerous reference doc's I have and have come up with zip.

Yes, the 21's were "Blue Bandits, and the 19's were "Red Bandits" but I can't find any reference to the 17's and I know there was one (maybe it was Black).

As for the Crown or Disco using that for an RTB bird I don't think that they would garbage up the airways with that identifier (then they would have to have one for the 17 and 19 also). I believe that their philosophy was if it was airborne or a threat they'd just call it. And three identifiers was more then enough to remember in a hot environment.

Snake

Snake and Gums, I've also heard "Yellow Bandits" in radio tapes. Weren't those MiG-17s?

Forum: Air Power

Air tactics during the Vietnam War