Thing about a fighter bomber is its going lots faster than a B26
Marauder and it's not flying straight and level. AMAF the rule was
keep moving and never get predictable. it took a while to wrok out
just how to flt a snaky erratic diving approach to the release point,
never staying in one attitude for more than say 4 seconds max while
usually staying loaded up around 4 G but it could be done, and still
hit the target. On a one pass haul ass speed and motion was a bit
easier. Getting in close for troop support one had to really move it
around because the enemy doctrine was everybody shoot at the fighters.
Strafinf a gun wasn' really a good idea because the way the ballistics
works he's got two chances at you and you got one at him - he'll hit
you with the bullet falling through your flight path and very soon as
you close in it'll be rising up through the flight path. Weapon of
choice back then was the CBU52 - full of grapefruit-sized bomblets.
The twin 23 was very ubiquitous - and could put up a lot of shells
quickly. Didn't shoot very high but it was very mobile and they had a
ton of them. We had one the Army gave us there at DaNang. It was all
too easy to track the planes on downwind as they flew past. All our
FNG new crews got to try tracking the planes to get the point of
jinking across. FWIW in protected areas both north and south the flak
could look like the naval scenes from 'The Battle for Okinawa' where
the USN is hosing Kamikazes - except this was from the other side. My
WingCO at Bitburg had the right idea - a thousand mile standoff
missile.
Walt BJ