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On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 22:36:54 +0000, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote: If your chosen tactic hauls sixty aircraft in rigid formation along a predictable course and is vulnerable to a slashing attack by one or two MiGs on a vulnerable element, then that's bad... unless it gets two dozen strikers on-target and stops you losing half-a-dozen aircraft to SAMs. Break the image of B-17 "box" out of Linebacker stories. Pod roll-ins were a tactic in late '67, but totally abandoned in Linebacker. Bomb droppers flew in flights of four with independent target area tactics and roll-ins. Trouble is, all the guns you like won't stop #4 of one of the escort sections getting an unseen Atoll up the tailpipe and won't help you chase that MiG-21 down and kill him. Think integrated force (albeit first modern generation). Escort sections are supposed to be counter-air. We didn't have AWACS, but we got situation update from a lot of outside-the-flight sources. One other note: of the 21 MiG kills by the F-4E during Vietnam, five were gun kills... pretty good for something so useless. This aircraft has Sparrow and Sidewinder, and by the time the F-4E is flying they're demonstrating performance (the Sidewinder was up to 50% Pk in its AIM-9G form). Yet it's making a quarter of its kills with guns? Where did that battery of AAMs go in those engagements? In Linebacker the USAF was carrying AIM-9E and J. Never encountered a "G". The F-4E only carried heaters when specifically tasked A/A. (We did not yet have the shoulder mount for AIM-9 on inboard pylons.) Given an A/A load in an E, the first weapon employed for most of us would be AIM-9. |
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