Guns on fighters?

"Red" wrote in message
m...

"Lawrence Dillard" wrote in message
...
SNIP SNIP SNIP SNIP SNIP SNIP SNIP SNIP SNIP SNIP
Enter Mr Wonderful, SECDEV Mac Namara, who recognized the versatility
of
the (missile-only) F-4 and on the basis of alleged cost-savings due to
"commonality", ordered it to equip the USAF as well


What a bunch of revisionist history crap this statement is.

Thank you for this very kind and of course, wise, commentary.


The USAF was
the driving force behind the adoption of the F-4, not MacNamara.

I have never before heard this one. In fact, the USAF was yary of the F-4,
for among other things, the following:

1) The F-4 called for twin engines.
2) The F-4 called for two crew members.
3) The F-4 had no integral provision for a gun.
4) The F-4 was to be constructed by McDonald-Douglas.

I have never heard other than that the USAF wanted no part of a design in
which it had had no input from the output and certainly did not want to be
in a position in which it would have to compete with its sister service for
production priorities, etc., on a "hand-me-down" product and was unfamiliar
with McD as a supplier; altogether, the USAF wanted to define its air
mission and to accomplish it with a/c designed from the outset with the USAF
usages and practices in mind.

The trials
were conducted in 1961, just as the F-4 was entering the Navy inventory.
It
was the performance of the aircraft in weapons load, radar performance and
range that impressed the Air Force.

It was MacNamara who was impressed and who had called for the "trials". The
version I heard was that the trials were "fixed" so as to minimize or
ignore USAF objections, including that the USAF looked upon the use of two
J-79s as a step back (15,800-17,900 lbs thrust vs some 25,000 lbs for the
F-105's engine), and was yary of the idea of splitting cockpit duties
between two crewmen. The F-4's design had been initiated during the
mid-1950's, an attribute the USAF did not find attractive, and would need
substantial modifications to meet the USAF's established methods of
operation, including in-flight refueling. In despite of USAF objections,
the F-4 "won" (MacNamara's Rules).

Once MacNamara made his decision, however, the USAF was faced eating that
decision with a spoon and pretending to like it, or having to soldier on
with fewer modern a/c than it believed it needed. Same thing happened with
the F-111. (The contortions the English language can withstand in making
night appear to be day, are truly amazing).

The adoption of the F-4 by the Air Force
that became the arguement by MacMamra that if it could be done for one
aircraft it could be done for all of them. This lead to the TFX/F111 BS.

In fact, MacNamara, a bright man, came to his position with several firm but
addle-pated convictions on weapons and systems acquisition, most if not all
of which have been found to be fatally flawed and virtually
unworkable---F-111, C-5A, and IIRC, the Cheyenne helicopter, to name a few
egregious examples.