Vietnam war air to air victories

[osuorsa]

In my opinion the USA's best fighter used in the conflict was the F-8 Crusader. It truly earned its nick name there. Yes, this wasn't the Crusader's first combat action, it had flown many low-level photo recce missions in fall of 1962 in Cuban crisis (BTW, there are very nice scene about this in the movie 13 days)...

The F-8s played also many other mission roles than just fighter in Vietnam. It was in a good use as a recce plane (the RF-8A), light-strike/attack plane (with the dumb bombs and Zuni rockets) etc. But in its main role, in fighter missions, I think it was better suited for that than the F-4 Phantom. Because of the bad BVR missiles/tactics the use of this kind of shooting lost much of its power. So, when it was to engage and start turning fight the F-8 was much better choice than the Phantom! And one very important thing for the pilots was that the F-8 had gun! And as every one knows that was one of the biggest flaws in Phantom service in Vietnam, to lack gun. The four cannons of the Crusader weren't accurate enough. I've heard that even the most experienced pilots found it hard sometimes to hit a target because of the very wide and inaccurate dispersal pattern! Some pilots complained about the smal amount of ammunition for the four guns...Think what might have the Phantom pilots felt about that Actually, the ammunition was even reduced more when the Crusaders got ECM equipment and the only place for the systems were in the nose! Thus, In my opinion the ECM equipment was more important to defeat the SAMs!

The Crusader's cannons got very easily jammed and after that you had to be aware that the bullets wont explode inside tha barrel! In high-G maneuvres the cannons didn't work almost at all! They couldn't fix these problems totally (?). But still the Crusader crews were proud of their cannon armament. But to say it straight, only three of all air-to-air victories achieved by the Crusaders involved cannon fire. Of cource it was the advent of the missiles!

The F-8 was much more lighter than the Phantom (yes yes, the planes were designed for totally different roles) which gave it much better handling and a F-8 pilot enjoyed much better visibility from ones cockpit!

Bad for the NAVY pilots they didn't get as many chances to furball with the MiGs as they might have wanted but when they got a chance they really showed their better training than the USAF pilots (at least after the advent of TOP GUN school). Albeit the Crusaders were fast sent to the air superiority and escort duties as well...The Crusader was pretty much the top-dog in theatre at beginning of the conflict. This was pretty much because the Crusader pilots were trained from the outset to dogfight and this turned out to be very important in Vietnam (think living at the time when people depended so much on bad missiles!) while the Phantom pilots were trained for intercept missions.

That I want to add that the low-flying RF-8s were many times screwed by the nimble MiG-17s if they couldn't escape by speed...

[osuorsa]

One major thing I suspect that the Crusader pilots would have wanted is an effective radar that the Phantom had.

The Crusader pilots locked their Sidewinders just by the heat-seeker of the missile it self by listening the tone. And of cource the Sidewinders weren't troublfree! (As every one here knows) the Sidewinders had many problems. Especially in had poor discrimination and could easily be confused by sun light! Other problems included proximity fuse faults...

Maybe I'm now digging blood from my nose but I'd say that the A/A combat was quite rare. The MiGs were mainly used as a back-up for the flak and SAMs which were the most obvious threat for the US pilots...

Ouh, forgot to say, think how brave the RF-8 pilots have had to be to fly photo recce missions unarmed!

In A/A battle the Crusaders shot down 18 MiGs with losses of four planes...

[sicsok]

Would that be too nasty to say an old saying? (Not my invention by far, but I fully came to agree with it after various experiences at folks talking war (or sports, music etc.)):
-"The people who like wars never have experienced it"-
BINGO!

[osuorsa]

Originally Posted by sicsok

Would that be too nasty to say an old saying? (Not my invention by far, but I fully came to agree with it after various experiences at folks talking war (or sports, music etc.)):
-"The people who like wars never have experienced it"-
BINGO!

What you wanted to say with that? I mean those opinions about the performance have been mostly said by Vietnam era USN pilots...

[Pavel]

Photo-recon missions were the hardest task since WW2...
maybe really UCAV's are doing good job today?

Regarding losses - I've read one book, don't remember exact numbers, but the only reason of MiG losses over Korea was pilot training and overal tactics planning. from what I remember - it was Kozhedub's regiment with lost of something like 5 pilots for first half a year or something. And it was regiment after - when in one week the whole regiment was shot down.
Only strategy and tactics question, has not much to do with planes performance.
I can find details, if you want.