Moving from flying the Sabre to the phantom

USAF F4 crews were awarded Ace status individually because they weren`t a permament pairing. Ritchie and DeBellevue only got 4 kills when paired together, both had one other partner to get 5 and 6 kills respectively. Fientsein was a kill slut, he got his 5 kills as WSO with 4 different pilots.

In contrast the USN Aces Cunningham and Driscoll got all 5 of their kills together.

If the RAAF uses the same rules as the USAF a pilot could become an Ace while his WSO/s do not.

This is further strengthened by the case of Robin Olds who became an Ace in WW2 and some 22 years later got 4 kills in Rolling Thunder. Counting back 22 year from Linebacker you get to 1951, when the RAAF was engaed in Korea and getting some kills with it`s Meteors. So it`s possible for a number RAAF pilots to enter air to air combat in Rolling Thunder with a confirmed and probable/possible kill under their belts. If they can add a kill or two to the Korean tally during Rolling thunder that only leaves a kill or two to get in 1972 to be considered an Ace.
 

Pangur

Donor
USAF F4 crews were awarded Ace status individually because they weren`t a permament pairing. Ritchie and DeBellevue only got 4 kills when paired together, both had one other partner to get 5 and 6 kills respectively. Fientsein was a kill slut, he got his 5 kills as WSO with 4 different pilots.

In contrast the USN Aces Cunningham and Driscoll got all 5 of their kills together.

If the RAAF uses the same rules as the USAF a pilot could become an Ace while his WSO/s do not. This is further strengthened by the case of Robin Olds who became an Ace in WW2 and some 22 years later got 4 kills in Rolling Thunder

I have kicked the idea of using the F-4 because of some good points that have been previously made. However I was planning to keep the RIO and pilots together.


. Counting back 22 year from Linebacker you get to 1951, when the RAAF was engaed in Korea and getting some kills with it`s Meteors. So it`s possible for a number RAAF pilots to enter air to air combat in Rolling Thunder with a confirmed and probable/possible kill under their belts. If they can add a kill or two to the Korean tally during Rolling thunder that only leaves a kill or two to get in 1972 to be considered an Ace.

There was a thread last year about the possibility of an Aussie ace post WW2 where that was put out as one option. That thread has stayed in the back of my head and is the biggest reason that I am chasing this whole idea. I might as well fess up the rest. The idea behind the exercising with Sabre's was that when the RAAF got to Vietnam they kick some serious butt and outfight the NVAF. For that to be possible I assumed that an internal cannon was required, hence the E version. The final bit was and may still be the case is that the Aussie success rates get the attention of the US forces with the first Top Gun courses run in the NT and Qld
 
Having an exchange pilot get a kill isn't unheard of: there were USN and USMC exchange pilots with the AF who got a MiG kill during their tours, and there was an AF exchange pilot with the Navy who got one. In Korea, several RAF exchange pilots flying F-86s got MiG-15s, so it's a good possiblity. You might say that during ROLLING THUNDER, several RAAF exchange pilots have tours with the USAF, prior to the Phantom purchase. One or two get MiGs, and, as is likely, one or two others get shot down and wind up as "guests" in the Hanoi Hilton. It'd be a long 5 1/2 to six years in Hanoi until release in Feb or March, '73. Any '72 shootdowns will have an easier time of it, as conditions in the Hilton and the other main Hanoi POW lockup, the Zoo, were much improved by that time.

The USN liked to keep crews together if at all possible. Though the proceedure for a new pilot or RIO was to team him up with a veteran. And the AF adopted a similar proceedure after the SEA conflict ended. From the mid '70s onwards, F-4/RF-4 and F-111 crews stayed together. The F-15E community continues the practice.
 
There was a thread last year about the possibility of an Aussie ace post WW2 where that was put out as one option. That thread has stayed in the back of my head and is the biggest reason that I am chasing this whole idea. I might as well fess up the rest. The idea behind the exercising with Sabre's was that when the RAAF got to Vietnam they kick some serious butt and outfight the NVAF. For that to be possible I assumed that an internal cannon was required, hence the E version. The final bit was and may still be the case is that the Aussie success rates get the attention of the US forces with the first Top Gun courses run in the NT and Qld

That sounds like the sort of thread I`d start.

I think that one reason guns were rated so highly in Vietnam was because they were a known quantity wheras missiles were still largely unknown in combat. As a result in Rolling Thunder about half the missiles fired by the USN were fired out of envelope and would never have gotten a kill. This is the shortcoming TopGun trained away, using instrumented ranges it taught pilots to get into the missile`s kill zone rather than just firing when hearing the lock on tone. Added to this was the fragilty of the Sparrow in the naval environment; the USAF aces got a lot of kills with Sparrow, although they were prolifigate with its use by deliberately firing it out of envelope to make targets react and firing pairs at a single target.

The USN and USAF had plenty of opportunity to conduct DACT in Vietnam, the USN had F8s and A4s in theatre and the USAF had F100, F104 and F105 for Phantoms to play with.
 
AIM-7 reliability in SEA was 11%. It was bad enough that pilots ripple-fired Sparrows in pairs to give max probablity of a kill. Most Navy Phantom kills were AIM-9: Randy Cunningham/Willie Driscoll scored all five with Sidewinders. Steve Ritchie on the AF side not only was an all MiG-21 ace, but all five were scored with AIM-7s.

Top Gun came out of the Ault Report in the late '68-early '69 time frame. Quite a few of the Navy's kills in '72 were scored by guys who'd gone through Top Gun. But the AF didn't start Red Flag until 1973-4.

It should be pointed out that of 29 kills scored by F-105s, two-thirds were gun kills. One was a combined AIM-9/20-mm, and the rest were AIM-9.

The worst perfomer? AIM-4. Only five kills, and no less a personality than Robin Olds denounced it as nearly useless. He felt that AIM-4 cost him a shot at acedom in 1967, and I'm inclined to agree with him.
 
The 11% is the amount of sparrows fired to the number of kills gained. In the USN the constant smashing onto the carrier and the poor maintenence facilities (the sparrow didn`t have a dedicated loader for the first decade of its service, leading Frank Ault to report `missiles that are treated like bombs frequently perform like bombs`) led to this terrible ratio, or most probably even worse. However I think the USAF made the figures worse than they needed to be. Firstly they deliberately fired sparrows out of envelope to get a reaction for their quarry, these missiles would never have gotten a kill and if they didn`t set up the target for a second shot within envelope are a complete waste. Secondly you`d think that with a 15% kill rate perhaps 1 in 5 or 6 sparrows fired in a ripple could have gotten a kill in their own right if given a chance, further pushing down the ratio.

I`d love to see a TL where the Red Top is used in combat.
 
The 11% figure comes from Steve Ritchie himself, and I'm going by what he says. (See the Dogfights series on DVD or on The History Channel-Ritchie is in at least two episodes)

DACT was strongly discouraged up until Top Gun was created in '69. Crews did things unofficially as they worked up prior to deploying, or in the RTU (Replacement Training Unit)-after flying their briefed mission (say, low-level navigation or practice bombing), they'd set some fuel aside, go to a military operating area, and have at it with each other. Only when Top Gun and Red Flag did DACT become standard practice. And guess who were the best dogfighters of all? It was the F-8 community in both the USN and USMC. They had a saying "When you're out of F-8s, you're out of fighters."
 

Pangur

Donor
Nice information . I had read somewhere than the Auld's report ,mentioned manufactoring standards as an issue, not sure what was behind that. I must admit that the idea of the missile having to able to survive carrier landing after landing had not crossed my mind. It does make sense to me that there was problems, that technology would have been fragile I guess. Was there similar issues with the first smart bombs?

A TL with Red Tops? That implies I think the Lighting or the Sea Vixen. Maybe the Saudis fighting Iraq or maybe the an attempt by the Spanish to take over Gibraltar? (for the Lighting) or for the Sea Vixen - same Gibraltar The other option would be to have either aircraft operated by some one else
 

Pangur

Donor
Red Tops could theoretically be carried by anything with a pylon, I don`t think there would be many problems fitting them to a Mirage III. I think wingtip sidewinder rails and semi-recessed sparrow mounting would be a problem.

How hard did the UK try to sell the Red Top?
 
The 11% figure comes from Steve Ritchie himself, and I'm going by what he says. (See the Dogfights series on DVD or on The History Channel-Ritchie is in at least two episodes)

DACT was strongly discouraged up until Top Gun was created in '69. Crews did things unofficially as they worked up prior to deploying, or in the RTU (Replacement Training Unit)-after flying their briefed mission (say, low-level navigation or practice bombing), they'd set some fuel aside, go to a military operating area, and have at it with each other. Only when Top Gun and Red Flag did DACT become standard practice. And guess who were the best dogfighters of all? It was the F-8 community in both the USN and USMC. They had a saying "When you're out of F-8s, you're out of fighters."

USN F4 pilots trained mostly on interception mission profiles when they weren`t practicing bombing, whereas F8 pilots did half interception, half air superiority training. But even with all that most of the supply chain that delivered missiles to planes was dodgy and the training of pilots to use the missiles to the greatest effect was lacking.

Incidently the Israelis got a 30% success rate from their sparrow shots in 1973.
 
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There's one other issue with AIM-7 reliablity: the hot and humid environment of SEA. The heat and humidity often affected aircraft avionics, not unexpected for a weapon designed to be used either in Europe or as a bomber killer out at sea.

Find the book Iran-Iraq War in the Air, by Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop: they mention that AIM-7 reliablity in the Iranians' case was 23%, and those were rounds sold in 1975-78, when Raytheon was incorporating SEA experience into the newer versions of the Sparrow. In ODS, AIM-7s still had a reliablity rate of about 40%.

The first laser bombs had decent reliablity from their combat trials in 1968. As did the Navy's Walleye TV-guided weapon in 1967. But the GBU-8 Electro-optic guided bomb had serious problems, like breaking lock after release....It wasn't resolved until the late '70s-early '80s, when GBU-15 solved those issues.
 
The other main problem with the Sparrow was that it wasn't being used against the target it was designed for. The AIM-7 was initially developed as a counter to large Soviet bombers flying straight and level, which is a comparative easy target. Hitting a maneuvering MiG-17 is going to be quite a bit more difficult.
 
Correct. Though a skilled pilot like Steve Ritchie knew how to use AIM-7. Fortunately for him, none of his victims were down in the weeds. All were MiG-21s at medium altitude.
 
Cannon shells don`t maneuvre either, and the early sidewinder and sparrow should be considered as extensions of cannon. The sparrows high speed and 88lb warhead covered some of the failings in agility, its sustainer rocket meant that changes to direction to follow a target didn`t wash off speed like it did with the boost and coast sidewinder.
 
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