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VIETNAM or IRAQ WAR: What is it good for?? Absolutely nothing?? Or ...????

VetteMuscle427

is out to lunch.
None
I used to doodle out whole alpha-strikes... I wonder if that would get me the chair? Or maybe a war crimes trial? What a joke.
 

eddie

Working Plan B
Contributor
What's TARCAP? What's flak suppressors?

Ok, I figured out the definitions, but I like it better when the old men tell me.
 

A4sForever

BTDT OLD GUY
pilot
Contributor
What's TARCAP? What's flak suppressors?

Com'on, eddie ... work with us on this.

1. TARCAP .... sounds a little like .... TARGET COMBAT AIR ..... what?? I'll let you fill in the last word .... :)

2. Flak suppressors .... possibly the opposite of flak enhancers ... yes ??? :D

I pullin' your leg --- if you can't get it, ask/post again and we'll spell it out. It's good for you boys to use the noodle and maybe do a little research.

Yes???

*edit* I see you got it. Good job!! What old men are you talking about, however ????
:D
 

Catmando

Keep your knots up.
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
That's great --- where in the hell did you find that ????!!!

"Cept I don't see any flak suppressors ...... :) .... Ironhand doesn't count!!!

Not my doodles. I confess it's from papers included in a manuscript of an old squadron-mate and well-known RIO. (Unfortunately, he decided not to publish his book, because it names too many "names", and he thought it "too raunchy." Too bad – it's a great book that covers Vietnam like "Flight of the Intruder" and goes beyond that into the Cold War and Middle East.)

Re flak suppressors…. That's a good question. But as I recall, for some 'downtown' targets we just finally gave up on flak suppressors – there were just too many SAM and AAA sites for them to make any real impact. Bombs on the strike's target were considered more important, and so we just took our chances. :eek:

Anyone interested in Vietnam Alpha Strikes – A smart Brit (Lee Brimmicombe-Wood) has developed an incredible and well-researched board game called "Downtown" based upon the Vietnam Air War. His website is one of the best for explaining Alpha Strikes I have seen.

http://www.airbattle.co.uk/d_combatants.html

alphastrikekj6.jpg
 

Catmando

Keep your knots up.
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
That looks like it had to be hell to get airborne, formed up, and inbound off one boat.
It wasn't as bad as it looks – but it was no walk in the park either.

Alpha Strikes were exceedingly well planned, exceedingly well briefed, but exceedingly hard to pull off without ever a hitch.

While I remember some 'almost' and indeed a couple of actual, major screw-ups and goat ropes, most of the time we launched, tanked, joined, ingressed, attacked, egressed, and recovered just like clockwork.

Sequencing, timing, and tanking were exceptionally important. But with no cyclic ops, only 3 strikes a day, and always "ready decks" for recovery smoothed out the operation. That, and PRACTICE.
 

Nose

Well-Known Member
pilot
We did "practice launches" because our flight deck was so lame we needed to practice our LSP!!!

Nose
 

A4sForever

BTDT OLD GUY
pilot
Contributor
.....Alpha Strikes were exceedingly well planned, exceedingly well briefed, but exceedingly hard to pull off without ever a hitch.....
What your air plan depicts as F-4 STRIKE/TARCAP ... mebbe even some of the upfront MIGCAP (I've never seen that many F-4's up at one time in the history of Naval Aviation :D) usually became our flak suppressors w/Rockeye/CBU -- accelerating ahead of the strike group @ a minute prior to roll-in .... :) ... then resuming their TARCAP roles after flak suppression pull-off. Seems like every Air Wing had their own ideas on what worked and what didn't ....

A good overall picture -- talks a little about cyclic ops vs Alpha strikes -- of mid-late '60's Vietnam Ops is provided by none other than ADM
James L. Holloway III, USN (Ret.) on the Naval Historical Center website:

[FONT=Times New Roman,Georgia,Times]TACTICAL COMMAND AND CONTROL OF CARRIER OPERATIONS[/FONT]
 

Nose

Well-Known Member
pilot
MB,

Yes. If you are doing a big ass strike (don't really use the term Alpha Strike anymore), then usually the plan is to have a "Ready Deck" for RTB.

A normal cyclic ops launch is 20-30 aircraft. Big strike may be 40+. Too hard to return, hold overhead, take seperation, work the deck, keep the pattern disciplined, etc. Plus, a couple of bolter/WO/WOFD with all those planes overhead and you got serious gas problems. Easier to have strikers return (usually off of backside tanking) in sections/divisions and come straight to the break. Usually flows out pretty nice as guys are coming off the tankers about 1-2/minute.

NSAWC used to advocate "Modified Flex" where you could launch small events during flex deck (because those fokkers were always trying to weasel some extra BFM!) but usually it was catch 'em all, then do a 1-1.5 hour re-spot and go cyclic after that.

Good for LSOs, because of the Tanning opportunities.

Nose
 

Catmando

Keep your knots up.
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
What your air plan depicts as F-4 STRIKE/TARCAP ... mebbe even some of the upfront MIGCAP (I've never seen that many F-4's up at one time in the history of Naval Aviation :D) usually became our flak suppressors w/Rockeye/CBU -- accelerating ahead of the strike group @ a minute prior to roll-in .... :) ... then resuming their TARCAP roles after flak suppression pull-off. Seems like every Air Wing had their own ideas on what worked and what didn't ....

A good overall picture -- talks a little about cyclic ops vs Alpha strikes -- of mid-late '60's Vietnam Ops is provided by none other than ADM
James L. Holloway III, USN (Ret.) on the Naval Historical Center website:

[FONT=Times New Roman,Georgia,Times]TACTICAL COMMAND AND CONTROL OF CARRIER OPERATIONS[/FONT]

Notwithstanding your "light-attack" :)piggy_125) comment about our number of "up F-4's" :icon_rage ;) …. What you describe – TARCAP accelerating ahead and dropping Rockeye/CBU's – is also what we mostly did too, early. But later on, against especially Hanoi and vicinity with their multiple myriad of sites, our F-4 TARCAP only carried 6 MK-82's and just put them on the Alpha Strike target, rather than dropping on flak sites, then pulled off and provided CAP.

You are correct. Every Air-Wing did do things differently. While at the time I thought we all were standardized, after the fact I found out (CAG's?) Strategies and tactics varied greatly from airwing to airwing... as did results, too. :(

Thanks for the Adm. Holloway's link. Very interesting.
 
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