My recall of the BIG "lesson learned" from allied aircraft losses in VN was that 90% of aircraft losses were due to ground-launched air defenses…the lion's share being good ol' AAA. I think it had more to do with required "dumb bomb"-delivery techniques (and release altitudes) coupled with poor/repetitive mission planning and target area tactics (e.g., aircraft making multiple runs on the same target, multiple strikers using same roll-in/pull-off headings, templated/predictable ingress/egress routes, yadda yadda yadda) than A-A missile technology, although there was some of that…and arguably more significantly, poor understanding of the actual capabilities of the missiles we had at the time. Read: a lot of shooting outside of actual required launch parameters. Hence, for the Navy's part, the Ault Report and all that resulted from that. A quick "Google-source" indicates that about 260 "fixed-wing" US aircraft of all types…including RECCE drones, transports, B-52s, etc…were actually lost to enemy aircraft. There may be other/better data, but that seems in the ballpark. Given that the U.S. Air Force ALONE flew 5.25 million sorties over South Vietnam, North Vietnam, northern and southern Laos, and Cambodia (more Google-fu, and we're getting into possibly meaningless "fruit salad" comparisons/data), the number of air-to-air losses starts to lose its shock value.
Concur with everything Catmando said about hubris and overconfidence. Just an opinion from the aging Peanut Gallery…but that's what needs to be avoided when next our folks meet any sort of capable IADS…including modern (if not 5th Gen/state-of-the-art) opposing aircraft/A-A weapons and decently trained/experienced enemy pilots.
That said, my perception is that the folks in today's cockpits still have a better overall mix of training, equipment, tactics and appreciation of their own capes/lims than does any foreseeable foe. Maybe I'm the one that's guilty of hubris/overconfidence…and I do appreciate that "quantity has a quality all its own", should a potential enemy's numerical superiority become a significant factor.
Some comments: Yes, the vast majority of losses were from AAA, but not necessarily for the reasons stated. By Linebacker I, (and even before) nobody was doing multiple runs. It was verboten. While the Air Force, especially the B-52s in Linebacker II stupidly did predicable ingress/egress, the Navy certainly did not. Every Alpha Strike was planned by the flight leader and they really varied the routes and roll-ins intelligently. It wasn’t there 1st rodeo. With hundreds of combat missions, these guys were extremely experienced under fire and knew what they were doing. Nevertheless, we still had losses.
Also I don’t recall being any more vulnerable for those few quick seconds in doing a very fast 40 degree steep and quick “dumb bomb” [BTW, we had some smart bombs too.] release at 500 Kts. @ 5,000 ft. and bottoming out above 3,500 AGL, than I did the other 99.9% of the time I was flying over the North getting shot at, regardless of altitude. It was all the same... although MigCap @ 3500 ft over the same spot for 20 minutes usually under fire and photo escort to get BDA down low after the hornets nest was stirred were perhaps a bit worse.
It also should be noted that the vast majority of those “millions” of sorties posed
minimal threat to the fast movers… although slow movers were sitting ducks and hit really hard. Fast movers could operate their million sorties with near impunity over
most of the South, Laos, and Cambodia. However the relatively much fewer sorties over the North were an entirely different story, producing heavy losses.
As mentioned, SEAD was key. However as great and as capable as our ARM and ECM assets were, they were up against an incredible number of SAM and AAA sites. It was overwhelming. We also ran quickly out of Shrikes early in Linebacker I. So we went in naked. Fortunately our A-7 pouncers, without any missiles then used deception by calling out phony and imagined launches. Since our comms were immediately translated, this voice call caused the SAM sites to shut down. We loved it! Fortunately we were un-repped with more Shrikes before the bad guys caught on. Nevertheless they were smart and played other cat-and-mouse games to limit if not occasionally defeat our SEAD.
That a limited number of our losses were from MiG engagements should be not too surprising. At the time they had only 71 MiGs total in their entire country compared to our Navy and Air Forces’ several hundreds. Thus they usually did not engage us, to conserve their extremely limited numbers. They used guerrilla tactics of hit and run when they could, but they rarely fought our fighters. That they downed as many of our fighters as they did, given their paltry numbers and reluctance to engage, should give one pause. While the establishment of the NFWS propelled our kill-ratio to incredible new heights from what it had been earlier, the school did not, nor was it designed to, stem our continuing losses to withering enemy surface fire. Regardless of the source, a loss is a loss and a kill is a kill.
“…folks in today's cockpits still have a better overall mix of training, equipment, tactics and appreciation of their own capes/lims than does any foreseeable foe.”
Probably. I do think so. However I remember the same was said before Vietnam.