"Anatomy of an Airstrike" - 10 AM at the museum in Pensacola

[Catmando]

I went today. He touched on the roles of all the different aircraft in the wing, the preparations they made before launching, and some pretty cool gettin' shot up stories. The part I found interesting was the fact that F-4's often made strafing runs just prior to the air wing entering the bombing zone to reduce AA. I always thought that they just flew air-to-air combat missions.....the more you know.

The talk was really meant for folks who had no clue about Naval Aviation though; he spent much of the time on carrier ops, of which I already knew most of what he talked about.

All in all, it was well worth the hour!

Actually, Navy F-4s probably did more Air-to-Ground work than they did Air-to-Air in North Vietnam. (And in the South with no MiGs to contend with, it was all Air-to-Ground, other than BARCAP.) In fact on a typical Alpha Strike, each F-4 squadron would put up one section of MiG-CAP, and at least two sections of F-4 Bombers.

While Navy F-4s were very often used as Flak-Suppressors just before or during an Air Strike, they would not do it by "strafing runs" ... since they did not have a gun. The preferred ordinance for SAM/AAA sites was Rockeyes. But they were expensive and became in short supply, so plain old Mk-82s were more often used.

Each Airwing had their own format for an Alpha Strike, and they varied a bit. Each CAG would determine ingress altitudes, formations, CAP stations, and composition of their respective strike groups.

Below is an image of one airwing's strike package. It is from some sharp and enterprising Brits who accurately developed a board game called DOWNTOWN. It is well worth a look to understand in detail how strikes were planned and conducted back then.

 

[Owen]

I enjoyed the presentation greatly today; wished it had gone
longer. I talked with Capt. Paganelli a bit afterwards and he
is a really nice guy. In answer to my question about when he
got his wings he replied, "5-5-55". I asked him where he was
during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He said he was flying F9Fs
out of Norfolk. Interesting guy - I'm goin to look him up and
do some more listening.

Next month is CPO Chuck Wheeler speaking on the Guadalcanal
campaign. Chuck was on CV-6 and has some great stories. I'll
be there for that one for sure.