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Interesting Air Superiority article
- Thread starter ea6bflyr
- Start date
Navy and Air Force operated in two entirely different universes. You are right about the AF ingress. Operation BOLO was early in the War and the Air Force did finally modify their tactics later after losing a lot of men.
Experience level differences were amazing! Air Force guys had one tour and were done. We had Navy guys on their 4th, or 5th combat cruise leading our strikes. They were good! Some Air Force guys came from the transport community to get their check in the box and didn't know what they were doing, even if they were senior. Our guys were strictly fighter/attack. (Except one who later got sent home.)
I remember our SAR fished an AF F-4 crew out of the water after they ran out of gas. I was told the two pilots only had 400 total time combined, and very little of it in the F-4. By the time of my 1st cruise I had 300 from the training command, 100 hours in the F-4 RAG, maybe another 100 during workups for 500 hours TT, 200 in the Fox-Four.
Of course the B-52 Christmas raids run by generals at Offut AFB in Omaha probably capped the stupidity. They nearly had a mass mutiny at the O'Club in Guam after the 3rd night, until they change tactics.
The Navy and Marines did us proud. The Air Force did not.
I will ask the question as I have not studied the Vietnam War nearly as much as other conflicts. How many of these targets that we sent aircraft after could have been handled without loss, and at far less cost, by the Iowa class? (I remember the New Jersey was activated for a spell in 1969.)
This is a very interesting discussion, for a ship guy. I think we should take a very hard look at out Link filters. If we could all be a little more brave with how we operate our systems, I think there is a lot resident capability we could offer each other (USN TACAIR, E2, AEGIS, USAF). Not much else to be said in the clear about this.
Good question. Answer, very few.
Battleships and our other surface combatants did a great and heroic job running on the gun line, shelling North Vietnam coastal gun emplacements, and some even took some serious hits doing so.
However, the battleships' 16"/50 caliber Mark & guns had 'only' a 24 mile range. Hanoi and most other targets were 3-times that distance from the coast. Given their need to stay well off the coast, all they could do was shell coastal batteries.
Thanks for the info - any idea how far off the coast they had to stay? Also, I followed your link and saw the following:
4) In the spring or summer of 1967 when USS New Jersey (BB-62) was being activated for Vietnam, Indian Head Naval Ordnance Station proposed taking 23,000 non-nuclear 280 mm (11") shells left over from the Army's "atomic cannon" program and converting them via a sabot and obturator to be used in 16" (40.6 cm) guns. This was apparently a part of or in conjunction with the "Gunfighter" program for developing Long Range Bombardment Ammunition (LRBA) projectiles. Test shots were fired in 1968 and 1969 at Yuma and at Barbados, with the latter location using two 16"/45 (40.6) cm guns welded end-to-end and achieving ranges out to 83,850 yards (76,670 m) with a 745 lbs. (338 kg) shell fired at a muzzle velocity of 4,550 fps (1,387 mps). The program was apparently halted when New Jersey was decommissioned in 1969. An image of the disassembled saboted round is on the additional pictures page.
That would have been interesting.
4) In the spring or summer of 1967 when USS New Jersey (BB-62) was being activated for Vietnam, Indian Head Naval Ordnance Station proposed taking 23,000 non-nuclear 280 mm (11") shells left over from the Army's "atomic cannon" program and converting them via a sabot and obturator to be used in 16" (40.6 cm) guns. This was apparently a part of or in conjunction with the "Gunfighter" program for developing Long Range Bombardment Ammunition (LRBA) projectiles. Test shots were fired in 1968 and 1969 at Yuma and at Barbados, with the latter location using two 16"/45 (40.6) cm guns welded end-to-end and achieving ranges out to 83,850 yards (76,670 m) with a 745 lbs. (338 kg) shell fired at a muzzle velocity of 4,550 fps (1,387 mps). The program was apparently halted when New Jersey was decommissioned in 1969. An image of the disassembled saboted round is on the additional pictures page.
That would have been interesting.
I wouldn't say link filters, per se, I'd say overall network architecture and NPG assignments. P-8 for example is being horribly underutilized in this case.
There's a lot of resident potential today between -18C/D/E/F/G, E-2, and the ships that isn't utilized purely due to filers; there are pretty decent reasons for the current set up, but it's a TTP that may bear re-visiting. Just pulling J3 series data could make a big difference.
I don't know too much about the P-8, but I sure you're right on; I'd throw EP-3, BAMS-D, and a few others on that list as well of platforms that, with fix to NPGs or a (relatively) cheap hardware install, would bring a lot more to the fight.
Although not battleship sailors, here are some black-shoe responses yesterday from guys who were on the gun line of North Vietnam, when I asked how close to shore they got.
- Depends on how far inland you want the shells to land.
- Well within the 5 fathom line at times.
- BB's would have stood off even more than DD's or DDG's, but they had the range to do so. Most all ships only needed 20 feet of water under the keel to b comfortable.
- The Lind DD703 operated so close on one fire mission that we were sucking in sand, the snipes were not happy about that at all.
- Inside countless enemy harbors on the NEWPORT NEWS. Laying waste on the harbor with our 25 heavy guns. On one of the ship's deployments the NN ran aground on purpose so it's 8 inch rifles could hit as deep inland as possible.
- On our first two trips in '67-'68 & '68-'69 on several occasions we churned up muddy water with our screws while firing
- We (USS Widgeon MSC-208) Called in GFS from USS New Jersey, heard the shells overhead and never saw the ship. We were about 100 yds off the beach.
- 300 yards, at times. We could clearly identify individual people on the beach. USS Bausell DD 845, 66-67
- I remember one occasion where we dropped the load and lost the gyro control for the guns.....two 5" rounds intended for 7 miles inland, fell right in the surf. The Vietnamese doods on the beach scattered QUICK. LMAO
Great book about the Christmas Hanoi raids:
The Eleven Days of Christmas: America's Last Vietnam Battle
Especially good in that the author also interviewed several NVA air-defense guys and got their take on what happened. One of the more interesting, and ironic, points he raised was that the authoritarian Commies would hold nightly lessons-learned meetings where anyone, down to individual battery commanders, was free to offer critiques and suggestions for improvement, while SAC tolerated absolutely no deviation from any tactics or procedures - even when they'd been demonstrated not to work.
Like you said we can't really delve into Raptor tactics here, but I totally disagree with you. The fact that the premier US air superiority fighter can't utilize the 9X is a huge oversight. It is an incredible missile, made even more so with propper helmet cueing. Its like a great MMA fighter with no wrestling or jui jitsu skill. "But he will never be employed that way" you say. "He will win every fight standing up before it gets to the ground."
This is different than the traditional "requirements creep" that occurs in much of DOD acquisitions. If we were talking about a submarine hunting capability for the F-22, then I would agree that is stupid. But we are talking about something that is totally in the F-22's wheelhouse. Being "super maneuverable" doesn't change the fact that they should have the best IR missile the USA makes, and the ability to fully utilize that missile. Hopefully some technology spillover effects from the JSF will make their way to the Raptor.
This is different than the traditional "requirements creep" that occurs in much of DOD acquisitions. If we were talking about a submarine hunting capability for the F-22, then I would agree that is stupid. But we are talking about something that is totally in the F-22's wheelhouse. Being "super maneuverable" doesn't change the fact that they should have the best IR missile the USA makes, and the ability to fully utilize that missile. Hopefully some technology spillover effects from the JSF will make their way to the Raptor.
I have to agree with those saying this discussion is stupid and pointless at the unclass level. You can talk CAS and most other A/S missions pretty effectively there, but for any big-picture A/A analysis, even the secret level is almost useless. And even if there is plenty of data out there about various shootdowns, I can guarantee you anything relevant to more than history books is incomplete at best, if not outright deliberate misinformation.
The historical discussion is interesting and valuable, but trying to effectively talk modern air-to-air here is a waste of time in my opinion.
The historical discussion is interesting and valuable, but trying to effectively talk modern air-to-air here is a waste of time in my opinion.
There's more? I just keep scanning for another post from Catmando - that's good stuff!