mig kills in vietnam

“Both RIOs seemed to obtain contact at the same time. After operations in the North resumed in 1972, half of the USAF victories were achieved by guns. As for the VPAF, the MiG-17 was basically a gun platform. Faced with this reality, VF-21 aircrews spent time thinking about tactics during the long Pacific transit. Inspired by a Navy ROTC instructor, he was soon hooked and longed to fly the Navy jets he saw at airshows and in magazines. Midway’s crew knew they were sailing for a combat zone as they left San Francisco Bay on March 6, 1965. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. The Air Force’s 26 MiG kills between August 1972 and the withdrawal of all U.S. forces in January 1973 are slightly more than the number of victories the Navy achieved in all of 1972 (25 kills) and nearly half as many as the Navy record over the entire war (56 kills). The legend was embellished with the supposition that on May 10, 1972, Randy Cunningham­—on the mission in which he became an ace—shot down Colonel Toon. They were, after all, flying the sophisticated and expensive F-4. In 1967, a gun pod mounted on a pylon was provided for the F-4D but the problem was not completely resolved until the first F-4Es with built-in guns arrived in Southeast Asia in November 1968, just as the bombing halt over North Vietnam went into effect. They were Midway–based A-1s at that. The MiG-19, manufactured in China, did not appear until the last part of the war. This aircraft is attributed to a pilot named “Major Pham Tuan” and credited with several kills including a B-52 on December 26, 1972 during the Linebacker II strategic bombing campaign. At that time, radar intercept officers (RIOs) were members of the naval aviation observer community, the current designation—naval flight officer—being introduced in 1966. The image of a North Vietnamese MiG-21 as viewed through the lens of a USAF gun camera during a dogfight. This kill took place before VF-21 got their MIGs. Richard Ritchie, and SSgt. U.S. officials say they lost 245 aircraft in air-to-air combat during the war. North Vietnam recognized 16 VPAF aces. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…, Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon are negotiating the next three lots of F-35 production, expecting a contract by the end of the fiscal year, the Joint Program Office reported. Navy airmen, flying off carriers in the Tonkin Gulf, entered Vietnam with their backs to the sea and the MiG threat in front of them. “The MiG-21s were operated under tight ground control,” said historian Boyne. by propeller-driven A-1 Skyraiders of Attack Squadron 25 (VA-25). Launch range was about three miles. The engagement then became a short-range maneuvering encounter, which further compounded the problem of accurate missile launch.”, Col. Robin Olds (third from left) celebrates completing the famous MiG sweep, Operation Bolo, with airmen at Ubon AB, Thailand. Most of the fighter pilots who flew into North Vietnam never engaged a MiG. James Lynne, Lt. Clint Johnson, and Lt. Charles Hartman, were launched from the USS Midway on a ResCAP mission over North Vietnam. Air Wing 2 squadrons resumed their strike, reconnaissance and combat air patrols. Soviet-designed aircraft were generally technologically equal to their American counterparts. Colonel Ferguson’s F-4D that he flew back to Kunsan AB, Korea, in October 1972 when the 35 TFS RTBd. Their wingman did not see any parachutes and no beepers were heard (ejection seats have small radios that transmit upon ejection), so the pair was declared killed in action. MiG Killers: A Chronology of U.S. Air Victories in Vietnam 1965-1973 tells the dramatic story of U.S. Air Force and Navy flight crews who battled the Soviet-built enemy MiGs in the war-torn skies over Southeast Asia. Training became more intense. You’ll have to wait. The imagined Colonel Toon was traced in part to confusion by signals intelligence operators listening to North Vietnamese radio communications. Naval aviation had been bloodied, with dozens of aircraft damaged or destroyed in combat and several aircrews lost or taken prisoner. A few days later, on April 9, Navy F-4 crews from VF-96 engaged Chinese Shenyang J-5s (license-built MiG-17s) near Hainan Island. “Fighter design priorities emphasized the nuclear delivery and interceptor missions,” Jim Cunningham said in an analysis for Air & Space Power Journal. Relatively recently it has been determined that U.S. Air Force North American F-100D Super Sabre pilot Captain Donald Kilgus “probably” got a gun kill on a MiG-17 on April 4, 1965, during one of the first aerial engage­ments of the war. Of that total, about 10,600 were still on duty as of the evening of Jan. 21, NGB wrote in a…. Gen. John E. Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint…, The Senate on Jan. 21 confirmed Lloyd Austin to become the nation’s first Black Defense Secretary, one day after approving a waiver allowing him to lead the Pentagon just about five years after retiring from Active Duty. 2 officer said Jan. 22. This led to the “pull up!” call. Humphrey Bogart, U.S. film actor (The African Queen, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon). In fact, they inflicted significant damage on only one of them. A number of Air Force aircrews credited Red Crown with vital assistance to them as well. USN F-4 Phantom II vs VPAF MiG-17/19: Vietnam 1965-73. This fighter aircraft, flown by various pilots, was credited for 14 kills during the Vietnam War. The trick was inducing them to engage at all, if the F-4s were ready and configured to fight. “I was busy flying,” he said. Two years later the North Vietnamese released a list of POWs and both Doremus and Franke were on it, a huge relief to their squadron mates. The MiGs could also escape over the border into China. Having tracked the aircraft from time of takeoff, Teaball could determine when they were low on fuel. Batson recalled that they orbited at an altitude of 10,000 feet “to provide look-up for the radar” and airspeed of 300 knots “for fuel considerations.” While they patrolled, the RIOs saw bandits on their radars, 50 nautical miles away over Hanoi—not a factor. Fly the dot. When the air war resumed in 1972 after the bombing halt, the VPAF MiG total was up to 206, an all-time high. A photo shows the crews holding squadron coffee mugs while discussing the flight. His third book, Tomcat RIO, will be published in August. More air-to-air losses were allegedly attributed to surface-to-air … “I felt very comfortable, it was an amazing feeling.” His 800-plus flight hours in the F-4 doubtless contributed to his confidence, an important factor as the converging aircraft covered the 10-mile separation in less than 40 seconds. As for the Phantom, it was nothing less than a sensation when introduced, setting world records for speed and climb rate. John T. Correll was editor in chief of Air Force Magazine for 18 years and is a frequent contributor. They followed Thud ingress routes, and their radio calls simulated Thuds. As for the VF-21 engagement on June 17, author O’Connor writes: “In 1997 declassified documents confirmed that a third MiG had fallen,” and it was credited to Batson/Doremus. “MiG killing was not our objective,” said Maj. Gen. Alton D. Slay, deputy chief of staff for operations at 7th Air Force. Austin, who retired in 2016 as the four-star commander of U.S. Central Command…, The Biden administration is reportedly tapping Stefanie Tompkins to run the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, spurring the third leadership change at the secretive Pentagon organization since January 2020. (U.S. Navy via Batson), The shipboard celebrations were short-lived, however, as the crews were told to grab clean uniforms and get back in their same jets to fly to Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon for the daily press briefing, the “five o’clock follies.” They were met by public information officers from all services and noticed that the Air Force PIO seemed unhappy. When the engagement was straight forward, the MiGs seldom won. The Air Force did not have anything comparable until its Red Flag program began in 1975. “They typically sought to stalk American formations from the rear, firing a missile and then disengaging.”. The North Vietnamese believed, erroneously, that they had destroyed two of the Crusaders. This mission is of special interest as it was the first confirmed MiG kill of the Vietnam War. Batson graduated from Brown University in 1961 and was commissioned as an ensign through NROTC, entering Navy flight training on July 3. Batson and Doremus turned out to be a good match: The pilot said he still talks to his former RIO every week, 55 years after their aerial showdown. Mig Kills; Bombing Missions; Shot Down in Combat; Robin Olds, the Fighter Pilot’s Fighter Pilot; Ejections; Rescues; POWs; Fallen Heros; Red River Valley River Rats ; F-105s; Videos. The F-105 packed a fast-shooting 20 mm cannon, but early models of the F-4 did not have a gun. “MiG pilots only attacked under ideal circumstances, such as when USAF aircraft were bomb-laden, low on fuel, or damaged,” an Air Force statement said. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. As explained by Wayne Mutza in his book The A-1 Skyraider in Vietnam, by late 1966, North Vietnam’s air defenses had intensified to the extent that losses during air strikes were inevitable. The Air Force had a Vietnam … Batson was ready. It was no surprise that F-4 training squadrons emphasized radar intercepts at the expense of dogfighting. Photo: Vietnamese News Agency. Destruction of enemy aircraft was, for both, a secondary objective. The naval aviators were acutely aware that most of the airplanes flying over North Vietnam were American, and they needed to adhere to the VID requirement before shooting. U.S. Air Force pilots encountered four primary Soviet combat aircraft over North Vietnam: the MiG-15, MiG-17, MiG-19, and MiG-21. VPAF MiG-17 and MiG-21 Aces of the Vietnam War HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. The pair suffered in captivity for 7½ years, and were finally released in 1973. George O. Guss (deceased in 1992). Rule number one was you could not shoot somebody unless he displayed hostile intent. NE102 was carrying two Sparrows on belly stations and one on the right wing. 1 2 3. Batson said the Sparrow was their “primary missile because the AIM-9B Sidewinder could only track a target in a 3G turn and had to be fired from a limited cone around the target’s tail.”. The number in parentheses indicates the kills confirmed by US sources; they could be increased in the future. Don Kilgus aboard F-100D 55-2894. Their flight lead would be Page and Smith in NE101, which bore the names of VF-21 commanding officer Commander Bill Franke and his RIO, Lt. Momyer rated it “a very poor plane in a dogfight,” but it managed to bring down more than two dozen MiGs. Wiki User Answered . Carrier Air Wing 2 on Midway suffered its share of losses. One of the enduring legends of the war was “Colonel Toon,” supposedly the greatest of all North Vietnam’s MiG pilots with 13 small red victory stars on the fuselage of his airplane, signifying US fighters shot down. Air Force Magazine is the official publication of the Air Force Association, 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, Va., 22209-1198. VF-21 got the 1st to MiG Kills of the Vietnam War! “I experienced the clock slowing down,” he said. In accumulating his credits, he flew combat missions from 1967 to 1969. Author Michael O’Connor describes the incident in MiG Killers of Yankee Station, highlighting the confusion and frustration surrounding the engagement and debrief. Smith was a former pilot who had switched seats and excelled as an RIO. (U.S. Air Force). Top Answer. Ernie Kovacs, U.S. comedian and television personality. Whether airborne or on alert, Rob Doremus was in his backseat almost every time. At the optimum range, when the circle was biggest, Batson squeezed the trigger. “When we got the brief we were aghast. Thus, it came as a surprise on April 3, 1965, when a pair of MiG-17s pounced on a US Navy strike flight south of Hanoi and raked the F-8E Crusader fighter-bombers with 23 mm cannon fire. Though the missile was 12 feet long and weighed 400 pounds, he didn’t see the launch. The single-engine MiGs were half the size of the F-4 and more agile. Click here or on the image above to view Air Force Magazine’s full-size infographic as a PDF. In Vietnam, his 339 missions, 800 combat hours, totaling over 4,000 hours in the air, resulted in his receiving nearly every award the Air Force offers. Batson checked his instruments and radioed Page that he was below bingo fuel (the amount required to return to the carrier). The first Air Force victories did not occur until July 10, when F-4Cs, flying from Ubon Air Base in Thailand, shot down two MiG-17s. U.S. Navy Mig Killers: June 1965 – January 1973 DATE: ENEMY AIRCRAFT: AIRCRAFT AND UNIT: NAME AND RANK: Jun 17, 1965 Mig-17 F4-B, VF-21, CVW-2, CVA-41 Cdr. The North Vietnamese fighter fleet stood at 40, of which only 12 were MiG-21s. By chance, Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze (left) was on hand to congratulate Commander Lou Page. MiG Killers will serve any reader-historian, aviation enthusiast, or fighter pilot-who wants a comprehensive summary of American MiG kills during the Vietnam War. The Vietnamese Peoples’ Air Force—as it was officially called—sent pilots to the Soviet Union and China for training in MiG fighters but had no jet aircraft of its own until February 1964, when the Soviets donated 36 MiG-15s and -17s to the VPAF. There were no MiG-19 aces. During the flight back to the ship, Batson was “in the moment, still flying,” but the Midway crewmen knew they had scored kills. Batson said the first time he saw a Phantom it was “an out-of-body experience. By order of Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, the only military goal of the air campaign was “to reduce the flow and/or increase the cost of infiltration of men and supplies from North Vietnam to South Vietnam.” Confrontation with MiGs was incidental to that. Defense One first reported Tompkins’s “pre-decisional” appointment to the post on Jan. 19. In World War II, hundreds of US airmen became aces, credited with five or more aerial victories. The main US air-to-air missiles were the radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow and the heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinder. He was a navigator, flying as a weapons system officer, in the back seat of the F-4. Although the war was instigated, directed, supplied, reinforced, and sustained from the North, US policy was that the outcome would be decided in the south. Asked by Wiki User. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. The leading US ace in Vietnam was Air Force Capt. Along the way, the F-4 lost its gun. Photo: USAF; Graphic: Mike Tsukamoto/staff, When the F-4 was designed and developed in the 1950s, US planners believed the era of the dogfighter was over. Batson revealed that they were filled with “medicinal” brandy. Its signal reached into the Red River delta as far as the airfields around Hanoi and directed intercepts of the MiGs. Though Rolling Thunder was new, the war had been gaining intensity in the eight months since the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. However, this kill is still a probable kill, likely of a Chinese MIG, which is why the caption says (probably) Ian Bevan April 10, 2019 at 7:48 am - Reply. (USN Photo) June 20, 1965 ~ A-1 Skyraider MiG Killers . Let me show you now, what kind of medals a true 'War Hero' receives.) A US Military Combat Jet Fires an Air to Air missile destroying a Vietnamese Mig During the Vietnam War. “The objective was to protect the strike force. “The underlying assumption was that nuclear weapons would make conventional wars obsolete and that as a result, air combat maneuvering (ACM) was dead, overtaken by the interception mission, which required supersonic speed, high technology sensors, and missile weaponry.”. Rob Doremus was shot down on August 24, 1965, while flying with VF-21 skipper Bill Franke. Even so, the small, quick-turning MiGs proved to be formidable opponents. From left: Batson, Page, Doremus and J.C. Smith recount details of the mission for an intelligence officer. “I don’t think anyone except two Korean War veteran pilots had even heard the term,” he said. The principal matchup was between the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II­—flown by the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marine Corps for bombing, combat air patrol, reconnaissance, and suppression of enemy air defenses—and North Vietnam’s MiG-17s and MiG-21s. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. Jack David Batson grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., and set his sights on flying. I saw his afterburners wink off, rendezvoused on him and we dove back to the area of the engagement.”. Photo: USAF, Despite the success of the Bolo operation, the Air Force did not conduct any more fighter sweeps. Controllers notified aircrews not only of the location of a MiG, but also whether it was a MiG-17, -19, or -21. On their MiG-killing mission of Jun. He thought it was a miss…until the MiG’s right wing came off. When Batson squeezed the trigger, the Sparrow on his wing roared to life and zoomed off its rail. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by Historynet LLC, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. Thanks. US pilots and aircraft were clearly superior, and they had an overwhelming advantage in numbers. Charles DeBellavue, Sgt. Lt. As they approached the merge, the lead MiG rolled left to come nose on, with his wingman in tight formation. During the 1975 Spring Offensive, the bombing of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, the only airstrike conducted by the VPAF, occurred on 28 April 1975, just two days before the Fall of Saigon. A North Vietnamese MiG-21, NATO codename “Fishbed”, at the military museum in Hanoi, Vietnam. This was a disadvantage in the subsonic, turning battles with MiGs where it was often awkward to employ missiles. However, the losses were soon replenished by the Soviets and the Chinese. Smith drove the intercept to give the Phantoms lateral separation, putting them about a mile east of the MiG-17s’ flight path. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. “The principal MiG mission was to interfere with bombing attacks, seeking to force the incoming F-4s and F-105s to jettison their bombs before getting on target, a strategy that took full advantage of the encumbrance of US rules of engagement and prevented the F-4s from mixing it up with the MiGs,” said Air Force historian Walter J. Boyne. The Navy cajoled him into first going to the training command as an instructor “for just one year.” When the year was up, Navy detailers, doubtless swamped by the war’s demands, doubled down on the training command orders, but Batson exercised his option to leave. Doremus intently monitored the radar steering cues: a circle that expanded and contracted based on factors such as speed and angles, and a dot that indicated where to fly. Oh my God, it was huge!” But he soon gained confidence in his mount and completed training, reporting to his operational squadron, the “Freelancers” of VF-21, in June 1963. The MiG-21s at Phuc Yen were deceived and rose up to meet them. The ultimate USAF model was the F-4E, introduced in 1968 and adding a 20 mm cannon to the existing armament of air-to-air missiles. A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The two Phantoms pressed north to establish their station. “There he was, right above me. By using this site, you agree to our use of cookies. Recommended reading: MiG Killers of Yankee Station, by Michael O’Connor, and US Navy F-4 Phantom II Units of the Viet­nam War 1964-68 and USN F-4 Phantom II vs VPAF MiG-17/19: Vietnam 1965-73, both by Peter E. Davies. The older MiG-15s were used only for training purposes. The syllabus was already crowded and many early pilots came from the McDonnell F-3 Demon, which lacked both power and agility. I did see an explosion, then I lit the afterburners and pulled up as we planned.”, Reorienting his brain to the next phase of the plan, Batson looked up to find his lead. Navy fighters, on the other hand, made almost all of their kills with the Sidewinder.”, The Navy kills, Momyer said, “were predominately MiG-17s and they were made in close-in engagements. Batson and Doremus continued to fly together, honing their crew coordination while building flight time and experience in the sophisticated jet. The crew later determined that the lead MiG, which Batson and Doremus were locked on, tried a wingover turn. The MiGs, try as they might and despite occasional periods of success—could not stop them. Click here! Dave Baranek was a Grumman F-14 Tomcat RIO and Topgun instructor. The MiG-21s at Phuc Yen were deceived and rose up to meet them. One event that stands out in Batson’s mind was the briefing on rules of engagement (ROE). The US Marine Corps also operated the Crusader, flying from airfields in South Vietnam. Batson was part of VF-21’s first deployment with the F-4, aboard the aircraft carrier Midway, departing Naval Air Station Ala­meda on November 8, 1963. The combination of MiGs, SAMs and guns was so effective that in 1966, the USAF loss rate in Route Pack Six, around Hanoi and Haiphong, was one aircraft per 40 sorties. Batson's flight leader Lou Page had already scored a hit during the June 17, 1965, encounter. The fraternity of Vietnam era fighter pilots who actually engaged a MiG in life or death aerial combat is very small and very elite. There they sighted the smoke trails from both missiles—a memorable image—and Smith saw one parachute. There were bright spots—pilots and RIOs who recognized the Phantom’s versatility and practiced dogfighting—but they were in the minority. However, they had better luck the next day. Their Phantom was doing more than 500 knots, having flown an intercept of more than 30 nautical miles, and now, in close, things were happening fast. Crossing the Pacific, the aviators on Midway increased their combat preparations. Kilgus scored his probable MiG Kill Capt Don Kilgus pursued a MiG-17 in a steep dive from 20,000 ft down to 7000 ft, firing several bursts from his 20 mm cannons and observing hits on the fighter’s right stabilator. Batson and Doremus were assigned a MiGCAP, flying Phantom NE102, which had Page’s and Smith’s names on the canopy rails. In April, the first dogfights took place. Working his radar, Smith saw two blips, meaning two targets in trail formation. As historian Wayne Thompson has noted, though, there was an “obvious correlation” between the beginning of Teaball operations in August 1972 and 7th Air Force’s “dramatically improved performance against MiGs. 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