Ed, '40 feet' was qualifying. But the pod rockets were sorry compared
to tube-launched ones out of the F86D and the F102. Rockets fired from
the Dog and Deuce could hit about as good as strafing. Our target on
Zulu-shima off Okinawa was 3 oil drums filled with sand stacked
together. The Dog could hit the fool things. Also, firing on the rag,
you could see the rockets cut a cross in it. We only fired 6 at a
time, though. Fired the Deuce on Patricia Target about 40 miles west
of Key West. It was an old WW2 destroyer beached by the Marquesas
Keys. WE went down to Homestead for the Cuban Crisis. Once down there
someone realized we needed the rocket tubes wired up - they'd clipped
the leads when we got the GAR11/AIM26A (Fat Falcon). Once that was
done, some kind soul decided they needed to be tested. So we fired
each of our 20 Deuces twice on Pat Target - what? No practice rockets
available? Okay, use ones with live warheads. Now, a 2.75 FFAR is
equivalent to a 75mm HE round - when we got through, what had looked
like the bridge of a ship was now a pile of scrap from. 20x12x2=480
rockets. (12 a sortie because the innermost 6 tubes -2 RX per tube-
were lost because of the girth of the Gar11.) Last time I saw Pattie
Target was in 1980 - it was a rusted layer of iron we had to chase
fishermen off of to bomb it with the deadly BDU33s and Mk106s. Mel
Fisher's boat marked the entry to the nuke run-in while salving the
Atocha galleon.
Walt BJ