On 9 Apr 2006 19:36:26 -0700, "KDR" wrote:


Tex Houston wrote:
"KDR" wrote in message
oups.com...
As everybody here probably knows, USAF F-105 Thunderchiefs and USN A-4
Skyhawks bore the brunt of the Rolling Thunder campaign from 1965 to
1968 and suffered accordingly. The F-105 and A-4 losses over North
Vietnam were 282 and 173 respectively.

Now the harder part. What were their loss rates (losses/sorties) and
how they compare? What factors contributed to the difference?

Just figures like 282 and 173 do not a loss rate make. You need to take the
number of flight hours divided by the losses. One reason so many were lost
was that there were a LOT of them flying. During February 1969 I had about
120 F-105s on my flightline at Takhli.

Regards,

Tex Houston

Yes I know your point. So I asked "loss rates (losses/sorties)" in my
post.

Does anybody have each type's total sorties and flight hours?

I think Tex' point was that the A-4 operations off the boat were of
much shorter duration and generally coastal, while the F-105 missions
tended to be significantly longer. That skews your statistic of
loss/sortie. Loss per combat hour isn't that good a metric either, as
there is considerable flexibility in what a "combat" hour actually is.

I'm sure there are some sources of those numbers buried in the
archives, but it would be a task to dig them out. I just scanned Wayne
Thompson's excellent book, "To Hanoi and Back" which covers USAF
operations only. It's got a lot of numbers of aircraft, sorties,
tonnages, losses, etc., but not the flying hours.

Seems necessary to note here that Thompson reports a max of 108 F-105s
in theater during 1968 and 70 in 1969, so Tex might have been double
counting. During the summer of '66 when I was there, we had three
squadrons at Tahkli (3x18=54) and we started the summer with two
squardrons at Korat and then expanded to four (36 aircraft and then
72). During the six months I was there, we lost 101 F-105s between the
two wings. Replacements came in from Bitburg and Spangdahlem in
Germany which re-equipped with F-4s as well as from Seymour Johnson
and McConnell in the states.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com