(Kirk Stant) wrote:

Been there seen that! I did have one fight where my flight of
Phantoms (Chiefs out of S-J), with the help of a couple of Marine
Harriers out of Cherry Point, waxed a pair of Turkeys off some boat in
the Atlantic. Med alt head on setup, ROE was BVR but no Phoenix, we
ran in in tac spread (in mil power on our diesel J-79s) with a Harrier
tucked in tight on each Phantom. Just outside AIM-7 R-Max (I think),
we chaffed and did a 180 and dragged, smoking all the way, while the
Harriers split vertically to the bottom of the block. As planned, the
Turkeys glommed on to us and chased us, giving the Harriers
simultaneous, unobserved,low to high vertical conversions to Aim-9
kills followed by some guns tracking (Amazing how Marines love
shooting at the Navy). At this point we had pitched back, called the
Harriers off, and blazed in for a high speed F0X 1, FOX 2, Snap shot
to a separation. Poor Turkeys never got a shot off. God it was fun!


Great story. My comments--you can get away with that in training ACM,
but if it were for real you'd have to have "cojones al piedra" to pull
the trick. Assurance that your R-Max is the same for the bad guys
based pm intel takes a lot of confidence. Second, I'm surprised that a
Harrier can stay with a Phantom "in mil power on our diesel J-79s".
Third, I don't think I'd have the faith that my staunch Marine allies
would make the vertical conversion in a Harrier against a Tom in full
blow pursuit of the Phantoms. Finally, your pitch back, acquisition
and rapid FOXing shows a bit of befuddlement from the Nasal Radiators,
since they should have been face shooting you at the same rate.

All that said, it sounds like a bold plan well-executed. My own
experience in low-tech vs high-tech ACM often did the same thing--a
vertical rather than horizontal split of the element. Seems that young
aggressive warriors fixate on the first target and only sporadically
search for the second (despite the training artificiality of knowing
all the players). They search in sweep for the remainder, but seldom
scroll up and down to find the other threat.

I guess it reinforces what Dudley has already mentioned extensively
here--the training, experience and quality of the driver will often
compensate for the technology of the system.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (ret)
***"When Thunder Rolled:
*** An F-105 Pilot Over N. Vietnam"
*** from Smithsonian Books
ISBN: 1588341038