On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 22:36:54 +0000, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:

If your chosen tactic hauls sixty aircraft in rigid formation along a
predictable course and is vulnerable to a slashing attack by one or two
MiGs on a vulnerable element, then that's bad... unless it gets two
dozen strikers on-target and stops you losing half-a-dozen aircraft to
SAMs.

Break the image of B-17 "box" out of Linebacker stories. Pod roll-ins
were a tactic in late '67, but totally abandoned in Linebacker. Bomb
droppers flew in flights of four with independent target area tactics
and roll-ins.

Trouble is, all the guns you like won't stop #4 of one of the escort
sections getting an unseen Atoll up the tailpipe and won't help you
chase that MiG-21 down and kill him.

Think integrated force (albeit first modern generation). Escort
sections are supposed to be counter-air. We didn't have AWACS, but we
got situation update from a lot of outside-the-flight sources.


One other note: of the 21 MiG kills by the F-4E during Vietnam, five
were gun kills... pretty good for something so useless.

This aircraft has Sparrow and Sidewinder, and by the time the F-4E is
flying they're demonstrating performance (the Sidewinder was up to 50%
Pk in its AIM-9G form). Yet it's making a quarter of its kills with
guns? Where did that battery of AAMs go in those engagements?

In Linebacker the USAF was carrying AIM-9E and J. Never encountered a
"G". The F-4E only carried heaters when specifically tasked A/A. (We
did not yet have the shoulder mount for AIM-9 on inboard pylons.)
Given an A/A load in an E, the first weapon employed for most of us
would be AIM-9.