Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 23:48:34 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

We didn't have the luxury of configuring specific jets for specific
missions other than with regard to the mission expendables themselves.
By that I mean a H/K F-4E during Linebacker was loaded with 4xCBU-52
on the inboard TERs (two on each), three fuel tanks, three AIM-7E-2,
and ONE ECM pod in the (usually) left forward missile well.

Yes, I know, but we're talking about the majority of F-4s, not just your H/K birds.
Loads varied depending on the unit and the tasking.

My point is that aircraft scheduled for Hunter/Killer and aircraft
scheduled for A/A escort, and aircraft that were scheduled as bomb
droppers all came out of the basic 27 aircraft that were available to
the 34th TFS--24 UE plus 3 attrition spares.

Be that as it may, Coe's a/c wound up with a pair of pods, and it's not the only one. I've
got another shot of a 34th bird (68-0498) with a pure A/G load: Mk.84s on the O/Bs, 2 CBUs
on each I/B, a C/L, pods in both forward wells, and NO AIM-7s. Both of the 34th TFS birds
I've mentioned, Coe's 0493 and 0498, have the long gun blast fairing (given the serials it
had to be a retrofit, as they weren't installed on the production line until 69-7261) and
formation strip lights, so these photos almost certainly date to the latter half of 1972.
I once asked Dweezil when they got the long fairings and striplights, and IIRR he thought
not before 1972 for the fairings; I don't remember what he said about the strip lights, but
it's clear from photos that neither was a universal fit in 1972, as numerous a/c lack them,
especially some of the TDY units like the squadrons from the 4th TFW. Do you remember if
both features were present (on at least some a/c) when you arrived in July?

I also have shots of A/A loaded 421st F-4Es (per the captions, after the move from DaNang
toTakhli) with the same 2 pod/2 AIM-7/4 AIM-9 as Coe's a/c.

Before 1 October '72, when the 469th was still around, the two
squadrons were equipped at 18 UE, so the frag drew from those 36
aircraft for whatever mission was required.

Judging by photo frequency, strikers and
strike escorts were often carrying a pair of ALQ-87s in the forward wells by that
time, if they weren't carrying a strike camera in place of one of the jammers.

Over the years there were a lot of different configurations. Some
places and times carried ECM on an inboard wing station. Some carried
two pods. Various models of pods were carried and, yes, strike cameras
were occasionally hung.

For instance, I've got a shot of Coe and Webb's 34th TFS F-4E waiting to tank P/S
after they'd gotten their MiG-21 on 5 Oct. 1972.

No, from another F-4, probably Coe's wingman. The photo appears in Squadron/Signal's
"and kill MiGs" by Lou Drendel, on page 34 of my second edition. The caption reads
"F-4E of DickCoe refueling on egress from North vietnam after kill. Note missing
AIM-7!"

While I'm normally careful about trusting captions as to details, in the background is
a KC-135 along with 3 F-4D strikers, all of which appear to be from the 25 TFS (FA),
one of which is on the boom. Coe's a/c, "JJ" 68-0493 is missing an AIM-7E-2 from the
aft left well, plus all the tanks, and is presumably waiting his turn on that or
another tanker. Oh, and Drendel's source for the photo is Coe himself, so I think in
this case we can trust that the date and details are correct;-) Coe himself says he
was tasked as the only spare flight lead "for three MiGCAP flights [Sic. Presumably he
means escort, as is clearer below] and two flights in support of the Wild Weasels. As
soon as I got on the Ground frequency, the leader of the last flight in support of the
bombers aborted. He told me to go ahead and take his flight."

Curiosity got the better of me, so I dug out Don Logan's excellent
photo anthology, "The 388th Tactical Fighter Wing" by Schiffer
Publishing. (As an aside, Don was shot down about three days before I
arrived at Korat in '72. I moved into his hootch room even before his
personal effects were packed up.)

What surprised me was the number of F-4E photos both ground and
in-flight in which aircraft had NO ECM pod. Even in photos indicating
that they were taken after the commencement of Linebacker operations
there is no evidence of a pod.

I've got a fair number of those too (always A/G birds, usually from the 1968-1971 period),
and I've always assumed that podless a/c were being sent to SVN or Laos. Presumably you had
a limited number of (working) pods, so a/c assignments and tasking would reflect that.
These a/c often have a KB-18 in the forward right AIM-7 well, and often no AIM-7s, which
again would indicate that they weren't being sent into areas with nothing but
manually-aimed AAA.

There is a brief account of the Coe/Webb victory, but no mention of
pod configuration nor of tank jettisoning. Apparently from that
account, he was vectored by Disco to the vicinity of a pair of MiG-21s
cruising along in route formation. He sliced down into their six
o'clock and got an auto-aq lock-on and fired one AIM-7 for his kill.
(So much for the dog-fighting....)

Well, sort of. Coe's account in "and kill MiGs" goes into a lot more detail. Coe says he
was at about M1.6 and estimates the MiGs were at about M1.1 when he shot, and Webb called a
break immediately after the shot, which caused another pair of MiG-21s to overshoot over
the top of him (these were probably the ones that had been called merged by Disco, and
which caused at least one of the strikers to jettison when the strike flight spotted
them). BTW, I believe this is the highest speed attained during a kill in Vietnam, and
very possibly the highest speed attained by a tactical a/c during a combat mission.

All the pictures of pods in Don's book show the pod carried in a
forward missile well--none on an inboard wing station (at least at
Korat at that time.) In none could I discern carrying two pods.

The 388th carried pods on the I/B prior to the introduction of the pod adapter for the
forward wells, at which point the 388th seems to change over completely to carriage in the
forward well(s). Judging by the dates in photo captions the adapter wasn't available much
before 1972, because I can't find photos of a/c from any of the wings carrying them there
prior to that.


They were tasked as strike
escort, and theyre carrying four AIM-9Es, plus two ALQ-87s forward and a single
AIM-7E-2 aft (they got the MiG with the other). Course, they had to sit there
and wait for the SAMs and MiGs to a greater extent than you did, plus they turned
the pods ON, so I imagine carrying a pair of them was a lot more valuable to them
than an extra (and unlikely to be used) AIM-7.

You are making a bad assumption here. A/A escort flights flew as
"out-riggers" on a set of bomb-droppers, usually three or four flights
of four. They went in with the bombers and out with the bombers.

H/K flights were "first-in/last-out", sweeping ahead of the strikers
and remaining in the area until the package was clear--and often
beyond that if fuel allowed to do visual armed recce for SAM sites.

We have no disagreement here, Ed. I wasn't referring to duration of time you spent in
Indian country, I was referring to the relative freedom to maneuver of the H/K (and
MiGCAP) flights compared to strikers, chaffers and escorts. The escorts were tied to
the chaffers and strikers, couldn't maneuver freely, and were usually on the edge of
the chaff corridor (as you said, outriggers) so the extra jamming power would come in
handy. As Coe says, he was tasked as spare flight lead for either strike or WW
escort, and his a/c is carrying a pair of pods.

I'm not enough of an electronic warfare guru to comment on whether
carrying a second pod would provide either additional jamming power or
broader frequency coverage. Clearly with a straight noise jammer the
advantage would be delayed burn-through, but by the time of the ALQ-87
and 101, there was at least as much deception output as noise (as
evidenced by the demise of the dreaded "pod roll-in" tactics.)

Checking Jenkins book on the F-105 confirmed my memory that the -87 didn't have deception
capability; that was the -101. He writes "Besides laying down a continuous jamming barrage,
the ALQ-87 also had a sweep modulator that could introduce random bursts of reinforcing
noise in a so-called pulse power option. The pod could simultaneously perform any two of
three functions: denying range and azimuth data to Fire Can; depriving Fan Song of range,
altitude and azimuth; and jamming the position beacon installed in the sustainer section of
the Guideline missile." so carrying a pair of them would certainly add to the
jammingpowerandcapability, even if each pod was able to cover the entire threat frequency
spectrum (I don't know if they could). Re the -101, he writes "This pod could perform
either deception or noise-barrage jamming, and was specifically intended for activities
such as Iron Hand [Guy: Also used for MiGCAP by the 432nd in 1972, for the same reason]
where formation flying wasn't feasible."

Hopefully Bob Payette or others with personal experience of the pods can comment/correct as
to band coverage. I've got various conflicting sources.

Since resolution pod formation depended on four-ship, there wouldn't
have been much benefit to a second pod on what was essentially an
autonomous two-ship formation.

See above.

snip

The Strike escorts seem to have
felt that they were primarily there as Atoll absorbers for the strikers, and
comments by COM 7th AF (or maybe it was CINCPACAF, I forget) at the time seem to
confirm that was the case.

Strike escort guys more commonly felt themselves used (abused?) as
"herders" to create a situation to turn the MiGs to a place where the
fair-haired boys of the 555th could get their shots. We didn't even
get to talk to Teaball.

Given the number of frequencies you guys had to monitor, I'd say that was a reasonable
decision. After all, presumably the escort guys needed to have one radio on the
strike (or chaffer, if that was a different frequency), monitor Guard, plus be able to
talk to Disco/Red Crown. MiGCAPs were free to engage and AFAIK didn't need tobe on
the strike frequency, so letting them talk directly to Teaball makes sense.

The F-4 add a "one and a half" UHF radio--meaning a transmit/receive
primary radio and a receive-only auxiliary channel (with a limited
number of pre-set channel choices.) Plus Guard channel, of course.

All strike flights after tanker drop-off were on strike primary
frequency--Weasels, escorts, bombers, chaffers, jammers, et. al. Disco
and Red Crown broadcast on Guard--never any need to talk to them, so
that's not a factor. Teaball could have simulcast MiG calls on strike
primary to let the guys being targetted know what was going on. They
could have let the players know what the MiGCAP was doing. There was
no need to talk back to Teaball since we weren't being vectored by
them, but to deny guys in the arena essential elements of situational
awareness is unconscionable.

The 8th tried using the aux. receiver during Bolo for MiG calls. From the summary of the
8th's now de-classified Operation Bolo report:

"The Aux. receiver was set up to receive the MiG warnings and other coded calls. However,
the west force received very few transmissions over the Aux. Receiver. The east force had
satisfactory Aux reception. This was the first time the Aux Receiver had been used for
this purpose. Post mission evaluation indicates that the Aux Receiver is too limited in
range to fulfill the requirement. The east force was much closer to the transmitting
source, therefore, the reception was adequate. The Aux Receiver was designed primarily as
a back-up recovery receiver and works off the ADF antenna. It does not have sufficient
range capability to be used for this purpose.

As for transmitting Teaball on strike primary, crews were already complaining about having
their ears blown off and being fed a lot of useless info that didn't apply to them by
BigEye/Disco/Red Crown on Guard; would it really make sense for Teaball to routinely step
on everyone else on strike primary for info that may only be of interest to the
free-ranging MiCAPs, thus potentially blocking a more time-sensitive transmission of
greater interest to the strikers?

Besides, Teaball appears to have been ballyhooed as much more effective than it was. Other
measures seem to have responsible for the improvements which were largely credited to
Teaball.

Guy