Best dogfight gun?

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 12:51:27 -0500, "Tony Volk"
wrote:

The reason that A/A loaded F-4s got more kills is more subtle. It has
to do with the politics of "ace-building" between the USN and USAF and
the mis-guided over-classification of TEABALL. See Michel's Clashes or
Thompson's "To Hanoi and Back".
Escorts didn't even get many shots as they were often used to provide
blocking or herding of MiGs to direct them to a kill zone where the
555th was being vectored on a discrete frequency to do the shooting.

Hi Ed. Interesting comments. Was it just the Wolfpack who practiced
herding Migs? (ironic, given their name!). "Wolfpack" (by Jerry Scutts)
lists the 433rd as getting just about as many kills as the Triple Nickel.
Were they part of the elite ace-building group too? The Wolfpack group
doesn't go into much detail about any herding tactics (IIRC), so I'd love to
hear more about them. And with the performance of a few key squadrons in GW
I (e.g., 58th), it seems that such tactics might again be the case. Are
there tactical advantages that justify committing aircraft to "herding"
duty, or is it primarily PR-related in trying to make an ace? Thanks,

Tony

Two different campaigns involved. The "Wolf Pack" was the 8th Wg at
Ubon, with most of the MiG kills coming under the leadership of Robin
Olds from December of '66 through the cessation of Rolling Thunder in
August of '68.

The kills for the Triple Nickel come during LB in '72. At that time
they were the focus of MiGCAP and got the latest goodies for the job,
including Combat Tree, AIM-7E2, AIM-9J, "Agile Eagle" i.e. TCTO-566
with LES and TISEO (although they didn't get to do much with these).
More importantly, the Nickel got packed with Fighter Weapons School
guys who were trained in A/A and tightly integrated with GCI
controllers. Add in the discrete frequencies, the special BVR ROE, the
TEABALL data, etc. and you've got a pretty potent package.

It's all a chess game and the "animals" being herded are cognitive, so
whether it's tactically sound or not will be determined by the
outcome. Clearly sweeps and pincers are pretty effective if you've got
good sensor data.