A-10 vs Ju-87 (1 Viewer)

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Look on the bright side. MiGs will have a tough time intercepting A-10s during a blizzard. And you can pretty well forget optically guided AA guns.
 
Ground attack aircraft like the A-10 were not going to operate at altitude.

I don't know what kind of avionics packages the A-10 has or whether it is even all weather capable. I find it hard to believe that it would be able to operate at low altitudes during a typical German winter day.


The A-10 still is a pretty much visual plane. The Avionics of the A-10C allow for better navigation and targeting (via the targeting pod). Other than that its the same as the A-10A. There are other small upgrades here and there, but without the support of fighters and other aircraft, its on its own basically. But in weather that is around Germany, it will pretty much be grounded, due to all the cloud layers.
 
I think history is slowly showing us that there was no "Col. Toon." The guy Cunningham and Driscoll took on was either a Soviet or North Korean advisor/ instructor.
There was indeed no Col Toon. There was an NK contingent flying (MiG-17's) with the Vietnamese in the 1960's, and they suffered some losses to US a/c (there's a cemetary in Vietnam for them) but were long gone by 1972. Contrary to some 'war stories' by Soviet vets, there's no evidence any of them flew combat against American a/c. It's not what Soviet archives say, the same archives that have almost countless 1000's of pages of minutely detailed reports about Soviet Air Force combat ops in Korea.

We have to give the Vietnamese their due: they did pretty well in air combat given their equipment and circumstances, also helped of course by the stuff the US had done by the 1960's to blunt the big edge it had enjoyed in air combat, even over the Soviets, in Korea. Vietnamese MiG-21's had around a 1:1 real kill ratio, and even the MiG-17's ratio in Vietnam was better than the MiG-15's in Korea, even though the MiG-15 was a top of the line fighter in '50-53, the MiG-17 hardly so in '65-72.

The opponent of the USN fighters May 10 1972 was the VPAF 923rd Fighter Regiment. 2 MiG'17's were reported downed; Nguyen Van Tho survived ejecting, Nguyen Hang did not. Not only the VPAF official history (which Ivan Toperczer quotes in his books, though without crediting it) but also a then-secret Soviet GRU summary of the air war (since declassified, which I obtained) say the same thing. The USN claimed 7 MiG-17's, including 3 by Cunningham/Driscoll. In general US claims and Vietnamese losses were closer than that, but we know from every other air war that a claim of 7 and an actual loss of 2 could easily happen in a confused dogfight, though again as in almost every other air war we can't 100% conclusively prove that the Vietnamese didn't lose more than 2 MiG-17's: one can't prove negatives. But it's apparently what they reported to the Soviets in secret, and/or what Soviets representatives on site were able to determine at the time, not just what the Vietnamese publicly claim.

Joe
 
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in weather that is around Germany, it will pretty much be grounded, due to all the cloud layers.
I don't think so. If the Warsaw Pact attack during December NATO ground attack aircraft would be flying missions no matter how bad the weather.
 
I don't think so. If the Warsaw Pact attack during December NATO ground attack aircraft would be flying missions no matter how bad the weather.

I guess it would depend on what region your in also, if it is flat and small hills, yes I can see them still flying CAS missions. But if you start getting into mountain areas, it becomes too much of a hazard, no matter how good the pilot can see or how good is equipment is.
 
The stuff they have in cockpits now is pretty slick. The old steam gauges are out and it's all glass cockpit stuff. Newest stuff is just amazing. 3D representations in some cases (but I am not sure the Air Force uses it).
 
I don't think so. If the Warsaw Pact attack during December NATO ground attack aircraft would be flying missions no matter how bad the weather.

Doubt it, if you can't see the ground, how can you fly low level attack missions?

I can't remember how many times we had our assaults canceled because of inclement weather.
 
JoeB,

It's my understanding that the Vietnamese state that their total air to air loss to the Americans was 134. Does that Soviet GRU summary you mentioned give a total?
 
And no safety is not ignored. Losing an aircraft and crew to inclement weather is worse than losing them in combat. What did you achieve or gain?

I will second that, if safety was ignored somebody should have told the USAAF that during the Battle of the Bulge when they stayed grounded during bad weather. :rolleyes:
 
I will second that, if safety was ignored somebody should have told the USAAF that during the Battle of the Bulge when they stayed grounded during bad weather. :rolleyes:

I know from the records of Group histories that the weather over most of the fighter bases were basically zero-zero with heavy icing conditions. Even if thay could take off, a lot of guys would have been bailing out on the return.
 
American air force has admitted the incapability of A-10 to survive in a modern battlefield by the competition that held in mid 80s for a new CAS/BAI aircraft. The competitors were F/A-16 (a modified F16) and A7F Corsair II . The programme was terminated because of budjet limitations and standart F16 were to replace the A-10 . The 1991 performance of A10 showed that it still could offer some services against third world enemies of America and against guerilla fighters. Thats why it is still in service. However has something in common with Ju87 : As Eric Brown said for the Stuka "it needed fighter cover( and in case of A10 , also Wild Weasel aircraft) on its way to a target area as surely as a fish needs water"
 
JoeB,

It's my understanding that the Vietnamese state that their total air to air loss to the Americans was 134. Does that Soviet GRU summary you mentioned give a total?
No, the report is in the format of a combat diary date by date, so while I tend to think it's accurate for the specific actions it describes, it might not include all incidents (I haven't bothered to add it up). 134 as you probably know comes from the VPAF offcial history as quoted by Toperczer. This doesn't seem an obvious understatement, given that US claims were around 200 (he quotes 193, I count 213). That would be a plausible rate of overclaim, though apparently greater than the US rate in Korea. As usual I think it requires direct research in records to get fully comfortable w/ losses for particular AF's in particular wars, or to trust somebody who has done that. I don't know if it's possible to directly research in Vietnamese records; again AFAIK all books on this subject rely on the published official history of VPAF.

Joe
 
JoeB,

Thank you for the response. Yes, I got that figure from Toperczer. Boniface gives 148 to all causes. The problem, as you state, is that it doesn't seem that anyone has directly examined Vietnamese records. Even someone as sympathetic to the VPAF as Boniface seems to have relied primarily on individual interviews. I was hoping that the Soviets may have had better access.
 
Joe - I don't have access to my storage on VietNam - do the US credits strip out 'credits to WSO and pilot', etc, for F105 and F4 crews? - and concentrate strictly on a single aircraft downed?
 
Joe - I don't have access to my storage on VietNam - do the US credits strip out 'credits to WSO and pilot', etc, for F105 and F4 crews? - and concentrate strictly on a single aircraft downed?
I counted 213 by hand in the separate USAF and USN tables in Lou Drendel's "...And Kill MiG's". Each line of the table is a claimed/credited Vietnamese a/c destroyed, some by two seat a/c but not double counted for pilot and non-pilot. But like I said, Toperczer says the US total was 193, and other people on web forums have mentioned other numbers in a similar range. "MiG Killers of Yankee Station" is a newer and very detailed book (for USN side) and it expresses uncertainty over the true 'official' status of certain credits in the Navy's case, but the number also isn't greatly different than Drendel's table.

Joe
 

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