davebender
1st Lieutenant
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.
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
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.
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.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.
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.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.
Peacetime safety restrictions are ignored during wartime.I can't remember how many times we had our assaults canceled because of inclement weather.
Peacetime safety restrictions are ignored during wartime.
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.
Peacetime safety restrictions are ignored during wartime.
Why would we conduct air assaults in Germany?
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.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?
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 - 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?