thedrifter
02-06-03, 01:28 PM
http://www.military.com/pics/vn1097HANOI_1l.jpg
A flight of three McDonnell-Douglas F-4J Phantoms of VMFA-333 trolls for MiGs. Known as "the Shamrock Squadron" for its tail markings, VMFA-333 was the first Marine F-4 unit to fly combat missions from an aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam. (J. M. Shotwell)
The SAMs and AAA were formidable enough, but adding air-to-air combat with MiG-21s made Hanoi raids especially harrowing.
By Colonel J.M. Shotwell, U.S. Marine Corps (ret.)
"Red One, this is Red Crown. Got a bandit at your six o'clock, two-two-nine at nine miles."
"Roger. Red Flight, let's go port."
Bud (Marine Captain John "Bud" Linder), my pilot in Red Two, slammed our McDonnell-Douglas F-4J Phantom jet into a tight left turn. I strained to find the North Vietnamese MiGs before they spotted us. That was unlikely; the Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, given the incongruous NATO code name "Fishbed," was not much larger than half the size of our F-4 Phantoms, was almost as fast -- capable of Mach 2 -- and much more maneuverable. Red Crown, the radar controller aboard USS England (CG22), a positive identification radar advisory zone (PIRAZ) ship in the Tonkin Gulf, monitored the MiGs for us that day, September 10, 1972.
Bandits Attacking
I was less worried about the MiGs than I was about their buddies on the ground. We were just over the suburbs of Hanoi (code-named "Bull's-eye"). An engagement with MiGs would place us directly over the greatest concentration of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) and surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries. In a dogfight we might be too busy trying to bag a MiG to dodge all the flak from below.
"Red One from Red Crown, bandits attacking. I repeat, bandits are attacking."
By the time we'd steadied our turn, my electronic countermeasures gear was lit up and buzzing like a pinball machine. That meant enemy fire control radar had painted our aircraft. "Red Flight from Crown. SAM launch, vicinity Bull's-eye."
A loud warble and a flashing red light told me that a SAM missile had indeed selected our aircraft as its target.
"Red Two's got a singer high," I said. I twisted my head as far as I could in the cramped rear cockpit and saw neither MiGs nor missiles.
Where Were The MiGs?
"Airburst!" said Bud over the intercom. A SAM detonated off our starboard wing. It could have been yards away or a mile. We felt no impact. The puffs of prickly flak we'd dodged since we took our station southwest of Hanoi were getting thicker. And closer. And where were the MiGs?
"Bogey dope, Red Crown," demanded L'il John (Captain John D. Cummings) from Red One, the lead aircraft of VMFA-333 flight, our Marine fighter-attack squadron.
"Red One, Red Crown. Bandits now at your two-two-eight at seven."
Million-Dollar Pistol Operator
L'il John, like myself, was a radar intercept officer (RIO). A RIO's job in a dogfight included operating radar to detect and track enemy aircraft, and helping his pilot, in the forward cockpit, to maneuver the fighter into a position where he can fire one of the Phantom's missiles.
The F-4J model, flown by Navy and Marine Corps squadrons, was akin to a multimillion-dollar pistol. Unlike the Air Force's F-4E Phantom, which had an internal 20mm cannon, the F-4J had a maximum of eight big bullets -- four Sparrows and four Sidewinders -- to expend on targets that could move at supersonic speed through three dimensions and shoot back. Close coordination between the tandem cockpits of the Phantoms was essential.
In an air engagement, a good RIO was worth his weight in fine Scotch. An incompetent RIO was just so much dead weight. L'il John was worth about 120 pounds of Chivas Regal. He was only 5 foot 4, but at age 39 the former enlisted Marine had the build and stamina of a high-school halfback. He'd already flown more than 500 combat missions in Vietnam.
Things Go Awry
"Red One from Red Crown. Bandits attacking again." I tried to find them on my radar, but it was useless in the glare of the afternoon sunlight. Normally I carried a rubber scope boot to shield the screen from the direct light, but I'd left the thing aboard the aircraft carrier when I'd detoured through the head on my way to the preflight briefing. Some guy was probably sitting there right then, wondering what that black rubber thing was hanging on the tissue roller. It was one of many things that would go awry on this mission.
Another occurred after "the Bear" -- the flight leader, Marine Major Lee T. Lasseter, L'il John's pilot and our squadron's executive officer -- called for tank jettison. Bud pulled a couple of Gs as he punched off our centerline external fuel tank to cut down on aerodynamic drag during the engagement. When he pushed the nose back over, everything that wasn't strapped down flew toward the top of my canopy. I'd left my flight bag open, and its contents -- maps, frequency cards, checklists, cookie crumbs -- floated like big snowflakes throughout the cockpit until a resumption of gravity brought them down, mostly to the floor and out of reach.
L'il John, far more focused than I, picked up the MiGs on his radar. "Gotta target high, gang. Let's go after 'em....
Ten left....Steady up....He's at nine miles. We're losing overtake. Gotta get some speed now."
The Bear lit his plane's afterburners, which gave the engines rocketlike thrust and a flaming exhaust. A split second later I felt the acceleration as Bud fired our afterburners. We were well into the supersonic envelope, hur-
tling through the air at more than 12 miles a minute.
Blown System And Tail Chase
L'il John lost sight of the MiGs when his AWG-10 radar died. The AWG-10 was not the most reliable system in the best of circumstances. The shock of locking onto an actual enemy target probably blew its transistors. But Red Crown monitored the intercept on his radar.
"This is Red Crown. Bandits on your one-niner-niner at eight."
"Roger, roger," answered L'il John.
"Bandits at two-oh-five at eight. Bandits headed southwest. Bandits now your two-oh-four at eight."
It was a tail chase, I realized. These guys weren't going to fight us. They were baiting us. We were over Hanoi headed inland. The farther in we went, the greater our chances of getting blown out of the sky or simply falling out of it because of fuel depletion.
Phantom Versus MiG
The Phantom is little more than two huge jet engines strapped together with a couple of stubby wings and a radar in the nose. Add two average-size guys strapped to the ejection seats, and an F-4 will tip the scales at about 20 tons. To propel a chunk of metal that heavy to twice the speed of sound or send it spiraling into the stratosphere takes two giant huffers -- the J-79-GE-10 jet engines, each capable of producing up to 17,900 pounds of thrust. They're incredibly powerful, but in a supersonic engagement those power plants could go through a tank of fuel in minutes. I'd heard tales of fighter crews who had downed MiGs only to flame out over the Hanoi Hilton. Hardly an even trade.
So far, no Marine Corps aircrew had shot down a MiG during the entire Vietnam War. The last Marine squadron had pulled out of the country several months before we arrived at Yankee Station, an operational area about 100 miles out to sea in the Gulf of Tonkin, on USS America. The only other Marine squadrons still in the fight were based at a desolate, dusty airfield at Nam Phong, Thailand, known to Marines as the Rose Garden -- something the Marine Corps didn't promise to prospective enlistees in a popular recruiting poster of the time.
Throughout the war, Marine F-4 units were relegated to close air support for troops on the ground. Naping (dropping napalm), strafing and low-level dive-bombing were vital to the grunts but gutter work for the proud Phantom, arguably the Free World's finest fighter jet at the time. Since VMFA-333 was the first Marine F-4 squadron to fly combat missions from an aircraft carrier, we were assigned the same missions as the Navy Phantoms: air to air, trolling for MiGs. We did some bombing over the South, but we were there mainly to protect the fleet and bombers. Most of the time, enemy aircraft stayed away, perhaps out of respect for the Phantom's lethality. Two months before America reached Yankee Station, Navy Lieutenant Randy Cunningham and his RIO, Lt. j.g. Willie Driscoll, had downed three MiGs in a single flight -- one had been flown by one of North Vietnam's top fighter pilots, the infamous Colonel Toon. With two previous MiG kills to their credit, Cunningham and Driscoll -- flying an F-4J from USS Constellation -- became the first and only Navy aces of the war. From then on, the North Vietnamese pilots gave wide berth to the sea-based Phantoms.
Missile At Seven O'Clock
On this particular mission we were assigned as the MiG CAP, the combat air patrol directed specifically against MiGs. In a Navy Alpha strike -- a coordinated attack involving all seven or eight squadrons aboard a single carrier -- the MiG CAP F-4s were sent in ahead of the bombers to stations surrounding the assigned target. We were there to ward off any enemy planes that might try to thwart the strike by hassling the slower attack aircraft. The MiG-21 presented the greatest threat to the strike force. The fastest and most sophisticated aircraft in North Vietnam's air force, the MiG-21 could pack up to four radar-guided air-to-air missiles and a twin-barreled 23mm gun.
continued....
A flight of three McDonnell-Douglas F-4J Phantoms of VMFA-333 trolls for MiGs. Known as "the Shamrock Squadron" for its tail markings, VMFA-333 was the first Marine F-4 unit to fly combat missions from an aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam. (J. M. Shotwell)
The SAMs and AAA were formidable enough, but adding air-to-air combat with MiG-21s made Hanoi raids especially harrowing.
By Colonel J.M. Shotwell, U.S. Marine Corps (ret.)
"Red One, this is Red Crown. Got a bandit at your six o'clock, two-two-nine at nine miles."
"Roger. Red Flight, let's go port."
Bud (Marine Captain John "Bud" Linder), my pilot in Red Two, slammed our McDonnell-Douglas F-4J Phantom jet into a tight left turn. I strained to find the North Vietnamese MiGs before they spotted us. That was unlikely; the Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, given the incongruous NATO code name "Fishbed," was not much larger than half the size of our F-4 Phantoms, was almost as fast -- capable of Mach 2 -- and much more maneuverable. Red Crown, the radar controller aboard USS England (CG22), a positive identification radar advisory zone (PIRAZ) ship in the Tonkin Gulf, monitored the MiGs for us that day, September 10, 1972.
Bandits Attacking
I was less worried about the MiGs than I was about their buddies on the ground. We were just over the suburbs of Hanoi (code-named "Bull's-eye"). An engagement with MiGs would place us directly over the greatest concentration of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) and surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries. In a dogfight we might be too busy trying to bag a MiG to dodge all the flak from below.
"Red One from Red Crown, bandits attacking. I repeat, bandits are attacking."
By the time we'd steadied our turn, my electronic countermeasures gear was lit up and buzzing like a pinball machine. That meant enemy fire control radar had painted our aircraft. "Red Flight from Crown. SAM launch, vicinity Bull's-eye."
A loud warble and a flashing red light told me that a SAM missile had indeed selected our aircraft as its target.
"Red Two's got a singer high," I said. I twisted my head as far as I could in the cramped rear cockpit and saw neither MiGs nor missiles.
Where Were The MiGs?
"Airburst!" said Bud over the intercom. A SAM detonated off our starboard wing. It could have been yards away or a mile. We felt no impact. The puffs of prickly flak we'd dodged since we took our station southwest of Hanoi were getting thicker. And closer. And where were the MiGs?
"Bogey dope, Red Crown," demanded L'il John (Captain John D. Cummings) from Red One, the lead aircraft of VMFA-333 flight, our Marine fighter-attack squadron.
"Red One, Red Crown. Bandits now at your two-two-eight at seven."
Million-Dollar Pistol Operator
L'il John, like myself, was a radar intercept officer (RIO). A RIO's job in a dogfight included operating radar to detect and track enemy aircraft, and helping his pilot, in the forward cockpit, to maneuver the fighter into a position where he can fire one of the Phantom's missiles.
The F-4J model, flown by Navy and Marine Corps squadrons, was akin to a multimillion-dollar pistol. Unlike the Air Force's F-4E Phantom, which had an internal 20mm cannon, the F-4J had a maximum of eight big bullets -- four Sparrows and four Sidewinders -- to expend on targets that could move at supersonic speed through three dimensions and shoot back. Close coordination between the tandem cockpits of the Phantoms was essential.
In an air engagement, a good RIO was worth his weight in fine Scotch. An incompetent RIO was just so much dead weight. L'il John was worth about 120 pounds of Chivas Regal. He was only 5 foot 4, but at age 39 the former enlisted Marine had the build and stamina of a high-school halfback. He'd already flown more than 500 combat missions in Vietnam.
Things Go Awry
"Red One from Red Crown. Bandits attacking again." I tried to find them on my radar, but it was useless in the glare of the afternoon sunlight. Normally I carried a rubber scope boot to shield the screen from the direct light, but I'd left the thing aboard the aircraft carrier when I'd detoured through the head on my way to the preflight briefing. Some guy was probably sitting there right then, wondering what that black rubber thing was hanging on the tissue roller. It was one of many things that would go awry on this mission.
Another occurred after "the Bear" -- the flight leader, Marine Major Lee T. Lasseter, L'il John's pilot and our squadron's executive officer -- called for tank jettison. Bud pulled a couple of Gs as he punched off our centerline external fuel tank to cut down on aerodynamic drag during the engagement. When he pushed the nose back over, everything that wasn't strapped down flew toward the top of my canopy. I'd left my flight bag open, and its contents -- maps, frequency cards, checklists, cookie crumbs -- floated like big snowflakes throughout the cockpit until a resumption of gravity brought them down, mostly to the floor and out of reach.
L'il John, far more focused than I, picked up the MiGs on his radar. "Gotta target high, gang. Let's go after 'em....
Ten left....Steady up....He's at nine miles. We're losing overtake. Gotta get some speed now."
The Bear lit his plane's afterburners, which gave the engines rocketlike thrust and a flaming exhaust. A split second later I felt the acceleration as Bud fired our afterburners. We were well into the supersonic envelope, hur-
tling through the air at more than 12 miles a minute.
Blown System And Tail Chase
L'il John lost sight of the MiGs when his AWG-10 radar died. The AWG-10 was not the most reliable system in the best of circumstances. The shock of locking onto an actual enemy target probably blew its transistors. But Red Crown monitored the intercept on his radar.
"This is Red Crown. Bandits on your one-niner-niner at eight."
"Roger, roger," answered L'il John.
"Bandits at two-oh-five at eight. Bandits headed southwest. Bandits now your two-oh-four at eight."
It was a tail chase, I realized. These guys weren't going to fight us. They were baiting us. We were over Hanoi headed inland. The farther in we went, the greater our chances of getting blown out of the sky or simply falling out of it because of fuel depletion.
Phantom Versus MiG
The Phantom is little more than two huge jet engines strapped together with a couple of stubby wings and a radar in the nose. Add two average-size guys strapped to the ejection seats, and an F-4 will tip the scales at about 20 tons. To propel a chunk of metal that heavy to twice the speed of sound or send it spiraling into the stratosphere takes two giant huffers -- the J-79-GE-10 jet engines, each capable of producing up to 17,900 pounds of thrust. They're incredibly powerful, but in a supersonic engagement those power plants could go through a tank of fuel in minutes. I'd heard tales of fighter crews who had downed MiGs only to flame out over the Hanoi Hilton. Hardly an even trade.
So far, no Marine Corps aircrew had shot down a MiG during the entire Vietnam War. The last Marine squadron had pulled out of the country several months before we arrived at Yankee Station, an operational area about 100 miles out to sea in the Gulf of Tonkin, on USS America. The only other Marine squadrons still in the fight were based at a desolate, dusty airfield at Nam Phong, Thailand, known to Marines as the Rose Garden -- something the Marine Corps didn't promise to prospective enlistees in a popular recruiting poster of the time.
Throughout the war, Marine F-4 units were relegated to close air support for troops on the ground. Naping (dropping napalm), strafing and low-level dive-bombing were vital to the grunts but gutter work for the proud Phantom, arguably the Free World's finest fighter jet at the time. Since VMFA-333 was the first Marine F-4 squadron to fly combat missions from an aircraft carrier, we were assigned the same missions as the Navy Phantoms: air to air, trolling for MiGs. We did some bombing over the South, but we were there mainly to protect the fleet and bombers. Most of the time, enemy aircraft stayed away, perhaps out of respect for the Phantom's lethality. Two months before America reached Yankee Station, Navy Lieutenant Randy Cunningham and his RIO, Lt. j.g. Willie Driscoll, had downed three MiGs in a single flight -- one had been flown by one of North Vietnam's top fighter pilots, the infamous Colonel Toon. With two previous MiG kills to their credit, Cunningham and Driscoll -- flying an F-4J from USS Constellation -- became the first and only Navy aces of the war. From then on, the North Vietnamese pilots gave wide berth to the sea-based Phantoms.
Missile At Seven O'Clock
On this particular mission we were assigned as the MiG CAP, the combat air patrol directed specifically against MiGs. In a Navy Alpha strike -- a coordinated attack involving all seven or eight squadrons aboard a single carrier -- the MiG CAP F-4s were sent in ahead of the bombers to stations surrounding the assigned target. We were there to ward off any enemy planes that might try to thwart the strike by hassling the slower attack aircraft. The MiG-21 presented the greatest threat to the strike force. The fastest and most sophisticated aircraft in North Vietnam's air force, the MiG-21 could pack up to four radar-guided air-to-air missiles and a twin-barreled 23mm gun.
continued....