U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

I have been reading this book: Vietnam Air Losses: USAF, Navy, and Marine Corps Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in SE Asia 1961-1973 and the amount of U.S aircraft lost to small arms, .50/51" and 23/37mm is surprising to me.

Seems northern Laos had heavy concentrations of these weapons which mightily bothered U.S. aircraft. But I note the F-100 suffered heavy casualties in South Vietnam primarily to small arms and .50/51" machine gun fire. I guess single pintle mount for the latter.

Were jets from this era unusually vulnerable to small arms and light AA? Where the VC/NV that capable or was it poor tactics? I am guessing the South Vietnam and Laos losses were to optical sights and NV losses to radar directed.

I thought U.S. WW2 single/twin engine a/c could absorb more damage.


Here is the book I am reading:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/185...ls_o03_s00_i00

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

Felix C,
I don't think the losses were because of any inherent vulnerability of the aircraft. It was probably more the large number of sorties and the fact that most were at low level. The USAF alone flew some 5.25 million sorties during the war and the loss rate was about .4 per 1000, which was much better than the rate in WW2 or Korea.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

That and a little factoid I learned from reading Jack Broughton's 'Thud Ridge': 'more modern' jet aircraft had hydraulic & fuel systems placed for easy access by maintenance crews with very little thought to 'hardening' the systems--after all the attitude was 'anti aircraft fire(and dogfighting) was a thing of the past....so even minor damage could cause you to catch fire or to lose your control systems due to your 'vital fluids' draining out.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

NickM,
I stand corrected. Obviously Mr Broughton's opinion on this subject is more valuable than mine. Given that, the loss rate was quite low. Might it be that more sorties were flown in the south were the AAA threat was less than in the north?

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

Nick's statement is mentioned in the book I am reading regarding the F-105. Considerable structural strength offset by an unprotectected fuel/hydraulic system. If my memory is not faulty I believe self sealing tanks were not installed in jets of this era. I just read a bit and found the F100, F105 and early use F4s did not have selfsealing tanks.

I think we all know how well that worked our for the Japanese even when subjected to .30 caliber bullets.

I did not know so many sorties were flown. I did wonder why so many types during the Vietnam era were superceded for use in the conflict itself if their performance was satisfactory. F105s replaced by F4s. F100 relegated to areas outside North Vietnam. Same with the B-57. A1 by the A7 in the navy and only in North Vietnam for SAR otherwise it was Laos or South Vietnam.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

Many of the replacements came about because of the length of the war, plus the fact that the older aircraft (A-1, F-100, F-105) were out of production. Losses in SEA, plus training losses elsewhere, just used up the fleets to the point where large populations were hard to support.

I can't quote numbers or a source, but I also remember reading that the A-1 had one of the highest loss rates per sortie in SEA. Single engine, plus low speed.

To me, the really amazing numbers are the helicopter losses. The US Army lost nearly 5,000 helicopters in SEA, mostly Bells.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

And early choppers were definitely more vulnerable to ground fire & light & medium automatic weapons--I'm not even mentioning 12.7mm/14.5mm/23mm. I wonder how many were not total losses: IE: have to crash-land due to having their hydraulics shot out but then recovered & repaired.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

I have to add that light AA guns (12.7mm/14.5mm/23mm/37mm) have always been effective on low flying aircraft-even fast movers...in RE: to Laos airstrikes had to often come in low to search for targets on 'The Trail'--and it was sometimes pretty easy to set up 'flak traps'.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

My understanding is that many repairable helicopters were destroyed at the crash site because of the difficulty in recovering aircraft when there were no clear "front lines".

Also, it would be interesting to find out how many were actually shot down, and how many were lost in bungled high temperature arrivals or departures at unprepared sites. That remains a leading cause of helicopter crashes today, even when nobody is shooting at you.

And a similar question for the fixed wing types: how many losses were really shot down, and how many were landing and takeoff accidents at relatively short and hot fields? RAF single engine fighter training losses roughly equalled combat losses for most of WW2.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

Bill Walker,
Everywhere I looked there were slightly different numbers, but some good numbers would be 1737 losses to hostile fire and 514 operational for the USAF.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

One has to look carefully at the various missions before drawing conclusions about vulnearbilty to AAA. The Thuds were dominantly in RP6 with arguably the most intensly concentrated AAA (small arms up to 23mm plus mostly radar tracking 37, 57 and 125 mm) and Sam's, as well as MiG's - all coordinated by BARLOCK radar system. The BARLOCK and gun laying and Fan Song Radar nets around the Sam sites created a hellacious interlocking defense capability.

The introduction of Weasels had a dramatic effect on both loss rates and target bombing effectiveness. The fast movers in the South (F-100's, some A4's, some F-4's) were subjected to lesser AAA (and less sophisticated) than around Hanoi.

Steve was right about the overall per sortie loss rates but the preponderance of the high percentage losses were F-105s before the Weasels came to play in 1967.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

If I remember right there was a TV programme in which a vet. said that low level attacks were often made on targets in valleys such as bridges with a narrow approach. He said everybody who had any weapon was just told to fire upwards at attacking aircraft which had to fly through this barrage accounting for many losses.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

Another aspect of the tactical environment that I've noticed in my reading is that, in the south, pilots would make up to five passes on a target. That sort of thing was foolish in WW2 but common in Vietnam. Still, the loss rate per sortie was much lower than in WW2 or Korea.

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

IIRC Republic had put some hardening or fire suppression system in F-105 but because USAF wanted to cut down the unit price they were dropped out during production. Not the first or last time when peace time economics became very costly during wartime.

Juha

Re: U.S. aircraft in Vietnam appear to have been extremely vulnerable to AAA
 

Remember, also that the F-105 was designed as a tactical nuclear bomber, not a sustained iron bombing machine, hence infrastructure systems for a different concept.

The A-1 was designed in WWII as a tactical support machine and soldiered on long after it should have.

The F-4, in spite of upgrade attempts was designed as a Navy fleet intercepter for Soviet bombers, not a tactical bomber or even a dogfighter.

Mr. Johnson's war forced many planes into roles they were never conceived for or designed for. US pilots did an incredible job making them work, anyway.