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