Dear NickM:
Quote:
Originally Posted by NickM
I was re-reading Marshall Michel's 'Clashes' my favorite book about the Air-to-Air War over North Vietnam & I came across an interesting entry RE: The NVAF...Michel noted that during 'Rolling Thunder' the NVAF scored many vics but nearly all were when the pilots either were in a 'neutral' position or they had been guided to a position of initial advantage by their ground control before they engaged; Michel did mention ONE vic where the NVAF pilot found himself in a disadvantageous position but was able to get the better of his attacker & shoot him down;
I was curious if anybody here might know this particular vic? Date of engagements & the pilots/planes in question;
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Perhaps I can answer your question. At least one such case is mentioned in Roger Boniface's book "Fighter Pilots of North Vietnam", pp.30, 31 and 32, Authors On Line Ltd 2005. The event occurred on 21 September 1966 and the involved MiG-17Fs pilots were Nguyen Van Bay, Vo Van Man and Huy Hoang (a fourth pilot, Huy Chao, had to abort because his jet developed engine troubles) of the 923rd FR. The Vietnamese fliers engaged a group of F-105s head-on, but Van Bay noticed that there were only two Thunderchiefs where was expected to find a large formation. Where were the remaining jets?
All of the sudden two more F-105D Thunderchiefs jumped the MiGs from behind, and Lt. Karl Richter (421st TFS) shot down the jet of the rookie Huy Hoang, who bailed out safe and sound [Note: Boniface in fact credits this kill to the other F-105 pilot who claimed that day, Fred Wilson of the 333rd TFS, but due to other American narratives of this engagement, I think in fact was Richter who bagged Huy].
And the things got worse for the two remaining MiG-17s, because a group of F-4C Phantoms of the "Wolfpack" joined the fray. I'll quote Boniface for what happened subsequently:
"A useful tip that had been picked up in previous engagements was that all American fighter aircraft gave out white puffs of smoke before a missile fired; this was the so called charging-up period. If a MiG pilot took evase action when a missile was being charged up, he stood a good chance of getting away before the missile left the rails of his adversary's launch bay.
Nguyen Van Bay recalls, 'I knew that they wanted to kill me so I was determined to bring one of them down with me.' The American F-4s and F-105s had been chasing the MiGs around for three minutes without success. Both MiGs tried to bring the fight to lower altitudes (less than 3,000 feet) as both Bay and Man felt their numerical inferiority could be countered by the shelter afforded by the Yen Tu mountain range nearby.
Nguyen Van Bay realized that the F-4s were lining up and firing at the MiGs in an orderly queue and before long they would be dead. At that moment he remembered that, when they had pounded rice in the fileds as children, any break in the rythm of the leader would cause everyone to lose their momnetum and stop pounding. 'This might work with the F-4s,' he thought.
An F-4 began to dive on Van Man (who was flying to Van Bay's left) and began to level off to fire his missiles; this was when an F-4 was most vulnerable because it had to keep level flight in order to fire a missile. At this moment, he told Van Man, 'Remember rice pounding, the Phantom is going to pound you, turn around when I give the signal', and Van Man immediately realized what Van Bay meant.
To take advantage of this 'Achilles heel' in the Phantom's defences. Van Man would have to wait a few seconds before the white puffs appeared and he turned to face his attacker. Just when the Phantom was about to fire, Van Bay warned Van Man, who quickly swung his MiG-17 around and fired a short burst into the nose of the Phantom, causing it to crash. The other Phantoms lost their rythm and ceased firing. [...]"
Vo Van Man was flying the MiG-17F "Red 3067" and the hunter who became prey was the F-4C BuNo 63-7642 of Richard G. Kellems and John W. Thomas (433rd TFS, 8th TFW) who were rescued. This combat has all the characteristics you're looking for: the VPAF fliers were ambushed, were in a disadvantegeous situation against overwhelming odds, but turned the wits.
I hope this answers your question.
Cheers,
Diego