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

[NickM]

Originally Posted by Bill Walker

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.

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.