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Somewhat related, my uncle was a “Phantom driver” (F4 Phantom II) in Vietnam. Flew a bunch of missions of varying types. So Top Gun comes out, and my mom point

Somewhat related, my uncle was a “Phantom driver” (F4 Phantom II) in Vietnam. Flew a bunch of missions of varying types. So Top Gun comes out, and my mom points out he had graduated Fighter Weapons School - my uncle is a real Top Gun! So I asked him for tales of dogfights, war stories. He had exactly one: “they’d send us out to fight some MiGs, and as soon as we got in range and turned our radar on to start shooting, they’d turn and run.” So not like the movies? “Nope.”

magicsmoke 6y ago
The article's description of submarine warfare is surprisingly similar to how modern air combat is supposed to play out, and parallels modern artillery's shoot and scoot philosophy as well. Hide, find, hit, and hide again.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Long gone are the days of the British soldiers taking a knee in formations to shoot their muskets. Essentially expecting to take turns with the enemy trading shots. Never did understand that mentality at all.
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    Well, that was when individual muskets were inaccurate and the coordination issues with commanding thousands of men using drums and flags meant a large mass of soldiers firing in sync could scare the opposing side into fleeing and allow calvary to mop up. And before that, you had knights with plate armor that could could shrug off most bladed weapons on a battlefield that would have destroyed peasant conscript without armor. Warfare's evolved from elite units that could tank almost anything you can throw at them, to using masses of men to soak up more damage than the opposing side, to using cover and squad tactics to evade machine gun fire, to trying to be so stealthy that the enemy can't even fire on you at all. This progression has resulted from modern technology making offense superior to defense in every way. Makes you wonder if there will be a technological progression in the future that begins to give defense an edge over offense.
    - smilespray 6y ago
      You're obviously right about this, but I still think of WW1 as "The Stupid War". In terms of defence gaining an edge over defense; I don't really think so. Offence is always cheaper. Think nukes.
      - jacobush 6y ago
        As long as M.A.D. holds, nukes is almost a defense. I fear the day they are used in anger.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      Defense vs Offense is the quintessential cat & mouse game. If the offense comes up with a new weapon, the defense is forced to come up with a counter. If the defense comes up with a better shield, offense comes up with a bigger bomb.
  - ip26 6y ago
    In the days before accurate rapid fire weapons, the key to victory was pumping out more lead per second than the other squad. The only way to do that was discipline, training, and keeping cool under fire.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    It was an innovative approach in the Napoleonic era. French units would form up in columns with the idea of punching through the line with conscripts. The British would spread out and deliver a much higher volume of fire, and do so very quickly.
    - GarvielLoken 6y ago
      Where do these unhistoric French bashing memes come from? Is it taught in school in US and UK? I swear to god Anglosaxons thinks that the English won the 100-year war. They would not form deep columns to punch through, only one nation used solid squares in that age and that was the Prussian army. The French would form battalion columns which are pairs of companys deployed individually in lines after each other. Most of the brittish vs column memes are from ambushes where naturally the ambushed part had not time to deploy to line. http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/infantry_tactics_4.htm http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/inf... " The Prussians formed their battalions (4 companies each) rather in closed columns than hollow squares. Their regulations issued in 1812 (Exercir Reglement fur die Infanterie) eliminated the hollow square in favour of a dense column formed from the Angriffscolonne." The french moved to contact in maneuver columns, Just Like Everybody Else Did As Well. The fact that you don't hear the brittish doing it is because they very seldom advanced at all in any battle. This is what we still do, we march manourver battalions in columns on roads and deploy mechanized forced out to a line once we are close to the enemy. " - however, if the enemy kept his cool and opened fire only at close range, the officers instead of tightening the column, they deployed it into line and opened fire. As soon as the enemy began wavering under the fire they charged with bayonets. In 1805 at Austerlitz, French columns advanced with great coolness and at slow pace. The Russian infantry fired at long range but the French continued their march until they were 100 paces away from the enemy. They halted and opened fire, then "formed in several lines" and rapidly moved forward. The enemy fled. Captain Bonnet described similar infantry attack at Borodino; after few minutes the Russian skirmishers arrived in good order a little to the left "... and a dense column to our right. I deploy my battalion and, without firing, march straight at the column. It recoils. When carrying out this movement we were so exposed to grapeshot from the guns in the village that I saw my battalion falling and being breached like a crenellated wall. But still we went on."" And by the way the nation which most frequently deployed "spread out" troops are, wait for it, the French! "Several companies or even battalions could be employed as skirmishers (tirailleurs en grande bande). The tiralleurs en grande bande acted in large numbers, stormed or defended a position, or turned the flank of the enemy. The large skirmish formations were usually supported by columns and artillery. At Friedland General Oudinot had deployed 2 full battalions as skirmishers into the Sortlack Wood. In 1814 at La Rothiere four French battalions were formed in skirmish order by La Giberie to anticipate any attack which might develop in the rear of the wood. The French on occasion deployed even entire divisions [!] in skirmish formations. (Nafziger - "Imperial Bayonets" 1996 p 111) In 1806 at Jena, the French 16th Light Infantry advanced left in front towards the woods: its third battalion advanced en tirailleurs (in skirmish order) towards the wood, the first and second battalion, marching still in column, went past the right of the woods and deployed into line in the plain at musket range from the Prussian battery." "The British well-drilled regulars were humiliated by American farmers, militia and Indians fighting in lose order. The american experience made a profound impact and resulted in tactical and organizational changes in the British army. But still the quality of the British skirmishers (except the 60th and 95th Regiment) was below their French counterparts. French General Foy wrote: "Several regiments of the line, such as the [British] 43rd, the 51st, the 52nd etc., are called light infantry regiments. These corps, as well as the light companies of the battalions, have nothing light about them but the name; for they are armed and with some slight change in the decorations, clothed like the rest of the infantry. It was considered that the English soldier did not possess sufficient intelligence and address to combine with the regular duty of the line the service of inspiration of the sharpshooter." A Royal Scots officer wrote after Waterloo, that the French skirmishers were better trained, and on the whole much more effective in this type of fighting than the British skirmishers. (Barbero - "The Battle" p 255) Moyle Sherer of the 34th Foot wrote on the British skirmishers: "Not a soul….was in the village, but a wood a few hundred yards to its left, and the ravines above it, were filled with French light infantry. I, with my company, was soon engaged in smart skirmishing among the ravines, and lost about 11 men, killed and wounded, out of thirty-eight. The English do not skirmish so well as the Germans or the French; and it is really hard work to make them preserve their proper extended order, cover themselves, and not throw away their fire; and in the performance of this duty, an officer is, I think, far more exposed that in line fighting." (Rory Muir- "Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon")"
  - AngryData 6y ago
    Because if they split up they would be easily overwhelmed from a concentrated charge from the other side and split apart and sent running, especially if they had any horsemen. And during a rout is when the majority of casualties would happen. Also being in formation helps stop people from running. If all your guys are spread out in the woods, more than a few might take that chance to 'disappear' from the battle if not from the entire military. It is a lot harder to do that in a tight formation and you would easily get called out, or even potentially shot in the back, for deserting.
- dddddaviddddd 6y ago
  Recently read this blog post that discusses the focus on concealment and cover and why fixed weapons platforms can be difficult to rely on in a modern context: https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...
badrabbit 6y ago
Wow, I read your comment just as the movie top gun started on my TV. I really wonder what air-to-air unmanned dog fight would look like. Are drone swarms a thing yet? a sky filled with drones would be terrifying. I would hope modern jets deploy drone like missiles manned by ground crew for dogfights,but if I learned anything about F22 and F35, they spend trillions to basically let middle parties steal the money and the tech is something designed decades ago. If I was china I would pop out hundreds of thousands of cheap drones to augment radar capabilities all the stealth tech would be useless if the adversary has millions of eyes at different altitudes each capabale of visual/infrared/lidar detection of fast moving objects. US intel seems spread thin, I wonder if they do enough spying to know what their enemies are capable of. Chinese R&D has been catching up fast these last few years.
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  Missiles are drones that are not supposed to come back.
  - beckingz 6y ago
    Some missiles even have longer endurance than small drones.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      Per kilometer, all of them do.
  - badrabbit 6y ago
    Missiles have a target and they use a guidance system. What I meant was piloted without a predefined target to make evasion difficult.
- nradov 6y ago
  The weapons and tactics you describe might be possible in a few years but today they're science fiction.
redis_mlc 6y ago
Well. The Vietnamese pilots were using Soviet tactics, mainly Ground Control vectors. Most Vietnamese pilots were rookies, but they did have some aces who would dogfight, like Colonel Toon, who was shot down by Randy Cunningham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham But largely the tactics were to surprise the Americans with first MiG-17's, then have a MiG-21 at high speed do an ambush pass from the clouds through lower-flying Americans. The Vietnamese could have done a lot more damage had they known how worthless the US air-air missiles were at the time. There were all kinds of problems with taking too long to arm (around 4 seconds) and vibration from takeoffs and landings inerting the missiles. And that no gun thing. Additionally, US pilots were expected to have up to a dozen radio channels active, causing pilot workload problems until they turned off like 11 of them.
- neurobashing 6y ago
  He told me he didn’t have a lot of confidence in the Sparrow. They eventually got some aircraft with guns but never used them; despite Top Gun school something like 90% Of his flights were ground attack missions.
  - kitteh 6y ago
    Highly recommend folks who are into aircraft warfare pick up a book about how the AIM-9 Sidewinder was developed as a side project at China Lake by the Navy that had to be done under the radar due to politics. It's a great story about engineers driven by a real customer need fought bureaucracy, politics and some interesting technical challenges to build a missile and get it in the hands of pilots. They were up against a military contractor (Hughes) pushing the AIM-4 Falcon which had horrible numbers in the field. The Falcon required like 3 people and 4 racks worth of equipment to troubleshoot it while the Sidewinder required a screwdriver and a voltmeter. The Sparrow had its own challenges from what I've read. Specifically issues with the acquisition radar being able to track a fast moving target and the missiles ability to receive the reflected signal and apply the right amount of correction. Got to remember that the time when these missiles were being developed it was to target slow moving bombers - not tight turning bandits.
HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
There's a really good, really old (like 25+ years old) episode of Nova called "TopGun and Beyond" where a Viet Nam era fighter pilot said exactly that. Then he goes on to describe an engagement where the MiG didn't :-) Found it on YouTube. Yay!! Now I don't have to watch my poorly-recorded-from-broadcast-TV VHS version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol-1vPWfHy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol-1vPWfHy8
- eitland 6y ago
  Wow, this is great. I read a lot about aviation history when I was younger but it was amazing to watch it and much more in depth about certain topics.
- duxup 6y ago
  Duke Cunningham is in there. Too bad he went the corruption route later in life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham
phkahler 6y ago
Recently saw an old video on youtube about that. Top Gun was created in response to heavy losses in Vietnam. It was very small and they had trouble even finding space for classes. A turning point came when a Mig was captured and they trained with it to find weaknesses. After that everything changed. The kill ratio inverted and they did start to run when engaged in some cases. Your uncle was lucky to go after the strategy was worked out, or he probably wouldn't have come back!
- kitteh 6y ago
  Have Doughnut and Have Drill were the govt programs (which have been declassified) where we used acquired MiGs to learn their weaknesses. There are some great videos on YouTube and books from people who were directly involved in the Red Eagles.
  - erentz 6y ago
    Any history on the use of the word “Have” in project names like this? I’m thinking of “Have Blue” also but didn’t realize it seems to be a theme. It’s always sounded weird as hell to me. Edit: oh I found something to answer my own question: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-missing.htm https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-m...
  - themodelplumber 6y ago
    It appears that "Have" was used by assignment of the Joint Staff to a specific organization. Still random of course, but interesting that its provenance and scope of application is not quite so super secret, at least not anymore. https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/meaning-of-have-in-code-names-have-blue-and-have-glass.2965719/#post-14997685 https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/meaning-of-have-in-c...
- WalterBright 6y ago
  The FW-190 was cutting Allied aircraft to pieces in WW2, until the Allies captured one intact, learned its weaknesses, and turned the tables. To get extra range, the P-51s had a large fuel tank installed just behind the pilot (where the passenger seat goes if you've ever gotten a ride). Unfortunately, full of fuel caused a large imbalance in the airplane, making it nearly unmaneuverable. Naturally, the pilots would burn that tank off first. The Germans never realized this - if they did, an attack on the P-51 squadrons soon after they took off would have caught them helpless. Source: my dad was a P-51 pilot
umvi 6y ago
My grandfather flew F-86s in Korea, and his experience was similar - the MiGs always ran most of the time. From his personal history: "In September 1952, I was made an instructor pilot in the F-86 and, in early November, I was made a flight commander and an engineering test pilot. It was also in November that we had one of our most frustrating experiences while I was at Kimpo. One day we were called into a hush hush briefing and told that the State Department had cleared us for a one time crossing of the Yalu River—and, as I remember, the only restriction placed on us was that we could not attack any aircraft on the ground, and that may have been because most of those people were not proficient in air-to-ground operations, I don’t know. Anyway, we anticipated some real aerial combat for a change since we would be able to catch the Migs with no place to run to—it sounded like the mission of a lifetime!! Imagine our disappointment, then, at going up to the Yalu River and not finding a single Mig anywhere—we went right on across the river into China and circled the big airfield complex at Antung and, looking down, there wasn’t a single aircraft anywhere on any of those three airfields! Apparently, the State Department had given the Chinese the same information they had given us and all the aircraft had been moved north to Mukden, Manchuria. Well, as luck would have it, from our position at 40,000’, I spotted a single aircraft, on final approach to one of the Antung airfields, about a mile and a half from the end of the runway, one of the 10% that never gets the word, I guess. I really felt frustrated about the entire situation and was desperate to get a shot at one of those guys in their own back yard—I called the bogie out to #3 and said I was going after him. Number 3 called back and bet me a milk shake (to be repaid in the States) that I’d never reach him before he touched down, and then, of course, he was home free. I rolled over into a split-s maneuver, left full power on and was shortly exceeding Mach 1 (the speed of sound)—I completed one 360 degree diving turn and came out the bottom of that dive at about 1300 feet. I was really moving, and I just had time to rapidly reverse the bank, acquire the Mig in the gunsight and squeeze off a quick burst—he was about six feet in the air over the end of the runway at that time and that burst of gunfire caught him squarely in the center of the fuselage, lighting it up like a Christmas tree. I just saw his aircraft slam into the ground and go careening off the runway and then I shot past him and had to direct my attention elsewhere. I whistled past the control tower and under a bunch of electric wires, and all the time I could hear automatic weapons firing so I must have been very close to them. An aircraft going directly away from enemy guns is an easy shot so I stayed on the deck (close to the ground) for a couple of miles and then made a steep climb out. Maybe getting that guy was a dumb thing to do but it sure was satisfying!"
c3534l 6y ago
I knew a guy who was a chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons guy in the army. He took bomb diffusal training, studied old soviet missiles, the lot. What did he do on a day to day basis? Mostly blew up grenades that didn't blow up on their own. Apparently it was super boring.
- _jal 6y ago
  That's the sort of job you want to be super boring.
  - LilBytes 6y ago
    Likely because it has the chance to be super exciting _once_.
    - Sharlin 6y ago
      This brought to mind this Schlock Mercenary strip[1]. [1] https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2010-08-29 https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2010-08-29
- tren-hard 6y ago
  bomb guys are EOD SW, they made a movie about them a while back, Hurt Locker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_Ordnance_Disposal_Badge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_Ordnance_Disposal_Ba...
kitteh 6y ago
Eh. There are documented dogfights out there that are dramatic, they even made a show about it with the actual pilots: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfights_(TV_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfights_(TV_series) That said, there are countless stories about US pilots locking up a bandit who has a RWR system that scares them into turning around (they'd see/hear that they were receiving high PRF - being locked on). That happened a lot more in the 70s and after as US air to air radar got better (look down shoot down radar didn't exist until the 70s too).
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> a bandit who has a RWR system that scares them into turning around They weren't necessarily scared. Such maneuvers are stock counters to potential radar-guided missiles. (1) Missile ranges depend on closing speed. You can launch against something coming towards you sooner than something heading away. By turning around, or just sideways, the mig can instantly get outside of missile range. (2) Doppler radar measures relative velocity. Turning around/sideways reduces relative velocity. That can break a radar lock. If you can hear the American jet coming via the RWR, turning sideways may allow you to disappear from radar and draw your enemy closer. It would be wrong to assume that such maneuvers are done out of fear.
  - ARandomerDude 6y ago
    Ah, Falcon 4.0, I miss you so much. This "beaming" maneuver was in the manual, along with all kinds of other goodies. Most fun a 13 year old could have.
  - kitteh 6y ago
    I'm well familiar with Doppler notching and missile evasion. However in the accounts I was speaking about it was cases where they turned around and departed the area. Follow up conversations with some of these crews (which included Iraqi pilots, Libyan pilots to name a few) said that once they had seen the transition from being hit from search radar to acquisition radar they didn't want to provoke any further and chose to exit the engagement. Remember that during the 1980s the Phoenix AIM-54 had a scary reputation for it's range as well as the later AIM-120.
ckozlowski 6y ago
There's a fantastic book, "Clashes" by Marshall Michell all about this subject, which I can highly recommend. All about the air war in Vietnam. https://www.amazon.com/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-1972/dp/1591145198 https://www.amazon.com/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-197...

magicsmoke 6y ago

The article's description of submarine warfare is surprisingly similar to how modern air combat is supposed to play out, and parallels modern artillery's shoot and scoot philosophy as well. Hide, find, hit, and hide again.

dylan604 6y ago
Long gone are the days of the British soldiers taking a knee in formations to shoot their muskets. Essentially expecting to take turns with the enemy trading shots. Never did understand that mentality at all.
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  Well, that was when individual muskets were inaccurate and the coordination issues with commanding thousands of men using drums and flags meant a large mass of soldiers firing in sync could scare the opposing side into fleeing and allow calvary to mop up. And before that, you had knights with plate armor that could could shrug off most bladed weapons on a battlefield that would have destroyed peasant conscript without armor. Warfare's evolved from elite units that could tank almost anything you can throw at them, to using masses of men to soak up more damage than the opposing side, to using cover and squad tactics to evade machine gun fire, to trying to be so stealthy that the enemy can't even fire on you at all. This progression has resulted from modern technology making offense superior to defense in every way. Makes you wonder if there will be a technological progression in the future that begins to give defense an edge over offense.
  - smilespray 6y ago
    You're obviously right about this, but I still think of WW1 as "The Stupid War". In terms of defence gaining an edge over defense; I don't really think so. Offence is always cheaper. Think nukes.
    - jacobush 6y ago
      As long as M.A.D. holds, nukes is almost a defense. I fear the day they are used in anger.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Defense vs Offense is the quintessential cat & mouse game. If the offense comes up with a new weapon, the defense is forced to come up with a counter. If the defense comes up with a better shield, offense comes up with a bigger bomb.
- ip26 6y ago
  In the days before accurate rapid fire weapons, the key to victory was pumping out more lead per second than the other squad. The only way to do that was discipline, training, and keeping cool under fire.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  It was an innovative approach in the Napoleonic era. French units would form up in columns with the idea of punching through the line with conscripts. The British would spread out and deliver a much higher volume of fire, and do so very quickly.
  - GarvielLoken 6y ago
    Where do these unhistoric French bashing memes come from? Is it taught in school in US and UK? I swear to god Anglosaxons thinks that the English won the 100-year war. They would not form deep columns to punch through, only one nation used solid squares in that age and that was the Prussian army. The French would form battalion columns which are pairs of companys deployed individually in lines after each other. Most of the brittish vs column memes are from ambushes where naturally the ambushed part had not time to deploy to line. http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/infantry_tactics_4.htm http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/inf... " The Prussians formed their battalions (4 companies each) rather in closed columns than hollow squares. Their regulations issued in 1812 (Exercir Reglement fur die Infanterie) eliminated the hollow square in favour of a dense column formed from the Angriffscolonne." The french moved to contact in maneuver columns, Just Like Everybody Else Did As Well. The fact that you don't hear the brittish doing it is because they very seldom advanced at all in any battle. This is what we still do, we march manourver battalions in columns on roads and deploy mechanized forced out to a line once we are close to the enemy. " - however, if the enemy kept his cool and opened fire only at close range, the officers instead of tightening the column, they deployed it into line and opened fire. As soon as the enemy began wavering under the fire they charged with bayonets. In 1805 at Austerlitz, French columns advanced with great coolness and at slow pace. The Russian infantry fired at long range but the French continued their march until they were 100 paces away from the enemy. They halted and opened fire, then "formed in several lines" and rapidly moved forward. The enemy fled. Captain Bonnet described similar infantry attack at Borodino; after few minutes the Russian skirmishers arrived in good order a little to the left "... and a dense column to our right. I deploy my battalion and, without firing, march straight at the column. It recoils. When carrying out this movement we were so exposed to grapeshot from the guns in the village that I saw my battalion falling and being breached like a crenellated wall. But still we went on."" And by the way the nation which most frequently deployed "spread out" troops are, wait for it, the French! "Several companies or even battalions could be employed as skirmishers (tirailleurs en grande bande). The tiralleurs en grande bande acted in large numbers, stormed or defended a position, or turned the flank of the enemy. The large skirmish formations were usually supported by columns and artillery. At Friedland General Oudinot had deployed 2 full battalions as skirmishers into the Sortlack Wood. In 1814 at La Rothiere four French battalions were formed in skirmish order by La Giberie to anticipate any attack which might develop in the rear of the wood. The French on occasion deployed even entire divisions [!] in skirmish formations. (Nafziger - "Imperial Bayonets" 1996 p 111) In 1806 at Jena, the French 16th Light Infantry advanced left in front towards the woods: its third battalion advanced en tirailleurs (in skirmish order) towards the wood, the first and second battalion, marching still in column, went past the right of the woods and deployed into line in the plain at musket range from the Prussian battery." "The British well-drilled regulars were humiliated by American farmers, militia and Indians fighting in lose order. The american experience made a profound impact and resulted in tactical and organizational changes in the British army. But still the quality of the British skirmishers (except the 60th and 95th Regiment) was below their French counterparts. French General Foy wrote: "Several regiments of the line, such as the [British] 43rd, the 51st, the 52nd etc., are called light infantry regiments. These corps, as well as the light companies of the battalions, have nothing light about them but the name; for they are armed and with some slight change in the decorations, clothed like the rest of the infantry. It was considered that the English soldier did not possess sufficient intelligence and address to combine with the regular duty of the line the service of inspiration of the sharpshooter." A Royal Scots officer wrote after Waterloo, that the French skirmishers were better trained, and on the whole much more effective in this type of fighting than the British skirmishers. (Barbero - "The Battle" p 255) Moyle Sherer of the 34th Foot wrote on the British skirmishers: "Not a soul….was in the village, but a wood a few hundred yards to its left, and the ravines above it, were filled with French light infantry. I, with my company, was soon engaged in smart skirmishing among the ravines, and lost about 11 men, killed and wounded, out of thirty-eight. The English do not skirmish so well as the Germans or the French; and it is really hard work to make them preserve their proper extended order, cover themselves, and not throw away their fire; and in the performance of this duty, an officer is, I think, far more exposed that in line fighting." (Rory Muir- "Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon")"
- AngryData 6y ago
  Because if they split up they would be easily overwhelmed from a concentrated charge from the other side and split apart and sent running, especially if they had any horsemen. And during a rout is when the majority of casualties would happen. Also being in formation helps stop people from running. If all your guys are spread out in the woods, more than a few might take that chance to 'disappear' from the battle if not from the entire military. It is a lot harder to do that in a tight formation and you would easily get called out, or even potentially shot in the back, for deserting.
dddddaviddddd 6y ago
Recently read this blog post that discusses the focus on concealment and cover and why fixed weapons platforms can be difficult to rely on in a modern context: https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

badrabbit 6y ago

Wow, I read your comment just as the movie top gun started on my TV. I really wonder what air-to-air unmanned dog fight would look like. Are drone swarms a thing yet? a sky filled with drones would be terrifying. I would hope modern jets deploy drone like missiles manned by ground crew for dogfights,but if I learned anything about F22 and F35, they spend trillions to basically let middle parties steal the money and the tech is something designed decades ago. If I was china I would pop out hundreds of thousands of cheap drones to augment radar capabilities all the stealth tech would be useless if the adversary has millions of eyes at different altitudes each capabale of visual/infrared/lidar detection of fast moving objects. US intel seems spread thin, I wonder if they do enough spying to know what their enemies are capable of. Chinese R&D has been catching up fast these last few years.

NikolaeVarius 6y ago
Missiles are drones that are not supposed to come back.
- beckingz 6y ago
  Some missiles even have longer endurance than small drones.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Per kilometer, all of them do.
- badrabbit 6y ago
  Missiles have a target and they use a guidance system. What I meant was piloted without a predefined target to make evasion difficult.
nradov 6y ago
The weapons and tactics you describe might be possible in a few years but today they're science fiction.

redis_mlc 6y ago

Well. The Vietnamese pilots were using Soviet tactics, mainly Ground Control vectors. Most Vietnamese pilots were rookies, but they did have some aces who would dogfight, like Colonel Toon, who was shot down by Randy Cunningham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham But largely the tactics were to surprise the Americans with first MiG-17's, then have a MiG-21 at high speed do an ambush pass from the clouds through lower-flying Americans. The Vietnamese could have done a lot more damage had they known how worthless the US air-air missiles were at the time. There were all kinds of problems with taking too long to arm (around 4 seconds) and vibration from takeoffs and landings inerting the missiles. And that no gun thing. Additionally, US pilots were expected to have up to a dozen radio channels active, causing pilot workload problems until they turned off like 11 of them.

neurobashing 6y ago
He told me he didn’t have a lot of confidence in the Sparrow. They eventually got some aircraft with guns but never used them; despite Top Gun school something like 90% Of his flights were ground attack missions.
- kitteh 6y ago
  Highly recommend folks who are into aircraft warfare pick up a book about how the AIM-9 Sidewinder was developed as a side project at China Lake by the Navy that had to be done under the radar due to politics. It's a great story about engineers driven by a real customer need fought bureaucracy, politics and some interesting technical challenges to build a missile and get it in the hands of pilots. They were up against a military contractor (Hughes) pushing the AIM-4 Falcon which had horrible numbers in the field. The Falcon required like 3 people and 4 racks worth of equipment to troubleshoot it while the Sidewinder required a screwdriver and a voltmeter. The Sparrow had its own challenges from what I've read. Specifically issues with the acquisition radar being able to track a fast moving target and the missiles ability to receive the reflected signal and apply the right amount of correction. Got to remember that the time when these missiles were being developed it was to target slow moving bombers - not tight turning bandits.

HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago

There's a really good, really old (like 25+ years old) episode of Nova called "TopGun and Beyond" where a Viet Nam era fighter pilot said exactly that. Then he goes on to describe an engagement where the MiG didn't :-) Found it on YouTube. Yay!! Now I don't have to watch my poorly-recorded-from-broadcast-TV VHS version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol-1vPWfHy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol-1vPWfHy8

eitland 6y ago
Wow, this is great. I read a lot about aviation history when I was younger but it was amazing to watch it and much more in depth about certain topics.
duxup 6y ago
Duke Cunningham is in there. Too bad he went the corruption route later in life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham

phkahler 6y ago

Recently saw an old video on youtube about that. Top Gun was created in response to heavy losses in Vietnam. It was very small and they had trouble even finding space for classes. A turning point came when a Mig was captured and they trained with it to find weaknesses. After that everything changed. The kill ratio inverted and they did start to run when engaged in some cases. Your uncle was lucky to go after the strategy was worked out, or he probably wouldn't have come back!

kitteh 6y ago
Have Doughnut and Have Drill were the govt programs (which have been declassified) where we used acquired MiGs to learn their weaknesses. There are some great videos on YouTube and books from people who were directly involved in the Red Eagles.
- erentz 6y ago
  Any history on the use of the word “Have” in project names like this? I’m thinking of “Have Blue” also but didn’t realize it seems to be a theme. It’s always sounded weird as hell to me. Edit: oh I found something to answer my own question: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-missing.htm https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-m...
- themodelplumber 6y ago
  It appears that "Have" was used by assignment of the Joint Staff to a specific organization. Still random of course, but interesting that its provenance and scope of application is not quite so super secret, at least not anymore. https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/meaning-of-have-in-code-names-have-blue-and-have-glass.2965719/#post-14997685 https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/meaning-of-have-in-c...
WalterBright 6y ago
The FW-190 was cutting Allied aircraft to pieces in WW2, until the Allies captured one intact, learned its weaknesses, and turned the tables. To get extra range, the P-51s had a large fuel tank installed just behind the pilot (where the passenger seat goes if you've ever gotten a ride). Unfortunately, full of fuel caused a large imbalance in the airplane, making it nearly unmaneuverable. Naturally, the pilots would burn that tank off first. The Germans never realized this - if they did, an attack on the P-51 squadrons soon after they took off would have caught them helpless. Source: my dad was a P-51 pilot

umvi 6y ago

My grandfather flew F-86s in Korea, and his experience was similar - the MiGs always ran most of the time. From his personal history: "In September 1952, I was made an instructor pilot in the F-86 and, in early November, I was made a flight commander and an engineering test pilot. It was also in November that we had one of our most frustrating experiences while I was at Kimpo. One day we were called into a hush hush briefing and told that the State Department had cleared us for a one time crossing of the Yalu River—and, as I remember, the only restriction placed on us was that we could not attack any aircraft on the ground, and that may have been because most of those people were not proficient in air-to-ground operations, I don’t know. Anyway, we anticipated some real aerial combat for a change since we would be able to catch the Migs with no place to run to—it sounded like the mission of a lifetime!! Imagine our disappointment, then, at going up to the Yalu River and not finding a single Mig anywhere—we went right on across the river into China and circled the big airfield complex at Antung and, looking down, there wasn’t a single aircraft anywhere on any of those three airfields! Apparently, the State Department had given the Chinese the same information they had given us and all the aircraft had been moved north to Mukden, Manchuria. Well, as luck would have it, from our position at 40,000’, I spotted a single aircraft, on final approach to one of the Antung airfields, about a mile and a half from the end of the runway, one of the 10% that never gets the word, I guess. I really felt frustrated about the entire situation and was desperate to get a shot at one of those guys in their own back yard—I called the bogie out to #3 and said I was going after him. Number 3 called back and bet me a milk shake (to be repaid in the States) that I’d never reach him before he touched down, and then, of course, he was home free. I rolled over into a split-s maneuver, left full power on and was shortly exceeding Mach 1 (the speed of sound)—I completed one 360 degree diving turn and came out the bottom of that dive at about 1300 feet. I was really moving, and I just had time to rapidly reverse the bank, acquire the Mig in the gunsight and squeeze off a quick burst—he was about six feet in the air over the end of the runway at that time and that burst of gunfire caught him squarely in the center of the fuselage, lighting it up like a Christmas tree. I just saw his aircraft slam into the ground and go careening off the runway and then I shot past him and had to direct my attention elsewhere. I whistled past the control tower and under a bunch of electric wires, and all the time I could hear automatic weapons firing so I must have been very close to them. An aircraft going directly away from enemy guns is an easy shot so I stayed on the deck (close to the ground) for a couple of miles and then made a steep climb out. Maybe getting that guy was a dumb thing to do but it sure was satisfying!"

c3534l 6y ago

I knew a guy who was a chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons guy in the army. He took bomb diffusal training, studied old soviet missiles, the lot. What did he do on a day to day basis? Mostly blew up grenades that didn't blow up on their own. Apparently it was super boring.

_jal 6y ago
That's the sort of job you want to be super boring.
- LilBytes 6y ago
  Likely because it has the chance to be super exciting _once_.
  - Sharlin 6y ago
    This brought to mind this Schlock Mercenary strip[1]. [1] https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2010-08-29 https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2010-08-29
tren-hard 6y ago
bomb guys are EOD SW, they made a movie about them a while back, Hurt Locker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_Ordnance_Disposal_Badge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_Ordnance_Disposal_Ba...

kitteh 6y ago

Eh. There are documented dogfights out there that are dramatic, they even made a show about it with the actual pilots: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfights_(TV_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfights_(TV_series) That said, there are countless stories about US pilots locking up a bandit who has a RWR system that scares them into turning around (they'd see/hear that they were receiving high PRF - being locked on). That happened a lot more in the 70s and after as US air to air radar got better (look down shoot down radar didn't exist until the 70s too).

sandworm101 6y ago
>> a bandit who has a RWR system that scares them into turning around They weren't necessarily scared. Such maneuvers are stock counters to potential radar-guided missiles. (1) Missile ranges depend on closing speed. You can launch against something coming towards you sooner than something heading away. By turning around, or just sideways, the mig can instantly get outside of missile range. (2) Doppler radar measures relative velocity. Turning around/sideways reduces relative velocity. That can break a radar lock. If you can hear the American jet coming via the RWR, turning sideways may allow you to disappear from radar and draw your enemy closer. It would be wrong to assume that such maneuvers are done out of fear.
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  Ah, Falcon 4.0, I miss you so much. This "beaming" maneuver was in the manual, along with all kinds of other goodies. Most fun a 13 year old could have.
- kitteh 6y ago
  I'm well familiar with Doppler notching and missile evasion. However in the accounts I was speaking about it was cases where they turned around and departed the area. Follow up conversations with some of these crews (which included Iraqi pilots, Libyan pilots to name a few) said that once they had seen the transition from being hit from search radar to acquisition radar they didn't want to provoke any further and chose to exit the engagement. Remember that during the 1980s the Phoenix AIM-54 had a scary reputation for it's range as well as the later AIM-120.

ckozlowski 6y ago

There's a fantastic book, "Clashes" by Marshall Michell all about this subject, which I can highly recommend. All about the air war in Vietnam. https://www.amazon.com/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-1972/dp/1591145198 https://www.amazon.com/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-197...