Archie to SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air ...

AIRMEN VERSUS GUERRILLAS
Figure 61. Wild Weasel. The USAF employed special units, called Wild
Weasel, to attack Communist radar. This two-seat F-105G is carrying
two Shrike antiradiation missiles. (Reprinted from USAF.)
They fired the SA-2s at the jamming signal, but as this gave
azimuth and not range information, this technique was much
less accurate than the normal method. Thus, the pods permitted
operations from 10,000 to 17,000 feet, above the reach
of light and medium flak. The Air Force put the pods into service
in January 1967. There were, of course, drawbacks to
using ECM pods. The tighter formations that were best suited
for ECM results made the aircraft more vulnerable to MiG attack.
Another penalty was that the increased altitude of operations
decreased the weapon’s accuracy. 26 The Navy did not
adopt the pods and paid a price. In the first nine months of
1967, the US Air Force pod-equipped forces lost five aircraft in
the heavily defended Route Package VI, while at the same time,
the Navy lost about 20 aircraft in that area. In the previous
year, SAMs accounted for 50 percent of Air Force losses in that
area; now they claimed only about 16 percent. During these
times, SAMs were credited with one-half of Navy aircraft losses. 27
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