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

AIRMEN VERSUS GUERRILLAS
6. The Pentagon Papers, 3:294–95; Nordeen, Air Warfare, 15, 18; U. S.
Grant Sharp, Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect (San Rafael, Calif.:
Presidio Press, 1978), xiii–xiv, 271; Lou Drendel, . . . And Kill MiGs: Air to Air
Combat in the Vietnam War (Carrollton, Tex.: Squadron Signal Publishers,
1984), 8; David Halbertstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random
House, 1972), 367–68; and Richard Kohn, chief of Air Force History, interviewed
by author, June 1986.
7. For especially sharp criticism of the Airmen, see Hanson Baldwin, “Introduction,”
in Jack Broughton, Thud Ridge (Philadelphia, Pa.: J. P. Lippincott,
1969), 12–13; and Dana Drenkowski, “Operation Linebacker II,” Soldier of
Fortune, September 1977, 32–37, 60–61.
8. A number of factors help explain this situation. Communist air defenses
over the south were minimal when compared with those over the
north, and no one wanted to risk the nuclear-capable B-52s. In addition, the
decision makers feared that the use of the large strategic bombers would
send the wrong signal to the various warring, unfriendly, neutral, and
friendly powers and generate hostile publicity.
9. This aircraft was poorly designed, having essentially no backup for its
vital hydraulic controls. Of 617 US Air Force aircraft lost over North Vietnam,
280 were F-105s. See McCrea, “Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses and Damages,”
6–47. In addition to 334 F-105 combat losses in Southeast Asia, there were
63 operational losses. See John Granville, “Summary of USAF Aircraft Losses
in SEA,” Tactical Air Command study, 1974, 22, 36, 57, HRA.
10. Broughton, Thud Ridge, 22, 96; and William W. Momyer, Air Power in
Three Wars (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, 1978), 126.
11. This was one-half of North Vietnam’s MiG-21 force. See R. Frank
Futrell et al., eds., Aces and Aerial Victories: The United States Air Force in
Southeast Asia, 1965–1973 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976), 35–42. The
Navy’s MiG kill-to-loss ratio in Vietnam was 3.9:1 (54 MiGs destroyed) and
the Air Force’s was 2.2:1 (129 MiGs destroyed). See “Southeast Asia Air-to-Air
Combat,” Armed Forces Journal International, May 1974, 38. In World War
II, USAAF fighters had a 3.6:1 edge in air-to-air combat against Germany
and 4.3:1 against Japan. The Navy and Marine Corps’ ratio against Japan
was 13:1. See United States Army Air Forces, Army Air Forces Statistical Digest:
World War II (Washington, D.C.: Office of Statistical Control, 1945),
255–61, 263–68; and Adm Louis Denfeld, chief of Naval Operations, US
Navy, address on the 37th anniversary of naval aviation, 9 May 1949, NHC.
In the Korean War, US Air Force fighter pilots ran up a 6.9:1 score of victories
to losses in air-to-air combat. See Larry Davis, MiG Alley: Air to Air Combat
over Korea (Carrollton, Tex.: Squadron Signal Publishers, 1978), 70; and
Maurer Maurer, USAF Credits for the Destruction of Enemy Aircraft, Korean
War, USAF Historical Study no. 81 (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Albert F. Simpson
Historical Research Center, Air University, 1975).
12. John Kreis, Air Warfare and Air Base Air Defense, 1914–1973 (Washington,
D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1988), 285–86; Nordeen, Air Warfare,
13; Paul Burbage et al., “The Battle for the Skies over North Vietnam,” in Air
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