Overview

The Vietnam War placed unexpected demands upon American military forces and equipment, which had been focused on the probability of tactical nuclear warfare.The principal US naval fighter, the McDonnell F-4 Phantom had originally been designed to defend the Fleet from air attack at long range from its aircraft carrier base. However, its tremendous power and prodigious bomb-carrying capacity made it an obvious candidate for the attack mission in Vietnam from 1965 onwards, but at first it shared fighter duties with the gun-armed F-8 Crusader. Phantoms gradually replaced Crusaders in Navy and Marine Corps squadrons and they took on the North Vietnamese fighters but they were handicapped by their missile-only armament and lack of agility. The F-4J introduced better radar and more reliable missiles while some of its pilots benefited from the Navy's Top Gun training which prepared them better for air-to-air combat. Its opponent was the MiG-17, a direct descendants of the MiG-15, which had given USAF Sabre jets a hard fight in the Korean War. VPAF pilots were supplied with this light-weight, gun-armed jet by the Russians and Chinese. Between 1961 and 1965 they had established a viable fighter force despite the lack of any previous air force tradition. They used their manoeuvrability to lure Phantoms into turning fights where they could bring their guns to bear and avoid the missiles from the American fighters. USN pilots encountered MiG-17s more often than the faster MiG-21 in their designated area (or Route Packages) over Vietnam, while for USAF Phantoms the opposite situation applied. The results included some spectacular aerial battles in which Navy and Marine Phantoms shot down 26 MiG-17s and MiG-19s for the loss of only one of their own jets to the MiGs. This book brings to life these dangerous duels and includes detailed cockpit artwork and other specially commissioned artwork to highlight the benefits and shortcomings of each plane type. Although the Vietnam air war has been the subject of many previous volumes, this will be first to offer a detailed examination of the key battles between the Phantoms and MiG-17/19s in an accessible format. Many of the techniques of air combat used by pilots today evolved from those engagements over the skies of North Vietnam as pilots learned how to use, or to defeat supersonic fighters for the first time; this book therefore providing a unique insight into the evolving tactics of air war. This book will also be the perfect companion volume to Duel 17 as it highlights the differences in the use of the Phantom by the Navy and Marine Corps in comparison to the USAF.

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9781282938397

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