Message posted by TD Barnes on March 17, 2012 at 10:52:00 PST:
You nailed it, Andre. When we were doing HAVE DOUGHNUT, HAVE DRILL, and HAVE FERRY with the MiG 21 and a couple MiG 17s, we got a 100% kill against our Navy and Air Force pilots on their first engagement with us at Groom. That is when we learned that it wasn't the planes, it was our being in a war where we didn't know how to fight.
Fighter tactics changed little from WWI through Korea. In each war, men flying airplanes attempted to shoot down men from the other side who were also flying airplanes. The weapons were pistols initially and then later machine guns:
a. In WWII, the airplanes were faster and the guns were more lethal.
b. In Korea, the airplanes were jet powered, but the weapons were still machine guns.
c. In Vietnam, the air-to-air missile became the weapon of choice in many cases and the firing range increased from hundreds or thousands of feet to miles.
To prepare for combat in Vietnam, Korean War veterans trained the pilots using the tactics of the Korean War, which because of the missile had become obsolete.
Further, the AF generals who were the bomber commanders of the Cold War were in charge of tactical operations and clearly did not understand the difference between the fighter and bomber employment. Safety was an obsession and these officers held that training events vital to fighter employment were dangerous. Thus, they disallowed training using dissimilar aircraft.
The fighters clearly needed change in the training program to ensure preparation of our aircrews for the reality of combat operations. Projects HAVE DOUGHNUT, HAVE DRILL, and HAVE FERRY identified the problem and CONSTANT PEG corrected it by providing realistic training using the assets and techniques the pilot in training would encounter in combat. TOP GUN and RED FLAG has since given our pilots the needed combat experience here on our ranges rather than on the actual battle field.
Aerial warfare has changed again now that we have stealth, laser, and technology that us outsiders don't even know about. I believe the future lies in UAVs and robots where the winner will be determined by who has the best Energizer battery to outlast the opponent.
In Reply to: Re: Which is stealthier? F/A-22A v. F-117 posted by Andre' M. Dall'au on March 17, 2012 at 5:51:04 PST:
Replies: