Air power in 'Nam

[warthog64]

Not real sure what they were,SA-7 sounds right.

They were widely scattered all over(North and South).

Usually about 2 or 3 shots at aircraft a day.

Not many when your talking about several hundred sorties a day.

You had to be ready for them,because you wouldn't know where they were.

If a FAC was on station,he would watch for them and give you a "break" call on the radio.

Otherwise ,the number 4 man in the formation would watch until lead was off target and then lead would watch. They would take turns if there was more than one pass.

Of course,the SA-7 shooter had to haul ass after he fired,because the next aircraft in would target him.

 

Very interesting, I had no idea they were employed even that often!

[+streakeagle]

Paraphrase of a comment from a modern armor miniatures game (an older game called Close and Destroy):

The Redeye was never very good at hitting anything. The SA-7 was fairly accurate, but it rarely did enough damage to take an aircraft down. If the US and USSR engineers got together, they could probably make a missile that would rarely hit and do almost no damage if it did hit.

 

The Stinger was a huge leap forward for shoulder launched weapons. Has it been surpassed by anything newer?

[JediMaster]

I think the SA-16 and -18 are considered very good MANPADs now from the eastern bloc. How they fare compared to Stingers I haven't heard.

[MaverickMike]

This is becoming a really intersting topic. I'm not much of an expert on the AA employed by the NVA and honestly didn't know that they used the SA-7.

Does anyone know of any US aircraft that were brought down by the SA-7?

 

As a side note I'm currently in the process of moving house and my internet connection will not be on until the end of the week. :( . I'm having 2 make do with the browser on my blackberry at the moment

[ezlead]

Very interesting, I had no idea they were employed even that often!

They weren't employed that much in the overall daily routine of the war.

The major thing was that the THREAT of them being employed had to be dealt with. You had to be ready on every sortie in case they were used.

[+Gepard]

If you compare the Igla with the Stinger then you will find, that the search angle of the IR seeker of the Igla is bigger than that of the Stinger. This is the only difference. Both IR seekers are able to ignore flares, what should be no surprise. Igla is the russian word of Stinger. The stinger was shortly after their introduction in Afghanistan war captured by the soviets and tested.

[Fubar512]

The SA-3 Goa, soviet name Newa, was delivered in small numbers in early 1973 and was used as airfield defence SAM.

 

You should not forget, that the F-15A was in the first time restricted to 6.3g flight limit. A slotted F-4E was able to hold against such a limited Eagle. German F-4F pilots still today tell their stories how they butchered the first Eagles in mock up combats. The MiG-21 was able to beat the F-4E and F in dogfight if it was in the hands of a skilled and physically capable pilot. A lot of vietnamese pilots were physicaly not able to withstand to much G force. That the US Phantoms could beat the MiG-21 at low altittutes was caused more by the pilot limits than the limits of the MiG-21.

 

The MiG-21 cannot hold more than a sustained 4.5 Gs above 20,000 feet (even early F-15s could sustain well over that figure at altitude). It has nothing to do with thrust, but with the bird's aerodynamics. That's one of the reasons that the Chinese built a compound delta varient of that design.

 

Also, the earlier MiG-21 models were limited to less than Mach 1 at low altitude, due to instability and control issues (not due to the pilot's physique). The '21MF solved those problems, and was easily able to exceed Mach 1 on the deck.