Lt. James Cater

I wonder if it might be something else, because i use a stock budget brand E-machines T3120 and i've never had the slighest problem.

When using ARMs, one thing i always do is to be high up. That helps so much. In one WOV campaign i got so sick of SAMs that i would have my wingman go after the target while i would stay up and behind him waiting for a SAM site to fire. When it did it was a matter of just turning toward the site, putting the pipper on it and letting fly. Using my SAM map (See my thread about it) I sometimes would be at 20-25,000ft throttled down acting as bait so that both my wingman can get in and so i can kill a Fansong. If the site fired i would send a Shrike at them then manuver to both avoid the SAMS and to cover my wingman as he came off the target. I was also loaded with ECM if it was available. Every bit of an edge counts. It's not so cut and dry however. The situation might just call for you to take evasive action rather than pulling the trigger on the site. Use your judgment. One thing you can also do is let other flights in the area first as bait and kill the Fansongs when they become active. Standard ARMS are great for this since they have such a long range and have the ability to lock on a site. I think my best was from 20 miles with a launch altitude of about 30,000ft.

I remember those pages quite well. Everyone that makes the MIG-25 seem like the be all and end all should get ahold of that book and realize that the Foxbat was a pure interceptor. It was almost helpless under most circumstances when matched against most contemporary Western fighters at altitudes that were typical of air combat in the late 60s to mid 70s.

Press "Mute" on your keyboard? That's what i do!

EXACTLY!!!!! That's part of my point about knowing your aircraft. The Foxbat pilot would do everything possible to avoid the scenario. But human nature being what it is? Or one being caught down there?

Flogger, The MIG 25 is one of the fastest combat aircraft ever deployed. However, speed depends on various factors. See my F-105 example? It was DESIGNED for high speed low level. F-4 pilots escorting them over North Vietnam were sometimes hard pressed to keep up with them during egress from the target areas due to the Thuds' speed down low. In a book i have a Phantom pilot had this to say about escorting 105s when MIGs came around" The Thuds dropped their noses and went home at their usual velocity, warp speed" IN WOV i'm a very high time F-105 driver. If i want to get the hell out of dodge fast, i'll be at full burner at under 500ft. Good luck catching me down there. Take an aircraft out of it's element watch the trouble that usually occurs. Thuds are crap up high. WAY,WAY up there the MIG-25 is awesome. Fast moving with a powerful radar it can do what it's designed to, intercepting high flying bombers. Down below against fighters you will have to be one hell of a pilot to be successful. Column5-the complacent pilot is the greatest thing ever for increasing ones' kill ratio. But can you imagine the results of a dogfight between an F-4 and a MIG25 below 10000ft flown by equally skilled pilots?

That Iraqi Foxbat was locked on by multiple US aircraft that were awaiting permission to fire that never came. Not many people realize that. Vs B-52s it would have been a serious threat at altitude. At 5000ft? Meat on the table more often than not for an average Western fighter jock. Check out "MIG Pilot", defecting soviet MIG-25 pilot Victor Belenko gave it's pros and cons pretty well in it's intercept role.

Oh hell yeah!!!!!!!!! Next time i'm in an F-4 now i know what to do to get my wingman involved easier!

All things considered, at 5000ft a MIG25 will get nailed by an F-4 virtually everytime. Think about this...The F105 Thundercheif was the fastest plane in the world at low altitude. Even with a standard bomb load it was fast as hell. Having expended ordnance and punched tanks, it was virtually impossible to catch on the deck, being able to go supersonic right off the tree tops. Look at the design lines of a Thud compared to a Foxbat. For such a large aircraft the F-105 was very streamlined. It was designed for low level high speed nuke strikes. A MIG 25's lines are too draggy to be able to do the same at low altitudes. It for being way up for where the B-70 Valkyrie was intended to operate. There it would be able to leave a Phantom behind.

I thought of this after dealing with the situation up north countless times and suffering heavy losses. Since the real life pilots had access to intel about enemy defenses i figured i'd do the same. From experience i pretty much knew the locations of a number of SAM sites, but the Recon flights blew my mind! For those i took an F-4D loaded with ECM up about 35-4000ft and flew two routes. One inland from Vihn heading past Haiphong and the second swinging way past Yen Bai to center on Thud ridge. That one took me directly over Hanoi and were the fireworks on display! Using a screen shot i took sometime earlier, i was able to locate the SAM sites pretty accuratly. I was really surprised by the number and location of some of them. with it came the realization that certain areas could only be approaced with extreme caution if one wanted to complete ones' tour. Since at the time i made this map i worked at a department store i went to the photo kiosk and made myself a photo copy. Best $3 i ever spent! In WOV it's helped me inmeasurably and so i hope it helps you too!

The stock waypoints given are suicidal in my opinion. They almost always lead you into the worst of the defenses up north. I have some stuff that i thought about and wrote out for WOV some months ago. Perhaps i should put it in a thread here to see the reaction. As far as the map goes, i took a whole bunch of screen shots while the SAMS were coming up en mass and was then able to locate the sites on the map. My copy is on photo stock that i had made by taking the info on a flashdrive to my job. Things really changed after i got it. I'm really glad that the map has been of use to you. I was hoping to make some contribution to this site in some kind of way and that map was the best thing i had.

I was reading my original post yesterday and realized i made a very serious error. I didn't go in at 3500-4000. I was at 35 to 40,000ft. That extra zero makes a lot of difference. I had that F-4 jammed with ECM pods and loaded with full tanks that i only dropped after the first SAM site launched one one at me. The runs were also made at full military power, any slower would have been suicidal even with ECM (why take a chance?).

Wow! That vid was killer. One of these days i'm going to ask about how to record missions like that.

I agree. You can spot planes from quite a ways depending on the situation

It has to be something with your comp because i'm running a stock E-Machines T-3120 and having no trouble at all with WOE. The last time i had any kind of problem with a game i defragged the disk and all was well.

Thats pretty much how i go about it in an F-100. Seeing how unreliable those early AIMs were i'm always anticipating a gun pass during the initial approach.

To tell you the truth i actually like things as they are in this series. Can you imagine trying do fly as long as they did in real life? For most pilots, flying out of Thailand meant 8-10 hour trips with multiple re-fuelings. Just how do you expect to do the same at home? my idead of long is having to swing around Yen Bai to go down Thud ridge in order to hit targets in Hanoi without having endless SAMS and god awful annoying AAA to deal with. Not to mention the distance back to the hills. Lord knows how many times i nursed a shot up plane just long enough to be able to bailout safely. As it is is good enough!

The standing rule for AF pilots at the time was to generally keep the AC above 4000' AGL to avoid AAA/Anti-aircraft guns. That obviously changed with the mission though. Came across that in an article about F-100F's From years of research on the conflict i know about the altitude limit. Having been shot down by low level AAA about 3-4 times and being shot up numerous others i should know better than to be below in certain areas. I did a threat about high altitude flak a while ago and despite the testimony of other pilots i still regard it as harmless. . As you go below 4500 ft you are getting into deep trouble in areas up in Packs 5 and 6. There is also an area south of Vihn i call "The Arrowhead" which has some of the nastiest flak in North Vietnam. Granted, while flying Huns out of Da Nang on routine missions i always tried to haul along a CBU or two and pay this place a quick visit.

I usually can fix things that have screwed up on my comp but this one is killing me. I caught a pretty large and nasty infection yesterday and after all was said and done, i was back to semi normal. One annoying thing is that my Task Manager apparently was disabled by the Administrator and i have no clue how to restore it's previous settings. Can anyone clue me in?

I've had my Task Manager back for sometime. Getting the audio drivers has been a real hassle since all the links seem to lead to pay sites. Plus there are a couple of small things that just don't feel the same. So basically my plan is to transfer certain files (music, pics, games, etc) to an external HD and then use the system recovery disc to start anew. I also am thinking of using a cleaner program just to make sure that nothong is left on the hard drive before i use the system recovery. Naturally, i'm going to ask around before i attempt this. Anyways, Spybot i've been using for a while. I downloaded Zone Alarm to replace the stock firewall and am using Rising antivirus at the moment. In a few days i'm going shopping for some other software i'm going to be using for some pastimes of mine so i figure i'd look around at what's out there and ask a lot of questions. I live about 40 miles from the nearest store so i just cant hop out the door and go window shopping. Thanks to all for the assist. Next year i'm planning on a new comp and so at least this whole episode has been something of a learning experience.

Just one last thing.... As an insult to injury i found out yesterday that sometime, somehow my audio drivers vanished. I looked them up for downloading and virtually all links led to Driver Detective. nice program and all, but i'm a bit tired of spending money for this problem. Thinking long term i figure on picking up an external HD, transfering over some important stuff of mine, and then using the system recovery CD to nuke everything and start anew.

Thanks for the tip but i solved it just before you posted. The more i looked, the worse things were. It was to the point that my firewall was overidden and i was under constant attack by viruses. To solve that i looked around and downloaded another firewall program to replace the crippled MS one and run anti-virus and spybot S and D scans every so often. The last thing i need to fix now is getting my background on the monitor back. Thanks to all for tthe advice! PS- Yes, it is WINXP

I really hate to be a bother here but... For the life of me i just can't remember exactly where the instructions were for deleting a restore point. Aparently the infection wiped it out and the new restore point is no good since it's only a few hours ago. I created another for before everything went to hell but the restore apparently only chose the most recent one. Advice anyone?

Thanks for the tip. I remember once restoring my comp more or less by chance while i was fixing another problem. Guess i'll do it again To deal with the infection meant having to contac MS and downloading one of their programs. It worked like a charm, even if the Manager is out and my background is an unchangingly black wall. just in case, i now scan about every 2-3 hours.

I was thinking of this last night. In your opinion...What is the hardest and easiest aircraft to do a tour in considering that time, place, and opposition you will have to deal with? From my experience, the hardest plane i ever had to take into battle was the Hawker Hunter. The disadvantages you face make it quite a challenge to go up in this one. Mainly, inferior top speed to it's opponents, no AAMs, no radar and rather limited gun ammo compared to other fighters. I'm thinking of trying another round with this one even though i know the odds are stacked against my Squadron. A number of my fellow pilots got shot down while heading home by MIGs which overhauled them from the rear after we disengaged. In WOV flying a Thud is no joke considering the fact that you have to throw yourself into the teeth of the enemy defenses time after time. In a typical tour you'll probaly be up in pack 5 and 6 about 70 times. The easiest? A-10!... I'm currently flying one and compared to all the other situations i've been in it's a piece of cake so far. Sure, i've had my plane damaged, but compared to what i've seen in the past it's a cakewalk. Tough construction, two engines, HUD, ECM, plenty of chaff, standoff weapons....What's not to love of the situation? For example, i'm doing routine strike missions which would have been considered rather hairy in WOV when you take into account the defenses involved. So what do you all think?