Russian Nuclear Bombers over Guam

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

...post Top Gun/ Red Flag. Prior to that, it wasn't so good (1965(?) Operation Rolling Thunder)

I need to look it up.

It was very bad 2.5:3 I believe now this is to blame on several factors the most notable one being that especially in the USAF "dog fighting" was not even practiced.Of course there where many problems with both the Aim-7 and Aim-9 and the Aim-4 used by some USAF F-4s was found to utterly useless.The Navy improved the Aim-9 under a different program from the USAF and they had an effect sidewinder the Aim-9D by 1966 while the USAF did not have the Aim-9E until 1967.It was found that most of the issues with the Aim-7 where caused by poor maintenance practices.

The Navy started Topgun in 1969 or 70 so they improved their ratio in 1972 the Air Force did not start an air combat specific program until after Vietnam was over so their ratio improved but much more marginally than the Navy did during Linebacker I & II i guess they thought that the Navy was wasting its time they got proven other wise.

The first Red Flag took place in 1975 a few months after the fall of Saigon.However unlike Topgun every single Air Force combat pilot will go through several Red Flags during their career while only a percentage of Navy pilots get to go to Topgun the idea being that they teach their squadron mates that have not been what they learned.Red Flag also covers the full spectrum of air combat not just dog fighting and everyone is involved from the pilot to the maintenance crews to the intel officers.I went though a Red Flag when I was assigned to an A-10 squadron the operations tempo was more intense than ones I experienced in support of actual combat operations to give you an idea just how intense a Red Flag is I was very happy not to be an A-10 driver because they looked much more strained than I did.The missions in the training are designed to be impossible you have to beat the absolute best pilots in the USAF no holds bared.Of course Navy and Marine and NATO units come to Red Flags all the time Usually the side benefit of going to Red Flag is they held at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas some are held up in Alaska though.

The USAF ratio was an embarrassing 2.2:1 from 1965 to 1972 while the Navy ratio was from 1965 to 1969(start and end of Rolling Thunder) 2.5:3 and in 1972 during Linebacker I & II it went up to 12.5:1 a notable improvement considering that the school had only been around for 3 years.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

It was very bad 2.5:3 I believe now this is to blame on several factors the most notable one being that especially in the USAF "dog fighting" was not even practiced.

You have to remember that the Air Force went into the 1960s with the same mindset they had from the '50s. The mission they trained for was stopping Soviet bombers from attacking the United States. Fast, unmaneuverable airplanes armed with missiles were needed to stop those high-altitude bombers, and fighter combat was considered to be a thing of the past. They went into Vietnam thinking that they would be able to stand off and shoot missiles. They didn't envision actual dogfights, which have a habit of slowing down to 500 knots or so, and require turning.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

You have to remember that the Air Force went into the 1960s with the same mindset they had from the '50s. The mission they trained for was stopping Soviet bombers from attacking the United States. Fast, unmaneuverable airplanes armed with missiles were needed to stop those high-altitude bombers, and fighter combat was considered to be a thing of the past. They went into Vietnam thinking that they would be able to stand off and shoot missiles. They didn't envision actual dogfights, which have a habit of slowing down to 500 knots or so, and require turning.

Sounds tragically familiar. I believe our boffins considered scrapping the whole thing at one point, deciding that future wars would be fought between ICBMs and that there would be no use for aircraft.
In a war against the Soviet Union they may have had a point, but they forgot the rest of the world.

EDIT: To put a bit more meat on the bones of my comment, the 1957 Defence White Paper is what I refer to, although it doesn't mention the removal of the RAF (I think such things would have caused an uproar) it shows the decision to scale back interceptors in favour of SAM launchers, the Frightening only scraped through because it was too far advanced in planning to be worth stopping.