THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT NEGATED AMERICA’S MISSILE ADVANTAGE

The AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile was capable of engaging enemy fighters at ranges as far as 12 miles when intercepting head-on, which could have given the F-4 the “first shot” opportunity it needed to win more fights. However, the rules of engagement American pilots were given required that they make visual identification of targets before launching a weapon. Visual identification, of course, can only occur within visual range.

So, while America’s pilots had beyond-visual-range weapons at their disposal, they were effectively barred from using them. Once pilots had closed to within visual range of their opponents, they were now at a disadvantage to the MiG’s tight turn radius and guns.

But this limitation wasn’t just an issue when it came to weapons employment. It also eliminated the American opportunity for surprise in its air attacks. American fighters needed to be close enough to see their enemies before they could fire, but that inevitably meant their Vietnamese opponents could see them too. The F-4 was faster and had a longer reach than its opponents, but policy forced the pilots to surrender those advantages to their less advanced opponents.

AMERICA’S TACTICS WEREN’T RIGHT FOR THIS FIGHT EITHER

The North Vietnamese famously produced far more flying Aces – pilots with at least five kills – than America’s Air Force or Navy, but that fact dismisses an important difference between these two aviator groups: American pilots were rotated into and out of the fight, often after 100 missions, whereas their opponents continued to fly combat sorties over their home turf throughout the conflict’s entirety. It’s sort of like comparing football stats between one player’s rookie season and another player’s entire career.

When the war began, America sent its most highly experienced aviators into the fight. But by 1966, the Air Force was sending pilots home after either 100 missions over North Vietnam or one year of combat over South. While this rotation was valuable to combat burnout and maintain morale, it also produced a pressing need for new pilots in the cockpit at frequent intervals. As a result, many pilots arriving in-country didn’t have any real tactical experience behind the stick before they were thrust into the thick of it.

Air Force F-4s were further hampered by tactics, as they often flew in a World War II-era formation referred to as a “fluid four.” This formation resulted in wingmen being too close (between 1,500 and 2,000 feet away at a 45-degree angle) to provide any real protection for the other aircraft and effectively limited the “attacking” portion of the formation to just the flight leader.

Using four aircraft to deliver one jet’s worth of ordnance was a stark contrast to the Navy’s “fluid-two” formations of two aircraft both leveraging their full loadouts.

“The wingman was always just another airplane in the air. I would have preferred to have gone into Route Package VI, under the conditions [in which] we were operating, with two highly qualified crews [flying Navy fluid two] rather than four… I had to spend 90 percent of my time keeping somebody in the flight from getting shot down [and] could not go about the business of MiG-CAP,” One Air Force flight leader later recounted.

AMERICAN FIGHTER PILOTS WEREN’T TRAINED TO WIN THE DOGFIGHTS OVER VIETNAM

Before the Vietnam War, the United States had placed a huge emphasis on safety during training; so much so that it all but forbade the realistic training pilots needed to win dogfights over Vietnam. Further, most of the training F-4 pilots had for air combat was done against other F-4s, which flew nothing like the MiGs they were squaring off against in Vietnam.

This lack of realistic training meant many American fighter pilots were sent into the fight with very little dogfighting experience in general, and next to none against aircraft like the ones they’d be flying against.

Addressing this serious shortcoming eventually led to the establishment of the Air Force’s first-ever aggressor squadron – a group of pilots flying jets like the T-38 and later the F-5E Tiger, tasked with mirroring opponent tactics to provide a more realistic idea of what air combat would be like. Soon thereafter, the Air Force’s first-ever Red Flag training exercise, a massive operation meant to simulate complex air combat, was born to help rectify the lack of experience Air Force pilots had before heading into combat.

Likewise, the Navy made significant changes to how it prepared pilots for air warfare. In 1969, the US Navy created the Navy Fighter Weapons School, which later became the Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program, but is known to many simply as Top Gun.

While there’s room for debate as to what will come of dogfights in the next great conflict, the establishment and continued investment into both Red Flag and Top Gun following the Vietnam War prove without a doubt that the U.S. learned some valuable lessons from the fight that went on to help make America the most dominant air power in the world today.

Dogfights may seem like a thing of the past, but without any large-scale conflict to draw new data from, we’re left to rely on the hard-earned lessons of the past. Can America afford to come into the next big air fight using the same unfounded certainty we brought with us into Vietnam? Maybe the next large-scale war won’t see dogfights happen at all, but an aircraft that’s capable of scrapping with the best of them when a scrap arises.

This is a lot like the flak jacket I strapped on each day during my deployment to Mozambique, Africa. It was something I probably wouldn’t need that day… but still preferred to have it, just in case.

About the Author 

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.