F-100 in vietnam

[ford2go]

I apologize if this has been well covered previously. I've never seen anything so I thought that I'd ask.

What went on with the F-100 in nam. It seems to have been relegated to ground support fairly quickly

I'm guessing that it was possibly a poor fit for other roles , but it was available. But that's just a guess. Wuld appreciate any enlightenment.

Thanks,

hj

[edpop]

I spent all of 1967 in Vietnam...............the Hun did an amazing job doing close air support for us.!!

[basher54321]

I apologize if this has been well covered previously. I've never seen anything so I thought that I'd ask.

What went on with the F-100 in nam. It seems to have been relegated to ground support fairly quickly

I'm guessing that it was possibly a poor fit for other roles , but it was available. But that's just a guess. Wuld appreciate any enlightenment.

Thanks,

hj

A-A it was replaced by F-4s and it it had a brief stint as Wild Weasel I before being replaced there by more suitable aircraft.

It had a quite a large role in Vietnam mostly A-G so for details something like https://ospreypublishing.com/f-100-supe ... ietnam-war.

Here is brief article https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/sto ... n-vietnam/

[mixelflick]

Tough to see it in any other role than as CAS/light interdiction. It certainly wasn't going to dogfight Migs, especially carrying those big wing tanks that were frequently carried.

Too fast for FAC, too slow for recon runs. It seemingly fell somewhere in the middle, but ultimately found a niche as a CAS platform. Given its limitations its pilots, maintainers etc. did a magnificent job IMO..

[basher54321]

Tough to see it in any other role than as CAS/light interdiction. It certainly wasn't going to dogfight Migs, especially carrying those big wing tanks that were frequently carried.

Too fast for FAC, too slow for recon runs. It seemingly fell somewhere in the middle, but ultimately found a niche as a CAS platform. Given its limitations its pilots, maintainers etc. did a magnificent job IMO..

The F-100 was actually designed as an air superiority fighter although deemed obsolete (like the MiG-17) by the start of the second Indochina war - it did start it doing escort and MiGCap.

You need to look up Fast FAC or MISTY which was a famous call sign because F-100s were used as one of the Fast FACs. Some F-16s actually had a similar role in Desert Storm.

[outlaw162]

...especially carrying those big wing tanks that were frequently carried.

The jettisonable wing tanks were not really a limitation as such, but in the interest of adding more modern weaponry to supplement the 20mm cannons, non-jettisonable Type 9 inboard pylons could be added, each carrying 2 AIM-9s (early Bs at the time), and each pylon having a drag index of about a bazillion. (RoCAF carried 'em on their F-100A models also)

AFAIK the only thing a US F-100 ever shot down with an AIM-9.....was a B-52. (1961 by the NM ANG)

IMO realistically, if the VPAF had operated F-100s instead of and just like their MiG-17s in the point defense role with GCI, they'd have probably taken out just as many F-105s and F-4s with 'em.....and reciprocally lost just as many Super Sabres as they did Frescos.

Type 9 pylons and AIM-9Bs:

[Gums]

Salute!

Plenty of "wiki" stuff out there for the Hun. Prolly lots here, as well. Gotta dust off that liberry card, man.
===================
The Hun started the SEAD role as "Iron Hand", and I think the Navy kept that name for the mission versus Wild Weasel like USAF

The most famous use was as Misty FAC's, and two good books about them are on the street.

At Bien Hoa we A-37 folks jousted from day one when some Hun icehole made a comment in the arming area about how small we were. The Hun fellow neglected to notice that the "little" A-37's were loaded with more bombs than them! Our single squad of 24 planes flew more sorties every day than the three squadrons of Huns. We could also keep climbing above 15,000 feet to the low 20's, but they had to use burner to do that.

When the Hun was loaded with snake and nape it was good for CAS,lots better than the Double Uglies.

The Misty mission was glorified, IMHO, but the plane was more survivable than the O-1, O-2 or OV-10.

Several ANG squads were activated and served in 'nam, 1968 and following. I had the pleasure of checking out two of the squadrons when they got their Sluf's.

Gums recalls....

[outlaw162]

When I got there, the Tucson Guard had a bunch of the ex-Vietnam F-100 (CAS guys & Misty FACs) reprobates as instructors, and believe me, there weren't any better manual bombers around. In fact just before I got there, they had an informal (free beer at the Poly Room vs free beer at TAGRA depending) bomb and strafe comp with the DM A-7s and their fancy NWDC computers....and beat them....free beer and revelry at the Poly Room. These guys were legends.

When the Hun was loaded with snake and nape it was good for CAS,lots better than the Double Uglies.

Put an ex-Hun driver in a Phantom and you'd get some exceptional manual bombing results also. They were actually very similar....if you had the talking altimeter go 'cold mic'.
(better than Dive-Toss )

I went to Gunsmoke in the F-4, all 4 primary pilots who had won the preliminary comp were ex-Hun drivers, the backup fifth was an ex-Thud guy.

You already knew you weren't going to win against F-16s with 330 knot computed dive bomb deliveries or A-7s with very stable M-61s, or even A-10s with 250 knot manual deliveries, but the ex-Hun bunch had the best manual (F-4 or otherwise) dive bombing scores ever recorded at GS....and had a pretty good time.

[quicksilver]

‘...the talking altimeter...”



Hard to believe for some, but I saw it first-hand as a youngster. The crusty gray-haired ltcol in the beat-to-s___ flight suit and boots takes me out to the scored range and puts up a 25’ CEP w 12 high-drag BDUs on 5 and 10 degree manual deliveries.

Set the chinning bar for me very early on...

[Gums]

Salute!

Good stuff here today.

I was trained by Hun and Thud jocks for my A-37 checkout. 4 years later, I am trained by Hun and Thud jocks for the A-7D. Another 8 years go by and guess what? I am trained by Hun jocks for the first Viper squadron ( a few Aggressor folks in that mix, as well as Sluf folks I knew well).

Outlaw prolly knew a bunch of the Tuck-son bunch I flew with off and on - Shep, Fiorelli and maybe Massey for a bit, in the Sluf years, but his first combat tour was in the Hun.

Plenty of history out there on the Hun, but Ford-breath needs to get to the liberry. Mainly squadron pages.

Gums sends...

[35_aoa]

‘...the talking altimeter...”



Hard to believe for some, but I saw it first-hand as a youngster. The crusty gray-haired ltcol in the beat-to-s___ flight suit and boots takes me out to the scored range and puts up a 25’ CEP w 12 high-drag BDUs on 5 and 10 degree manual deliveries.

Set the chinning bar for me very early on...

25' CEP is damn impressive manual bombing. I'm an auto cripple now but I once upon a time did manuals in the T-45. You old guys learned it a lot longer than we did. So did the 8th AF

[Gums]

Salute!

Good thots, 35-aoa

I was blessed to start with pure manual, as most attack folks did until late 60's and we had T-stick for the Thud and Dive Toss for the Double Ugly. Not too sure about the A-6, but the early A-7 models the Navy developed were manual, and maybe had a HUD to help a bit with the cross check of dive angle, airspeed, altitude, pipper tracking and gee. By late 1969 we had the A-7D system coming along, F-4D dive toss, etc. But the Sluf implementation won the day, and showed it in combat plus at Gunsmoke years later.

Always amazed me that a human being could integrate all that along with the rate going down hill to anticipate pressing the pickle button. Oh yeah, "steep? pickle early", "shallow? pickle later". "fast? early", "slow? later", "drift? fly your a$$ over the tgt and pickle when pipper abreast of the aimpoint you had calculated but couldn't reach".

The A-37 had the lowest documented CEA in VietNam as scored by the FAC's ( Corona Harvest report upon request, and the A-7D came in at about the same when it arrived in October 1972 just as the last A-37 squadron was leaving). And we did it with slicks. Our speed was too slow to get reliable fin deployment for the snakes, and the sight depression was rediculous - way down. So the Huns done good with those suckers cause they released very low and close to the tgt. Nape was same for A-1, A-37, Hun and even a Double Ugly could hit within a hundred yards if the pilot had previous time in something else. So the Dragonflies kept a fairly steep dive to minimize range error and dropped low, as we could pull up to avoid the frag damage. Was still low enuf that we could hear a "click" when the bomb went off under/behind us, heh heh.

For the record, manual in the Viper was a bear because there was little attitude and pitch reference up front due to that cosmic canopy we had. You know," put the horizon just below the canopy bow" to help with dive angle, and such. Nevertheless, last bomb I ever dropped was a manual BDU-33 at Eagle Range on the last day I ever flew a neat plane and then retired an hour or so later on the flight line. Sucker was "scoreable" and a "qualifier", but nothing like I was used to in the Dragonfly and Sluf.

Gums sends...

[quicksilver]

‘...the talking altimeter...”



Hard to believe for some, but I saw it first-hand as a youngster. The crusty gray-haired ltcol in the beat-to-s___ flight suit and boots takes me out to the scored range and puts up a 25’ CEP w 12 high-drag BDUs on 5 and 10 degree manual deliveries.

Set the chinning bar for me very early on...

25' CEP is damn impressive manual bombing. I'm an auto cripple now but I once upon a time did manuals in the T-45. You old guys learned it a lot longer than we did. So did the 8th AF

He was visual slant-range bombing, which I learned shortly thereafter. I’ve forgotten the equation but, in the run, when the target (of known dimensions) was the calculated size (compared to the size of the pipper in mils), you were at the correct slant range for the delivery you had chosen. Some offsets for winds x/y, and on-speed assumed, but it worked and it was easy. Not as easy as CCIP/AUTO/CCRP, but...

[outlaw162]

My first ever A-G gunnery ride was in a single-seat F-100D during a local checkout with the Ohio ANG without benefit of a dual ride. The pre-flight briefing took about 5 minutes and was oriented to some switch settings and "Whatever you do, do not hit the ground." Minimal technique or theory, and certainly no special 'secrets' divulged....survival of the fittest and DIY oriented.

Carried 2 MK-106 beer cans for skip bomb, 6 BDU-33s, 2 each for LAB (10), LALD (20) and DB (30) and 100 rounds of 20mm.

When the dust settled, literally, I had:

2 skip misses, 2 unscoreable LAB, 2 unscoreable LALD, 2 unscoreable DB....and 0 hits on strafe.

I was just happy to finally be in the big leagues.

[35_aoa]

He was visual slant-range bombing, which I learned shortly thereafter. I’ve forgotten the equation but, in the run, when the target (of known dimensions) was the calculated size (compared to the size of the pipper in mils), you were at the correct slant range for the delivery you had chosen. Some offsets for winds x/y, and on-speed assumed, but it worked and it was easy. Not as easy as CCIP/AUTO/CCRP, but...

Yeah, that's essentially what I remember doing in the VT's. There was definitely a slant range where your Z diagram (unsure what it is called in USAF talk) called for a pickle if on the wire.....and corrections if not on it. Explained much less simply than you did there, but that was the idea. It wasn't super hard (I obviously passed heh heh), but getting that kind of accuracy isn't for newcomers who have a simple conceptual understanding I'd say........takes some reps on the old range, which were admittedly pretty short in number for us newer generation guys. Good intro to the basics, but was largely lost in the following career of auto bombing. Much respect for you all that didn't have the modern crutches of war to lean on. Now it is mostly level JDAM with an IN ZONE, which any idiot can replicate.