F-105 Wild Weasel vs SA-2 'Guideline' SAM: Vietnam 1965-73 by Peter E. Davies

By Peter E. Davies

Even though the US entered the Vietnam warfare with the various world's such a lot refined wrestle plane, nearly all of their missions concerned traditional bombing and fighter engagements that hired really comparable strategies to these formerly utilized in the Korean warfare and international struggle 2. the true step swap in aerial scuffling with got here with using air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles. constructing tools of defeating the latter concerned the swift evolution of expertise and strategies which, over two decades later, could allow the us to win the air conflict over Iraq in Operation wasteland hurricane in a question of hours. throughout the Vietnam struggle, the looks of Russian SA-2 missiles round Hanoi in 1965 alarmed US officers. at the beginning reluctant to assault the missile websites, the expanding toll people plane and the ways that the SA-2s inhibited bombing strategies intended that new equipment of facing the websites needed to be built fast. digital reconnaissance airplane had a few luck with jamming of the missiles' counsel platforms at lengthy diversity, however the genuine answer lay with an airplane which may become aware of the radars at nearer variety, provide itself as a aim to the missile websites and assault them earlier than missiles might be introduced at US bombers. F-105Fs outfitted with new know-how fast turned an important addition to all USAF strike missions over North Vietnam. utilizing new Shrike and conventional ARM anti-radiation missiles and radar detection gear constructed by means of the U.S. army, the F-105F and its extra subtle successor, the F-105G, persisted their hair-raising battles with North Vietnamese missile batteries through the remainder of the Vietnam battle. the following, writer Peter Davies recounts the dramatic contests among those newly equipped F-105s and the missile websites in Vietnam in a hugely illustrated account, drawing on first-hand pilot reviews and technical manuals to give a whole heritage of the applied sciences and strategies of each side.