A great F105 website

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Matt308

Note that last pic contains a load out of 750lb bombs with a .50BMG barrel screwed into the nose to "make the bomb stick". Not sure how that manifests itself in actual real life with 11sec fuses, but I have to imagine that a hardened steel nose would bury that bomb pretty deep.

I wonder about effectiveness.

It looks like you have to a.) depend entirely on the tail fuse, and b.) assume that a 50 cal barrel combined with a 25G impact doesn't fracture the bomb casing?

One of the big problems we had with the early LGB, is that pilots would drop at extreme slant range and the impact angle (low) tended to shear the FMU-81 nose fuse/control case away from nose - and tail fuse had a high failure rate.

[SoD Stitch]

Originally Posted by Matt308

Lots of entertainment there. I still am struggling with the 75% of all sorties by USAF in Rolling Thunder conducted by F-105s. Think about that in modern warfare. If you look at the types and numbers of aircraft lost in Vietnam it is actually quite staggering. Not to complicate matters, but I was under the impression that much more B-52s were lost, just in Operation Linebacker.

IIRC, the percentage of B-52's lost per sortie/aircraft over Vietnam during the Arc Light strikes was extremely low, comparatively speaking, something like 2%. Yes, several a/c were lost, but compared to the number of B-52's used during the campaign, and the number of sorties they flew, it was extremely low.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by SoD Stitch

IIRC, the percentage of B-52's lost per sortie/aircraft over Vietnam during the Arc Light strikes was extremely low, comparatively speaking, something like 2%. Yes, several a/c were lost, but compared to the number of B-52's used during the campaign, and the number of sorties they flew, it was extremely low.

Even Linebacker II had relatively low loss rates for the Buff's considering the intensity of the Hanoi air defense..

But the Thud was going over nearly every day from 65 through 68 as the primary strike weapon up North. It is still staggering to know that just the 355th TFW dropped 1/3 of all the tonnage dropped by all the B-17s during WWII.

IIRC the 355th lost 179 Thuds over N.Vietnam and Laos due to enemy action. 23 more to Ops accidents around Thailand between April 1965 and Sept 1970.

Curiously this is close to the number of ships lost for the 355th in VietNam as in WWII... and equally curious the dominant cause was AAA (and Sam's)

These numbers include Wild Weasel losses with 10 lost air to air against MiGs, for 21 MiGs shot down and 9 destroyed on ground.

The 354FS/355TFW ship that Syscom posted shot down two MiGs with Brestel and one with Basel and shown as Basel's 'bird' in mid 1967.

The F-105D at Davis-Monthan is represented as same ship.

[drgondog]

Wild Weasel mission 5 November 1967 - Wikisource

This is a link to a story about Lt. Col Billy Sparks - one of the USAF great characters and pall bearer along with Gen Earthquake McGoon Bob Titus at Olds Funeral. It was only after Titus finished his eulogy that the rarest of emotions - combined laughter and sobs from each knuckledragging fighter pilot could be heard at the same time and same breath.

Billy liked to think he ably assisted Titus and Olds for their 7+ MiG kills as "dumb bait' in his Weasel and frequently cadged young and old scotch from each whenever possible for their abuse.

A worthwhile read of one of the 355th's great combat leaders.

[pbfoot]

I've read where the gun on the 105 was pointed downward at about 2.5degrees for strafing is this fact or fiction

[Matt308]

Interesting question Pb, but with modern electronic sighting backed up by holographic sighting I doubt that the elevation/azimuth of the gun really matters too much in the scheme of things.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

I've read where the gun on the 105 was pointed downward at about 2.5degrees for strafing is this fact or fiction

Fiction Pb - the gun was all about 'self defense' not strafing. The wild weasels were only F-105s in flak suppression and the 105s had the most migs (and losses) until the F-4 took the lead in 1971 - all M-61 kills.

When I flew the A-10c simulator back in April, the HUD gunsight computes Point if impact at any range.. the F-105 had similat comptation in the gunsight but two generations behind th A-10 systems.

[yardbird78]

Originally Posted by drgondog

The specific F-105 that Syscom put up there was the only F-105 that killed three Migs..(two different pilots) - don't know if any specific F-4 or F-8 shot down as many

The F-4D that Steve Ritchie flew on his 1st and 5th kills wound up with total of 6 kills for the war. It is on display at the Air Force Academy with six red stars on the splitter plate.

Darwin, O.F.