Greatest Fighter-Bomber of the Vietnam War

[carman1877]

Hi everyone, I wanted to see what the people on this forum thought about the fighter-bomber aircraft that served during Vietnam. I decided to include the F-4 Phantom II, F-105 Thunderchief, and the F-111 Aardvark. I was wondering what people thought about them based on the machine itself, the mission and sorties, and how it performed.

Thanks

 

[Spetsznaz]

The F-105's were to vulnarable so that pretty much sums it up to the phantom and aardvark.

The Thunderchiefs were slow, and when they senf the MiG-21's up, the MiGs would get a missle lock shoot the two missles and fly back to base.

The weakness of the thundercheifs was only good during operation Bolo

 

[carman1877]

Spetsznaz, you are right about the vulnerability. The early F-105s did not have self sealing fuel tanks, and they were not made to go on sortie after sortie but rather to drop a nuclear bomb and leave. This made them more vunerable than other planes such the F-4 that had self sealing tanks, and more armor.

However I do not think that the F-105 should be excluded because of that. It stil flew 75% of the sorites conducted during the first four years of its service. Also one of the reasons that almost half the F-105s were lost was because they flew extremely dangerous missions to targets that were surrounded by anti aircraft guns and SAMs.

It also had a large bombload, and it was the fastest aircraft the US had at low level.

 

[Kilo 2-3]

...ahem, the A-Skyraider anyone? It may have been obsolete; but it did yeoman service in the COIN and close air support role.

 

[carman1877]

I would have included the Skyraider if I was talking about attack planes, but the thread is about fighter-bombers and the Skyraider does not fit into that category. However the Skyraider was a great plane in Vietnam.

 

[OpinionNoted]

dont forget A-4's.

 

[carman1877]

OpinuonNoted, I guess the A-4 could be called a fighter-bomber although in the name its self its an attack plane. That said the A-4 like the skyraider did have have an impact in the Vietnam war. I personally like the A-4 Marine variant.

I had a question about the F-105D, would an F-105D carry a AGM-45 Shrike? I was thinking that it might before the Wild Weasels with the F-105G models were around, or maybe if they did not have Wild Weasel support?

Thanks

 

[carman1877]

I wanted to make this post becuase I originally voted for the F-105 but now I realized that the F-111 was most likely the best fighter bomber because of its ability to carry 25,000 pounds of ordanance and its terrian following radar. This gave it the ability to come in at low-level and destroy targets that the F-105 and F-4 might not be able to get.

 

[Neutral Zone]

The F-111's initial Combat Lancer deployment to Vietnam was not a roaring success. It only reached it's full potential towards the end of it's USAF career as it's Desert Storm performance showed. Of the options given I'd go for the Phantom but the Skyhawk should have been in there as well.

 

[carman1877]

Im not 100% of this but the F-111A had problems with the vertical stabilizer during its initial demployment in the later 1960s. However when the F-111s were redilereved in time for Linebacker II they had most of the problems fixed and the plane flew better. There were only 6 loses to enemy fire in Vietnam I believe.