Growing up as a kid I lived next to a retired Navy A-4 pilot who flew in Vietnam. The stories he told me about flying the A-4 in combat were the stuff of legend.
Thanks. All this stuff was happening when I was a teenager. I later served in the U.S. Army in West Germany from 73 to 75. You do a great job with the history.
Yes, it's interesting when you remember something from so long ago. When I was a teenager, I followed the Desert Storm very closely. And that was ages ago as well 😁
Great video! Along the note of your intro narration, some of these pilots became the senior commanders during first Gulf War and made sure this type of limited strategy was never followed again.
Thanks! Yes, they learned things the hard way. But even with experienced commanders who know what they are doing, there's still a chance that there are some bureaucrats above them who think they know better.
That's right. I just checked that story, there were in fact two A-1 Skyraiders shooting at the same MiG-17 and sharing the kill. This was covered in an episode of History Channel's Dogfights. Maybe someday we get the A-1 in DCS, that would be great.
I read once that if a pilot claims to have achieved an air to air kill with unguided rockets, he is either very very very good, or he is lying to you. Great Kill!
Actually, it was Lt Cdr T.R Swartz who dropped a MiG with a rocket salvo (plus another one on the ground). I just made a video about it 😁 Thank you for your comment!
Another great story ! I send you this interesting, poorly known story that I got from a French aviation magazine. Story told by then commander of 2nd "escadrille de chasse" (Hunting squadron) Roger Pessidous on the Dijon air base. In 1969 american U-2s regularly overflew France taking photos of the nuclear sites, when confronted the Yanks denied it. The 2 Sq. had performed various flights over 60.000 ft with a rocket boosted Mirage IIIE. The tactic was to climb to 30-40.000 ft and accelerate to MACH 1.8 then light up the SEPR rocket and climb at 1.6 MACH, at rocket burn-out (80sec.) you should be above 60.000 ft maybe 65 depending on atmospheric conditions. There was just enough fuel left to come back to the base. So they planned an interception on the U-2, the first few times they missed it, often because the radar guidance was a little off or because they did not had enough altitude. They were guided by ground radar, the radar on the Mirage had short range and was almost useless for that kind of mission. On the day of the story, the commander himself was driving, it was a pefect day and the boys at the radar station performed flawlessly. He came up from behing the U-2 at 1.7 MACH and 64.000 ft. As he was carriyng a "vulgar of the shelf photo camera" he tried to take a pic (de did) but in doing so he got too close and really shocked the spy plane as it went under it. After that the Yanks stopped all U-2 flight over France as they realised it was vulnerable... until the SR-71 came about. (More details if needed, translated from French) Cheers !
Thank you for your comment and suggestion. It would be an interesting story to reenact. But U-2 is not available in DCS. Mirage III is a mod with borrowed cockpit (from F-15). But if those two ever become available, I will consider doing it.
Wow ! 🤩 Feels like one is watching a real Movie 🎥 Great Historical Content as always thx for taking the time providing us with such great Aviation stuff.👍🙏 Just wondering what’s your DCS Hardware Setup a like ? 😉 👍
Thanks again! I'm actually aiming for some kind of immersive experience for the viewers. Maybe a movie or documentary such as History Channel's Dogfights. Don't know if you ever watched it. My hardware is relatively modest. Ryzen 5 1400, AMD Sapphire Pulse RX580 and 16 GB of RAM. Initially, I had only had 8 GB of RAM. Expanding to 16 GB really helped. You can notice that many of my older videos stutter because of it. I wasn't even aware how bad it was back then.
@@showtime112 Thanks 🙏 a lot for the prompt Answer it’s very much appreciated 👍 Was also wondering which Hotas your useing? And yes I know the Dogfight Series of the History Channel i bought them back then great 👍 series even the jets ✈️ look unproportional.😉
I also bought the entire DVD set of dogfights. I recently watched a couple of episodes and I can say DCS has better graphics :) As for joystick, I don't yet have a proper HOTAS model. Rather, I use an older Logitech model. It's got 8 buttons, force feedback, twist handle etc. It's good enough for what I do now but in multiplayer dogfight, I would surely get my butt kicked 😁
@@showtime112 Yes that's what i am also wondering they made such a good Historical Documentation but such crapy looking jets doesn't really go together. And yes i do also have a Hotas Logitech model and since DCS doesn't make my daily living i don't really feel the need for a high class Hotas Setup of course it would be nice but spending 450> bucks no not really right now. I upgraded my PC with all SSD's and two Samsung NVMe-M.2 SSDs and 64 GB of RAM. It does its job works for me.
@@LockOnNow Well, the show was made in 2006. so I guess graphics were OK for that time. They didn't look that bad when I watched it back then. Only now when I watch DCS it becomes obvious. 64 GB of RAM? Do you use all that? SSD is a good idea, I have a small one for Windows but I should buy a bigger one for DCS, I'm sure it would improve performance.
Thanks for the comment! Actually, at this point the Skyhawk mod had some bug and it would explode as soon as it touched the carrier deck. I mean, I could have done it with AI landing. But for some reason I didn't back then. Landing Skyhawk in that video about Bridge Strike in Rolling Thunder is mine. Second wire is not ideal but that was like my third Skyhawk landing on a carrier ever, the bug having been fixed just a little while before 😁
Vietnam's mig don't take off from the big airport, they take off from the makeshift airfield deep in the forest. And you never know they're approaching until you get shot. At large and important airports like this, there is always a dense air defense system with anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft missiles. The movie is good, but it doesn't describe the difficulty in this match because only 1 mig was shot down by A4 during the Vietnam war.
We don't have such airfields on the map in DCS. And the scope of the video was not really do give a strategic overview, just this one particular story. Someday, there will probably be a proper Vietnam map and the MiG-17 so this is a good candidate for a remake video.
Jupp...again repeated in Afghanistan. Instead of kicking Ass and go out again....NOOOO.....We "must bring Democracy; Schools; Kindergarten and whatever Nonsense.....only after paying the Industrial Military Complex Milliards of fu..ing Tax Payers Money. Should have "saved" that Money and spend on Ukraine instead. There is a "real" Enemy...
The F-4 was a mediocre fighter. It was designed to kill bombers attacking a carrier battlegroup. A mission it could not accomplish for at least a decade after introduction. There was inadequate C2 for beyond visual range engagements and the early Sparrow were plagued by too many problems to be effective. It the wrong plane for Vietnam. It's competitor, the F8U-3 Crusader III, was superior in every aspect of performance and its capabilities were not exceeded by any aircraft until the F-15. The F8E was the fighter for the conditions in Vietnam. When Top Gun stood up in 1968 the Navy just matched Crusaders and Phantoms and the outcome was a clear cut superiority of the F8 in traditional air-to-air combat.
Actually, I ordered Delanclip head tracker. Courier status says 'Prepared for export at international hub' in the UK. And it's been there since 25th last month. I don't know if it's corona or frikkin brexit but I hope they get that thing moving soon 😁
You first select F4 and then, you can move the camera around by holding down R SHIFT and R CTRL plus cursor keys (on numpad, I think). And you can move it forward and back ward by / and * on numpad.
Thanks for the comment. For one thing, A-4 had no air to air radar so it couldn't use Sparrows. It was primarily an attack aircraft. But US Navy had a great dogfighter, F-8 Crusader. However, this type of combat was considered obsolete so they replaced it.
There's no 'might'. It definitely is the wrong model 😁. That's an E model with J model skin. In fact, fighter escort on this mission wasn't even Phantoms. They were Crusaders but we don't have these yet. The only thin that comes close to a US Vietnam era fighter in DCS is F-4E.
That many MiG-17s destroyed on the ground would've been crippling to the North Vietnamese Air Force, even more so if they were actually MiG-21 Fishbeds.
Actually, Osprey's 'A-4 Skyhawk Units of the Vietnam War' which I used as my main source says that as many as 30 MiGs were destroyed on the ground. I reduced that number to make it look more credible :)
True. Historically, Crusaders were flying fighter cover here. But they are not available in DCS so this is an approximation. Also, MiGs are 15s instead of 17s. Good thing is that both these aircraft are being developed for DCS so I might do a remake sometime in the future.
@@dmutant2635 Thanks. As for the F-4,. that's exactly what it is but there's no other choice at the moment. F-8 is coming to DCS. And so is MiG-17. I might probably remake this video once those two become available.
@@showtime112 Good to hear! Perhaps you might consider the 195/66 VA-176 A-1 v Mig-17 combat in the future. Or Dick Bellinger's F-8 v Mig-21 kill around the same time? Keep up the good work...
When you micromanage nothing gets done. The restrictions on Linebacker made it pointless: you can't fight without experience, and a desk-bound dummkopf who's never flown a mission should never lead a charge. And those Zuni's hit like artillery!!
It's an ego thing. Hierarchy is a very stupid way of functioning but we haven't thought of anything better. Some people think they know everything better than anybody subordinate to them. The way Vietnam War was run is a clear example.
Don't you think that I would have used the right version had this been possible? Do you think that you can simply select any version of any airplane, vehicle or ship with any modification?
Let's keep in mind while bemoaning micromanagement from Washington that our political leadership was trying to avoid bringing the USSR into direct and open participation in the war and thereby setting off World War Three. Preserving capitalism in South Vietnam (democracy had nothing to do with it) wasn't worth risking the whole of human civilization. You might notice that the 'loss" of Vietnam was vastly less catastrophic for the West than government and military hawks had hysterically warned us. Still, respect for the men and women who served bravely and professionally.
Well, we have to be honest and consider that we do have the benefit of hindsight. And the feared 'domino effect' wasn't as terrible as believed. Still, some of the policies were strange, to put it diplomatically.
The rolling thunder campaign reminds me of Nazi Germany's handling of the " Battle of Britian " in 1940 . . . Both complete failures and a waste of airmen and equipment !!
I think that in reality the escorts weren't even F-4s but F-8s. However, the list of resources is quite limited in DCS so I was happy to find any US fighter with USN skin.
@@ingwiefreak That's alright. People 'correct' details all the time and I still haven't gotten used to it 😁 DCS World is used to create these reenactments, but it only has a certain range of assets so it's necessary to approximate. Otherwise, no video would be possible.
