Air Combat In Vietnam Essay

Aerial Combat over Vietnam

Introduction

The Vietnam War provided challenging and exciting times for United States (US) military aviation. Jets were still considered new technology at the beginning of the 1960’s and had not been tested thoroughly during the Korean War. As the situation in Vietnam started to escalate, US leadership recognized the importance of air superiority and the need to use and adapt newer technology. Air superiority can be achieved through multiple means, but none as romanticized and iconic as aerial combat. The general concept remains the same even to this day—defeat the other plane. However, the means to winning a dog fight had changed greatly due to the quick advancement in jet propulsion and guided weapon technology. This paper provides a summarization of the US efforts towards achieving air superiority through the means of aerial combat.

North Vietnamese buildup

Prior to 1964, the Northern Vietnamese military lacked a modern Air Force to deploy to combat. Comprised entirely of trainer aircraft, transports, and light helicopters, the ability of North Vietnam to attack or defend from the air was non-existent (Middleton et al., 1978). Shortly after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, it was reported that the North had received about 30 older and outdated Russian Mikoyan and Gurevich (MiG) 15 and

Just as quickly as MiG were appearing so to were Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAM), early warning radar, and anti-aircraft artillery (AAA). In fact, approximately 68% of all American aircraft losses were the result of AAA (Momymer, 1980). AAA was a familiar and expected system as seen in World War II and the Korean War. What was not anticipated was the threat from SAMs. After the first aircraft was lost to a SAM in 1965, the US quickly ramped up aircraft defenses with modern countermeasures. This greatly reduced the effectiveness of SAMs despite them remaining a prominent air defense