Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,326 posts, read 54,350,985 times
Reputation: 40726
Advertisements
Quote:
Originally Posted by Memphis1979
Many of our jets didn't have guns, at all. This proved to be a mistake. They went to full missile air to air warfare. Lost all of our dog fighting ability. The jets were fast, but unmanuverable.
F-100s had 4 20mm cannons, F-105s as well as some model F-4s had rotary cannons, what "many of our jets didn't have guns" are you referring to?
F-100s had 4 20mm cannons, F-105s as well as some model F-4s had rotary cannons, what 'many of our jets didn't have guns" are you referring to?
The first F-4s went into service without cannons. New theories on air warfare believed that cannons were as obsolete as cavalry and missiles would be more effective. They fared poorly against the North Vietnamese MiGs since the accuracy of the missiles weren't 100% and you have less ammo to work with. Cannons were added back on shortly after the reports came back to the Pentagon telling them what an incredibly bad idea it was to send fighters into a dogfight with a close-range weapon.
They fared poorly against the North Vietnamese MiGs .
The MIG-21 was faster than an F-4, could climb faster than, and turn inside an F-4. Ironically, a MIG-21 was shot down in Vietnam by an A-1 Skyraider (propeller powered), and an F-4 was shot down by a Korean War vintage MIG-15.
The first F-4s went into service without cannons. New theories on air warfare believed that cannons were as obsolete as cavalry and missiles would be more effective. They fared poorly against the North Vietnamese MiGs since the accuracy of the missiles weren't 100% and you have less ammo to work with. Cannons were added back on shortly after the reports came back to the Pentagon telling them what an incredibly bad idea it was to send fighters into a dogfight with a close-range weapon.
If I remember correctly they were pod mounted and took away from other payload.
The goals of the war itself were just. The way it was carried out was not.
The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were basically the same as all Communist tyrants, they wanted an oppressive totalitarian state. Specifically they wanted to absorb another country into their currently existing one.
Seeing as how the NVA and VC routinely committed their own My Lai style massacres and the fact that thousands of North Vietnamese escaped to the South and literally hundreds of thousands fled South Vietnam to the West when the North finally defeated the South.
Obviously, the carpet bombing of Laos and Cambodia, the later stages of the Phoenix Program, use of defoliants like Agent Orange, massacres committed by American and allied forces such as My Lai and Binh Hoa, the overuse of Free Fire Zones, the Strategic Hamlets program, and so on obviously saps a lot of the moral credibility of the war, but ultimately Vietnam would have been much better off had the US and South Vietnam won.
massacres committed by American and allied forces such as My Lai and Binh Hoa,
Binh Hoa? What massacre? I worked at Binh Hoa; it was a major US Air Base just north of Saigon.
I understand and respect your position that the war was a just war. I had the same belief at one time. And yes, the VC and NVA were brutal and commited horrible atrocities. I remember the VC throwing half-American babies into the air and shooting then during Tet '68.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
