The Phantom in Vietnam . Postwar US Phantom

Air war Vietnam 1969 - 1970

ROLLING THUNDER, in hindsight, had accomplished very little other than the loss of hundreds of aircraft, with over a thousand aircrew killed or missing in action. The lack of success extended to aerial engagements. The kill ratio for both the Air Force and the Navy versus the MiGs was about 3:1, in favor of the Americans but still regarded as unacceptable. (Russian accounts of the air war hotly dispute even that ratio.)

The low kill ratio was partly due to the "Mickey Mouse" ROEs, but there wasn't much the military could do about them directly, and plenty else was wrong. The Navy assigned an experienced fighter pilot, Captain Frank Ault, to produce a report on what could be done to make US Navy fighters more effective in air combat. Ault released him report in early 1969. His conclusions focused on the deterioration of dogfighting skills due to training doctrines that were based on the concept of long-range shootouts with AAMs. In response, in March 1969 the Navy began the first "Post-Graduate Course in Fighter Weapons, Tactics, & Doctrine" at the Miramar Naval Air Station in California to provide Navy fighter pilots with intensive training in dogfighting.

The course became known as TOP GUN. Flight exercises involved dogfights with "dissimilar" aircraft that had similar performance to MiGs. An unloaded A-4 Skyhawk, for example, flew very much like a MiG-17. The Air Force had been running a fighter training school at Nellis AFB in the state of Nevada for several years, and decided to enhance their own course as well, but the Air Force did not emphasize combat with dissimilar aircraft at first, and their course suffered accordingly.

During this quiet time, improved weapons were acquired. The Air Force got their F-4Es, with built-in cannon, and the Navy got their new F-4Js, which could carry the Hughes Mark 4 cannon pod. New and much more effective jammer pods were introduced.

The Phantom also helped pioneer the operational use of "smart" munitions. The US Navy had introduced the Walleye "electro-optic glide bomb (EOGB)" into combat in 1967. It was originally carried by Navy A-4 Skyhawks fitted with radio-link gear to control the weapon, and eventually was carried by Phantoms as well. In 1972, the USAF introduced their own EOGB, the Rockwell "Homing Bomb System (HOBOS)", as well as the first operational "laser guided bomb (LGB)", the Texas Instruments "Paveway I" series. Phantoms carried both weapons. Both proved accurate, though the HOBOS was not entirely reliable in combat and was more expensive than the Paveway bombs.

The Phantom needed to carry a laser "target designator" to shine a laser spot on a target for the LGB to home in on. Initially, Phantoms were fitted with a laser mounted to the frame of the rear canopy and pointed by the back-seater. This was quickly replaced by the large banana-shaped "Pave Knife" pod, which provided a moving turret with a TV camera boresighted to a laser beam. The Pave Knife pod was used in combat against North Vietnam during the final air offensives in 1972.

One of the more unusual payloads carried by Phantoms were sensor systems designed to detect the passage of North Vietnamese trucks along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the main supply line from North to South Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia. These sensors looked like big spikes, burying themselves in the ground on impact, leaving their antenna sticking up out of the ground, camouflaged as a bamboo tree. The effort against the Trail, codenamed IGLOO WHITE, still proved a failure.

Air war Vietnam 1971-1973, Linebacker I & II

The quiet spell began to end in early 1971. On 19 January of that year, a Navy RA-5C was performing a reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam, with a flight of Navy F-4Js assigned to perform air-defense suppression. The flight was led by Lieutenant Randall Cunningham, better known as "Randy" or "Duke", with RIO Lieutenant William Patrick "Willie" Driscoll. They were both Top Gun graduates.

The Phantoms dodged a number of SAMs and then ran into MiG-21s. Cunningham saw two MiG-21s moving fast below him and dived on them. Driscoll got a Sparrow lock, but Cunningham decided to close in and use a Sidewinder. He fired; the PAVNAF pilot broke right and shook off the missile. Cunningham's Top Gun training told him not to get into a turning contest with a MiG, so he went down low and fast to get out of that game and seek a better opportunity. He got it; though the second MiG-21 flew out the fight, the first came out of his turn, the pilot failing to see the Phantom below him. The MiG banked left and Cunningham popped up, firing a Sidewinder on a nice clear target outlined against the sky. The missile scored a direct hit on the MiG, blowing off its tail. It was the first Navy air combat victory in almost two years.

That was just a warmup, though. The air war revived in earnest in the spring of 1972. On 30 March, the North Vietnamese Army came across the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam in force, supported by armor and artillery. Although President Nixon had pushed to "Vietnamize" the conflict, training and equipping the South Vietnamese to conduct the ground war, the South Vietnamese were still dependent on American air power.

On 15 April, President Nixon ordered that air strikes against the North be resumed under Operation FREEDOM TRAIN. Most of the ROEs were lifted. Although Boeing B-52s had not been used in ROLLING THUNDER because losing one of the big bombers would have been too embarrassing, they were now performing terrifying carpet-bombing attacks against North Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese had improved their air defenses during the previous few years, but new American electronic countermeasures paid off, helping to nullify the SAM threat. Improved fighter weapons and tactics paid off as well, with the Air Force shooting down three MiGs on 16 April and the Navy achieving the same score on 6 May.

On 8 May, Navy A-6 Intruders mined Haiphong Harbor. Duke Cunningham and Willie Driscoll were flying escort, when they were attacked by a MiG-17 that fired a heatseeking AAM at them and their wingmate. The Phantoms banked and shook the missile. Cunningham turned on the MiG and took a shot at him with a Sidewinder. The firing position was far from optimum, but the missile struck home.

Cunningham and Driscoll didn't have much time to enjoy this victory, since another MiG-17 immediately jumped them. Cunningham turned wildly to escape, damaging his aircraft in the process, only to look up and see the MiG-17 just above him. There was no out-turning a MiG-17, but he could out-run it. He ducked into a cloud and engaged afterburner to give the MiG the slip. Cunningham and Driscoll counted themselves lucky to have got away.

On 10 May 1972, the bombing campaign took another step up with concentrated strikes against North Vietnam's rail infrastructure, with the offensive now renamed LINEBACKER.

The Air Force's main target that day was the Paul Doumer Bridge, a heavy concrete structure that had resisted all attacks during Rolling Thunder. On 10 May, however, Phantoms armed with laser-guided and conventional bombs rendered it unusable. They would come back the next day and finish the job.

That was later. MiGs had come up to oppose the initial strike, and the Air Force Phantoms responded. One of the things that had been improved since ROLLING THUNDER was IFF procedures, and Phantoms were now equipped with receivers developed under the "Combat Tree" program that could get a positive ID on a MiG from its IFF system. There was no longer any requirement for a visual identification before engaging an enemy.

A flight of F-4s under Captain Robert Lodge took on the MiGs. Lodge fired two Sparrows from long range, missing with one but scoring a kill with the second. The Sparrow was finally being used as designed. Two of the other pilots in the flight, Lieutenant John Markle and Captain Richard S. "Steve" Ritchie, also scored kills with Sparrows. Unfortunately, Lodge became preoccupied with a new target and failed to respond to warnings that two MiG-19s were on his tail. The MiGs shot his Phantom full of holes. Lodge was killed, though WSO Captain Roger Locher ejected, evading capture for 23 days before being picked up by a rescue helicopter.

The Navy was having adventures of their own that day. Cunningham and Driscoll were part of a strike package hitting a railyard alongside Haiphong Harbor. As they were pulling out of their bomb run, one of the other Phantoms blew up in a fireball, a victim of ground fire, just as Driscoll reported a MiG-17 coming up on their own tail.

Four more MiG-17s joined the first, and Cunningham found himself in a wild mixup. He managed to use the Phantom's superior speed and power to get on the tail of one of the MiGs, so close in fact that he was too near to fire a Sidewinder, wishing he had a cannon pod.

However, the MiG pilot panicked, and instead of trying to out-turn the Phantom -- which he could have done easily -- he engaged afterburner and tried to run away. This would have been a losing game with the Phantom in general, and in this case all the PAVNAF pilot did was get enough space to allow Cunningham to put a Sidewinder up the MiG's tailpipe, blasting it out of the sky.

Cunningham applied power and got altitude to look down on a scene full of MiGs and Phantoms. One of the Phantoms broke out of the fight with several MiGs in pursuit. Cunningham dived down on the four aircraft and got a Sidewinder lock, but he couldn't safely launch since the other Phantom was in the line of fire. Cunningham called out: "Showtime, break right, break right!" The pilot of the second Phantom, distracted, didn't respond. Cunningham tried again: "Showtime, reverse starboard!" Nothing happened.

Cunningham finally shouted: "IF YOU DON'T, YOU'RE DEAD!" The second Phantom then rolled out of the line of fire, and then Cunningham launched, scoring a hit that tore apart the MiG. The North Vietnamese pilot somehow managed to bail out or was thrown clear.

Cunningham circled back around out of the fight. Driscoll observed a MiG-17 on their tail, but Cunningham easily shook him. They didn't see anything but MiGs in the sky and decided to head back for their home, the carrier USS CONSTELLATION.

On the way back out, they encountered a MiG-17 approaching from ahead. Cunningham turned into the attack, abruptly jinking out of the way and going vertical when the MiG pilot started firing. Cunningham thought that would be the end of it, given the usual "hit and run" tactics of the enemy, but the PAVNAF pilot was there to fight, pulling up vertically so the two aircraft were canopy-to-canopy. The MiG-17 didn't have the power to keep up in this game, but that wasn't good news for the Navy men; it meant that the Phantom would soon climb into the line of fire of the MiG's hard-hitting cannons. Cunningham dropped out of the climb and dove just as the MiG opened fire again.

The two fighters separated and came back at each other again, performing two up-and-down maneuvers, trying to get on each other's tail. The MiG stayed with the Phantom every step of the way. Cunningham thought: "He's gonna get lucky one of these times."

Then Cunningham cut power and extended his airbrakes, forcing the MiG to overshoot. The MiG pilot went into a steep dive to escape and Cunningham followed. The range was long and Sidewinders could be easily confounded by ground heat sources on a downward shot, but Cunningham launched anyway. Somewhat to his surprise, the missile went home and the MiG exploded.

Cunningham and Driscoll were not quite through with the excitement for the day. Near the coast, an SA-2 SAM popped up near them and exploded, spattering shrapnel into their Phantom and badly damaging it. They made it well out to sea, called ahead to the CONSTELLATION for a rescue helicopter, and then ejected. They were picked up about 20 minutes later and brought back to a wild celebration. Not only had they shot down three MiGs in a single sortie, but Cunningham and Driscoll, who were given equal credit for kills, were now the Navy's first aces of the Vietnam War.

The identity of the pilot remains something of a mystery. The scuttlebutt went around that he was the mysterious "Colonel Tomb", with 13 kills. However, Colonel Tomb may have been something of an "urban folktale" among US fighter jocks; while the North Vietnamese often played up their aces in propaganda broadcasts, they said little or nothing about Tomb. Cunningham would become a Top Gun instructor after the war, then move on to lead the Navy's "aggressor squadron", which provided Navy pilots in training to fight Soviet aircraft, using A-4 Skyhawks to simulate MiG-17s and Northrop F-5s to simulate MiG-21s.

10 May 1972 had been an exciting day. The Air Force and Navy had shot down 11 MiGs. They had lost two Phantoms in air combat, a third to AAA, and a fourth to a SAM. Most of the targets on the strike list had been destroyed, and those that hadn't were picked off in the coming days. On 13 May, Air Force Phantoms with LGBs dropped the Than Hoa Bridge, which like the Paul Doumer Bridge had resisted all attacks during Rolling Thunder.

The Air Force of course had to get an ace of their own, and they weren't far behind the Navy. On 31 May 1972, Steve Ritchie was leading a flight of Phantoms on a MIGCAP, and the F-4s were jumped by MiG-21s. Ritchie got behind one of the MiGs and fired four Sparrows, the last one scoring a kill.

A little over a month later, on 8 July 1972, Ritchie was leading another MIGCAP near Hanoi when an EC-121 Warning Star warned them that MiGs were approaching. The American and North Vietnamese fighters closed the range. Ritchie passed close by one of the MiGs, zipping by too fast to allow either adversary to fire, then took his Phantom down low. Ritchie figured that there was a second MiG following the first, and sure enough one showed up seconds later. The PAVNAF pilot didn't see the camouflaged Phantom against the jungle below; Ritchie rolled up and around, got a radar lock, and fired two Sparrows. The first missile struck and destroyed the MiG, while the second passed through the wreckage as it fell of the sky.

In the meantime, the first MiG-21 had got on the tail of another Phantom, and Ritchie engaged afterburner and pursued. He closed and got a Sparrow lock. The MiG tried to escape with a high-gee turn. Ritchie launched, and though the Sparrow was at the limit of its maneuvering envelope, it still struck home.

On 28 August 1972, Ritchie dropped another MiG. He was now the first Air Force ace of the Vietnam War. His WSO, Captain Charles Debellevue, was not an ace because he'd only been in the back seat for four of the kills. However, Debellevue would be in the back seat with another pilot for two more kills, making him the highest-scoring ace of the Vietnam War. Another WSO, Captain Jeff Feinstein, would also become an ace, with five kills.

Even the Marines, who didn't have the opportunity to do much dogfighting during the war, got into the act during LINEBACKER. On 11 September 1972, USMC Major Thomas "Bear" Lasseter and RIO Captain John D. Cummings shot down a MiG-21, the only Marine air-to-air kill of the conflict.

LINEBACKER still did not persuade the North Vietnamese to be more flexible in their negotiations, even though by this time the US was really only seeking a way out of the war. On 13 December 1972, the North Vietnamese diplomatic delegation walked out of the peace talks in Paris.

President Nixon, on the logical assumption that if they North Vietnamese didn't want to talk then they wanted war, decided to give it to them in aces. On 15 December, he began LINEBACKER II, an intensive bombing campaign spearheaded by B-52s bombing with minimal restrictions. The B-52s suffered heavily, losing 15 of their number to SAMs. B-52 crews complained about tactics to their brass, and the tactics were revised, with the attacks conducted on a saturation basis that gave the North Vietnamese no relief, exhausting air-defense crews and running them out of SAMs and AAA ammunition.

On 29 December 1972, the North Vietnamese delegation returned to the negotiating table. The raids were cut back, but continued until 15 January 1973, when the North Vietnamese finally agreed to terms. A cease-fire was signed on 23 January 1973, and the Air Force began airlifting POWs out of Hanoi on 18 March 1973.

LINEBACKER II was regarded as a successful operation, though all it really did was clear the way for an American exit from Vietnam. Many strategists think that had ROLLING THUNDER been conducted like LINEBACKER II, things might have turned out very differently in Vietnam. Whatever the case, the end of the Vietnam War closed a tough chapter in the history of American air power. Thousands of aircraft were lost, with even more aircrew killed or missing in action. The Phantom was in the thick of the action from first to last, and suffered accordingly.

American Phantoms in the post Vietnam era

During the last years of the war, the Phantom did stints with both the US Navy "Blue Angels" and USAF "Thunderbirds" aerial demonstration team. Although the Phantom is not a very aerobatic aircraft, its brute size, power, and sheer screaming noise made it quite a crowd-pleaser for public performances.

Both teams operated the Phantom from 1969 to 1974. The Blue Angels flew stock F-4Js that remained combat-capable. The Thunderbirds flew F-4Es that had been stripped of almost all combat gear on the production line, and then ballasted appropriately to ensure balance. However, the Phantom was too expensive to operate for the flight demonstration role, and apparently there were a number of accidents. In 1974, both teams switched to more practical aircraft, the Blue Angels moving to the A-4 Skyhawk and the Thunderbirds moving to the Northrop T-38 Talon trainer. Ironically, the Blue Angels had originally considered the Skyhawk, but adopted the Phantom simply because every Skyhawk rolling off the production line was being sent off to Vietnam at the time.

The Phantom was still in its prime at the end of the Vietnam War, with many more years of service in it. As mentioned, many of the Phantoms flying with the US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps were upgraded in the 1970s, resulting in the F-4N, the F-4S, and notably the USAF F-4G Wild Weasel II. Phantoms were also provided with smaller, incremental upgrades, and they were also fitted with new tools and weapons:

The Pave Knife pod gave way to the "Pave Spike" pod, introduced in 1974, which was not only lighter but more reliable and capable, flipping the target image over automatically so the back-seater didn't end up watching an upside-down image as the Phantom departed the area.

Improved guided munitions included the "GBU-15" series of EOGBs derived from the HOBOS; the improved "Paveway II" LGBs; the "Maverick" electro-optic ASM, intended mostly for the anti-armor role; and the HARM anti-radar missile.

Improved Sparrow and Sidewinder AAMs were introduced that eliminated many of the problems experienced with these weapons in Vietnam. In particular, the "AIM-9L" Sidewinder provided an "all-aspect" capability, meaning it could be aimed anywhere at a target aircraft instead of just up the tailpipe, and was also much harder to confound.

The last act in combat for US Phantoms was the Gulf War in 1991, when Air Force F-4G Wild Weasels hit Iraqi radar sites with HARMs and other weapons, and the service's RF-4Cs conducted extensive tactical reconnaissance missions. In that same year, the Navy and Marines retired the last of their F-4s.

The USAF RF-4Cs were phased out in 1995, and the F-4Gs followed a year later. The retirement of the F-4G was with regrets, since the Air Force did not have a true replacement for them in the defense-suppression role.

The Phantom does still fly for the US military in a noncombatant role, in the form of the QF-4 target. A number of Phantoms have been used by US aerospace companies as chase planes, and at least one is in civilian hands as an airshow "warbird".

Hundreds of F-4s remain in service with other air arms around the world. Although certainly no longer a first-line aircraft, the Phantom remains a potent and useful combat platform, and the US F-4 Technical Coordination Group has been helping users of the type keep their Phantoms flying well into the 21st century.

Author: Greg Goebel