What went wrong?

>>34737871
Falling from the sky has a tendency to reduce combat effectiveness

>>34737871
polish cinder? is it a reference to polish death camps?

>>34737871
It served for 30 years. I wouldn't call it a failure but it's combat record over vietnam left a bit to be desired, same as the F4. It wasn't that they were bad it's just all the soviet equipment from that time period was just as good or better. Vietnam was a slap in the face to the USN and USAF and all of the fighters in service during vietnam were quickly replaced after the war with more effective planes (F8, F14, F15, and F16).

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>>34737871

No, by the Vietnam war it was already 10 years old and already out of production, at a time when both aircraft and missile technology was rapidly improving. It was a little like the Hurricane in that regard. Not really bad per se, but just a little long in the tooth for the conflict it had to fight, and consequently overshadowed and replaced by a much higher performance aircraft only a couple years younger.

Much of the bad record can be attributed to the USAF underestimating Russian willingness to authorize the use of SA-2s early in the war.

>>34738458
It's bad publicity is a myth, the Thunderchief was designed for an air-to-ground main role, but even considering this fact, the F-105 had a positive kill ratio in Vietnam against the MiG-17 (a more maneuverable fighter). The Thud defeated 27.5 enemies for 17 losses in air combat. It was not as bad as many people think.

>>34738674
Its bad...

>>34737871

Designed as a supersonic nuclear fighter bomber for the Third World War against the Soviets over Europe.

Easy targets in a guerrilla war flying sub-sonic speeds above the tree tops doing a role it was never designed for by reserve pilots.

Also our government was so shitty at the time the Vietnam war, that we couldn't get enough bombs to supply our THUDs, so we'd send them half loaded into combat all the time resulting in horrific losses. Also our government was autistic in our rules of engagement the our tactics often made it easy to knock our planes off.

Whole thing was a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KTe4lHLlcs

>>34738559
what is that nose art supposed to mean? a naked girl with a camera and a saucer for alms? like you can drop a coin and she let you take a pic of her pussy?

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Those were the days of iron men and aluminum ships. There were F-105 squadrons that had pilot attrition rates of 70% and aircraft attrition rates over 100%, meaning they lost every airframe they showed up to fight with and some of the replacements, too. The Thuds took such a beating in the first three years of the war that just under half of them ever built - a number that includes early versions that never saw combat - were lost over Vietnam. It was so bad that except for specialized Wild Weasel versions, they had to be withdrawn from combat because there weren't enough of them left to be fielded as an effective fighting force anymore.

But that wasn't really the fault of the plane or its pilots. It was the fault of a political structure that fought the war in Vietnam approximately the same way that the Senate Republicans are fighting to repeal Obamacare. The results are about the same: both Vietnam and Obamacare killed a lot of Baby Boomers and wasted billions of dollars while politicians stumbled around in a daze looking for a way to end a disastrous policy without getting any bad press for it. Washington never changes.

It was great. It was used in some of the most dangerous missions of the 20th century and managed to get a pretty high number of dogfight kills. Lots were lost, but that was no reflection on its capabilities as a plane.

>>34738674
Simply having a positive K/D isn't good enough for a piece of military hardware to be considered a success. Especially when the enemy was supposed to be a bunch of jungle savages. Irl war isn't call of duty.

>>34737871
it was actually well suited for its intended role, it wasn't mean to be great dogfighter/fighter bomber as it was used in vietnam.

>>34738458
it actually performed okayish against the migs whereas the f4 had a much better record. and the phantom wasn't retired until the 90s and the thud in the 80s.

>>34738783
pottery

>>34738800
all those records are questionable anyway

>>34738791
These jungle savages were trained in the Soviet Union by the best Russian pilots.

>>34738761
guess where the fuel nozzle is on the plane.

>>34738211

It's Polish Glider

https://theaviationist.com/2014/02/05/cracow-aviation-museum/

>>34738834
>supposed to be

>>34738733
>Designed as a supersonic nuclear fighter bomber for the Third World War against the Soviets over Europe.

The F-104 had the same role.

>>34738919
Another piece of crap.

Why did the every us plane from that era (f-101,f-104,f-105,f-106 etc.) left service while f-4 is still widley used around the world?

>>34739504
a good design
also a bomber shouldn't be especially good, any flying shit can fare

>>34737871
There's a metric fuckton of fudlore about US military equipment ineffectiveness in Vietnam. The "jamtastic" M16 is just the tip of the iceberg. The US military spent the late '50s and early '60s preparing for one type of war and found themselves in a completely different type of situation in Vietnam. It took time (and lives) to readjust their TTPs accordingly.

>>34737871
Not really. It was originally meant to do low level tactical nuclear strikes. That role never was called for so it was used for more traditional bombing missions. This hurt its performance a bit, as it carried the nuclear bomb in its internal bay to reduce drag. When carrying conventional bombs they were typically externally carried, drastically increasing drag and hurting performance.

When first developed Soviet AA missile tech wasn't as dangerous as when they entered Vietnam. Wildweasle SEAD missions along side bombing missions helped mitigate this but it didn't cure it.

Making matters even worse the USAF mission planners would routinely set up missions using the same repetitive flight paths, altitudes, and even times days of missions against the same targets. The enemy got very good at figuring out where and when the Thuds were going to be coming by.

>>34738852
Except the greatest fighter ACE in history is an NVA pilot. So yea when is this stupid "they were just farmer!" meme going to end.

>>34741245
... lol.

>>34741245
Who is he, and by what metric was he the greatest?
Not being smart, just curious since it's usually WW2 pilots who come up for that title.

>>34741245
>"an NVA pilot"
And totally not actually a Russian advisor who was smart and talented enough that he managed to survive the Eastern Front flying an open-cockpit Polikarpov, and went on to rack up a couple thousand hours in the MiG-17 before flying it over Vietnam.

It was a good aircraft but used badly. Don't do low-flying bombing runs in areas swarming with radar-guided AAA

>>34738847
that means that a fuel probe extends out of her pussy

...ladyboy?

>>34741245
BS, the top scoring NVA ace had 9 aerial victories. That is 1/9 the Red Barrons total in WWI, and 1/39 Erich Hartmanns total in WWI

>>34741333
Protip: this is a USAF plane, not a USN plane.

>>34737871
I didn't realize how fucking huge those things were until I saw this exact same plane in Krakow.

It's gigantic, especially for a fighter.

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>>34738783
>Obamacare killed a lot of Baby Boomers

>>34742137
It was more a bomber than a fighter.

>>34738919
The F-104 didn't need a permanent concrete slab in its internal bay to perform it's shoe horned fighter bomber role though.

>>34737871
If we can keep this thread alive I can post a bunch of photos of one and share some stories from one of their pilots. Apparently THUD pilots were superstitious and grew combat moustaches as they noted that a lot of the guys that got killed were clean shaven. To this day they are the most glorious moustaches I've ever seen.

Also fuck McNamara.

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>>34738187
>complains about falling from sky reducing effectiveness

Let me tell you a story about the F-14...

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>>34738783
>approximately the same way that the Senate Republicans are fighting to repeal Obamacare
>both Vietnam and Obamacare killed a lot of Baby Boomers

How did we get from the Chunderthief to Obamacare?

>>34743860
anything can be blamed on Obama, anon. Price of gas? Obama's fault. The sun setting earlier in the fall? Obummer. No more milk in the fridge? KingNigg got in during the night and drank it all.

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>>34741333

The hard and extending part in boom refueling is on the boom of tanker aircraft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs7EikHQGlA

>>34738783
They didn't run out of Thuds, that is massive exaggeration, in reality it was retired ahead of schedule due to attrition at Vietnam, last operational air national guard squadron was deactivated in 1983 and last flight in service was made in 1984.

The reason why those were used so heavily Vietnam is the fact that it was the best strike fighter in USAF inventory at the time. F-111 was significantly better, but it was available only in small numbers at end of the war. F-4 became better strike aircraft, but until much later on.

>>34743860
Obama is like Vietcong, everywhere at all times just looking for ways to kill good Americans

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>>34738919

F-104 was designed as point defense high altitude interceptor. It was used as fighter-bomber. It was pretty good for it's original role, but utter shit for ground attack. It wasn't a dead trap when it was used as mostly as pure fighter. Only reasons why it became as widely adopted as it did are bribery and uncle sam handing those out as military assistance to some countries.