‘At Takhli we liked the pop-up tactic as we felt we got better target coverage with less exposure and fewer losses. Lots of folks agreed until new PACAF C-in-C Gen John D Ryan arrived in Honolulu with his high-altitude, straight-and-level B-17 experience and his SAC bomber philosophy,’ 388th TFW Vice Commander Jack Broughton
Throughout the 43 months of Operation Rolling Thunder, pilots of the F-105D Thunderchief flew against North Vietnamese targets day after day, up against the most impressively concentrated air defenses in history.
Twenty-five upgraded QRC-160A (later AN/ALQ-71) pods were ordered in mid-1966 for the Thai F-105 wings in an attempt to reduce the losses for the F-105 wings, which had lost 126 jets in 1966, according to a story written by Peter E. Davies in his book F-105 Thunderchief Units of the Vietnam War. Tougher than the 1965 test models, they contained jammers for the ‘Fan Song’ SA-2 guidance radar elevation and azimuth frequencies, as well as the ‘Firecan’ radar directing 57 mm and 85 mm AAA.
Crews from EB-66C evaluated the techniques that Project Vampyrus developed for deploying these new pods between September 26 and October 8, 1966. For maximum protection against jamming, a variety of “formations” were tested. Early combat results in late October revealed that an “echelon up front the leader” formation offered sufficient jamming power to prevent accurate guidance of both SA-2s and heavy flak.
All threat frequencies were initially covered by two pods carried on the F-105’s outboard pylons; but, due to increased MiG activity, one pod had to be swapped out for an AIM-9B Sidewinder.
Brig. Gen. William Chairsell, commander of the 388th TFW, approved of the pods as they let F-105s make dive attacks from medium altitude, rather than ‘popping up’ in 30-degree, 4G climbs from lower altitude, where the jets were easier AAA targets. However, a `Fan Song’ could ‘burn through’ the pods’ emissions and lock onto an F-105 inside eight miles’ range.
When the jet banked or turned more than 15 degrees, it diverted its radiation away from the radar that the pod was trying to cover, which decreased the pod’s efficacy. Pods may potentially cause issues with the F-105’s own RHAW system and Shrike guidance. Both sides engaged in a “battle of the beams,” where they changed formations, tactics, and frequencies constantly.
A particular hazard for the F-105s was ‘passive tracking’ where the NVA ‘triangulated’ data from a number of sites and launched missiles at a point calculated to be the center of the attack formation. Later in 1967, the improved AN/ALQ-87 (QRC-160-8) pod that could jam both the SA-2’s position beacon and ‘Fan Song’ was introduced.
The Korat tactics, which involved extremely close formations striking from between 15,000 and 18,000 feet, with roughly two minutes between the formations, were not the same as the 355th TFW’s approach to “pod” formations. This placed them above the lighter AAA, but loaded F-105s’ maneuverability against SAMs and MiGs was hindered by their tight formations and relatively high altitudes. According to Vice Commander Jack Broughton of the 388th TFW,
‘At Takhli we liked the pop-up tactic as we felt we got better target coverage with less exposure and fewer losses. Lots of folks agreed until new PACAF C-in-C Gen. John D. Ryan arrived in Honolulu with his high-altitude, straight-and-level B-17 experience and his SAC bomber philosophy. He directed a study that produced the phoniest, untrue results possible, and despite much wailing from the veterans of the Hanoi environment, he ordered us to adopt the bomber approach. He seemed to feel the advent of ECM pods would solve all the problems up north, which they did not. We continued to appeal our case, without much hope, but in the interim, many of us never quite “understood” the General’s direction, thus we did not get to fly the bomber patterns. We tried it one time and it was an obscene mess as far as we were concerned. The end of Rolling Thunder signaled the end of our attacks into RP VI, and therefore an end to that controversy.
‘We liked to have as many pods as maintenance could provide, and we used them along with our pop-up tactic. Korat units liked that straight and level stuff, which may be why their loss rates were higher than ours and their bombs-on-target rates lower.’
F-105 Thunderchief Units of the Vietnam War is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.
Photo by U.S. Air Force