F105 Thunderchief site

[pipz]

I had just finished reading "Thud Ridge" and was looking for some info on the F105. I stumbled on to this page and its pretty good. Theres vidoes, audio tracks, interviews and a whole bunch of other interesting stuff there.

http://www.burrusspta.org/thud.html

[DEECONX]

I had just finished reading "Thud Ridge" and was looking for some info on the F105. I stumbled on to this page and its pretty good. Theres vidoes, audio tracks, interviews and a whole bunch of other interesting stuff there.

http://www.burrusspta.org/thud.html

  Very good find! 

[bj229r]

I had just finished reading "Thud Ridge" and was looking for some info on the F105. I stumbled on to this page and its pretty good. Theres vidoes, audio tracks, interviews and a whole bunch of other interesting stuff there.

http://www.burrusspta.org/thud.html

I read that book some years ago.....great synopsis of what happens when political people try to run the daily goings on of the war. Those 'whiz' kids got THOUSANDS of our pilots killed for nothing---Of note was the fact that he could over-fly a SAM site under construction EVERY morning on his way to bombing some useless target in the jungle which had been selected by the White House, and he WASN'T allowed to attack the site, because it wasn't yet functional. Effing mind-boggling.  (Later in the book, the Colonel mentions he was court-martialed for doing something similar to that, would like to hear the details)

[pipz]

Hey BJ heres a link to one of Jack Broughton's follow up books.

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Downtown-Against-Hanoi-Washington/dp/0671678620/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279549867&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0760332177/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=08RS9XQQ25NS1D2M8N6X&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

And heres a link that goes into the Court Martial incident

http://www.historynet.com/air-force-colonel-jacksel-jack-broughton-air-force-general-john-d-jack-lavelle-testing-the-rules-of-engagement-during-the-vietnam-war.htm

[bj229r]

This is what makes a war last a REALLY long time

General Jack Lavelle was not so fortunate. Lavelle, who was serving as the commander of the Seventh Air Force in 1972, told his troops that they were fighting in a war and were to act and react accordingly. He urged them to shoot first, ask questions later, and destroy enemy military targets.

As crazy as it may sound, those orders were in direct violation of Washington's bureaucratic rules. As General William C. Westmoreland, the longtime U.S. military commander in Vietnam, related in his memoirs: 'In 1965, we observed the construction of the first surface-to-air (SAM) sites in North Vietnam, and the military sought permission to attack them before they were completed to save American casualties. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs John McNaughton ridiculed the idea.

"You don't think the North Vietnamese are going to use them!' he scoffed [to Lavelle's predecessor, Seventh Air Force Commander General Joseph H. Moore]. 'Putting them in is just a political ploy by the Russians to appease Hanoi.' It was all a matter of signals, said the clever civilian theorist in Washington. We won't bomb the SAM sites, which signals to North Vietnam not to use them.' But our enemies were not playing Washington's silly games. A month later the United States lost its first aircraft to a SAM.

By 1971, when General Lavelle assumed command of the Seventh Air Force, President Johnson, McNamara and McNaughton were long gone. Johnson had been replaced by Richard Nixon; Melvin Laird was secretary of defense; and Admiral Thomas Moorer, a naval aviator and World War II combat veteran, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. McNaughton had been killed in a plane crash in 1967. Nevertheless, many of the restrictions imposed by the Johnson-McNamara 'ROE' (rules of engagement) were still in effect in Vietnam.

Absolutely forbidden targets included: any MiG base designated as a sanctuary, a MiG fighter that did not have its landing gear retracted, any MiG fighter not showing hostile intent (no fighter jock ever figured that one out), and any SAM site not in operation. A SAM had to be fired at a U.S. plane before the plane could fire back, a dicey situation at best. There were more restrictions, but the rules listed here were the ones that frustrated U.S. fighter pilots the most and formed the backdrop for the Lavelle affair.

Until now, the details of Lavelle's story have not been published. Lavelle fought in three wars, rose to the rank of four-star general, served as the commander of the Seventh Air Force in Vietnam and was concurrently appointed the deputy commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), the highest military headquarters in Vietnam.

At his headquarters at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, near Saigon, Lavelle's first order of business each morning was to study the combat losses inflicted on 'his boys' the day before. He sent word to every fighter unit in the Seventh Air Force that if their planes were shot at, they were to shoot back. They shouldn't wait for the SAMs to become operational and start shooting their 'flying telephone poles.' The fighter pilots were told to hit transporters and SAM sites under construction.

Changes in North Vietnamese air defense tactics had made such pre-emptive actions essential. As a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee would later report: 'In late 1971, the North Vietnamese took several actions which vastly improved and augmented their tracking capability. The most important was netting of their early warning and surveillance radar and their anti-aircraft artillery radar with SAM missiles. In that netted mode, the Fan Song (radars) which alerted U.S. pilots to the surveillance never came up, as the surveillance could all be conducted with the other radars. General Lavelle believed that, with those mutually supporting radar systems transmitting tracking data to the firing sites, the SAM missile system was activated at U.S. aircraft at any time they were over North Vietnam.'

Even though in 1972 many in Washington knew that the 4-year-old Johnson-McNamara nonsensical rules of engagement were strategically, operationally and tactically counterproductive, no one, civilian or military, made any effort to change them. Therefore, when Jack Lavelle sent that'shoot back' order to his troops, he got in very hot water. As the official U.S. Air Force history of the war laconically states, 'General Lavelle was recalled from his post in April 1972, charged with having authorized certain 'protective reaction' strikes beyond those permitted by the rules of engagement.'

While Broughton reported to military bureaucrats, Lavelle was answerable to both military and civilian officials, and it was primarily the bureaucratic politicians in the U.S. Senate, searching for a scapegoat to placate their anti-war constituents, who ultimately did him in.

Today, President William 'Bill' Clinton, an anti-war protester during the Vietnam era, has given the military express permission to shoot back if fired upon, the crime of which Lavelle was accused. But the mood was different in 1972. The gut-wrenching, turbulent 1960s were over, but the anti-war protests continued. Jane Fonda was back from Hanoi and would later charge, with the agreement of many fellow protesters: 'We have no reason to believe U.S. Air Force officers tell the truth. They are professional killers.'

[Puck]

<SNIP>
Those 'whiz' kids got THOUSANDS of our pilots killed for nothing
<SNIP>

In my world having an MBA from Harvard is actually sufficient reason to put a resume in the shredder.  The track record of the Harvard MBA goes well beyond the Whiz Kids and into numerous corporate debacles of every kind.

[bj229r]

In my world having an MBA from Harvard is actually sufficient reason to put a resume in the shredder.  The track record of the Harvard MBA goes well beyond the Whiz Kids and into numerous corporate debacles of every kind.

Yuppers, I'd comment further on that, but I'd get yet another rule whateveritis....

[allaire]

Me personally I think my aircraft would suffer from a faulty retention system on the pylons.

[mike8318]

My favorite jet of all time!  I remember when the 116th at Dobbins AFB in Marietta Ga had the last F-105 G Wild Weasels.I worked in a building about 1/4 mile from the northeast end of the runway on Lockheed property at the time. Night lauches were really something to see.On a good hot summer day,you'd think they would never get off the ground! The century series jets are the coolest,especially the 105!

[bj229r]

I saw one yesterday at Dayton...as soon as I can figger out how to get it off my new phone I'll post it

[allaire]

Within in the last year they put up a static display of a 105 at the military museum in Jacksonville.  I believe it is a G model.  I will try to get down there and grab a couple of shot of it.

[pipz]

I saw one yesterday at Dayton...as soon as I can figger out how to get it off my new phone I'll post it

I saw that plane back in 98 when I visted the museum. I believe that aircraft was featured in the that TV series about the history of the USAF. It was hosted by Walter Boyne. I cant recall the name of it rite now. I am thinking it was "Beyond The Wild Blue" but I could be wrong. Post that picture when ya have a chance.



Pipz

[Kenne]

This is what makes a war last a REALLY long time

Im with ya baby.
Bomber Command in 39 wanted to bomb bridges the Germans could use if they struck west.
The suggestion was laughed at.
"That's private property!"

and we know what happened next :/

[Rino]

My favorite jet of all time!  I remember when the 116th at Dobbins AFB in Marietta Ga had the last F-105 G Wild Weasels.I worked in a building about 1/4 mile from the northeast end of the runway on Lockheed property at the time. Night lauches were really something to see.On a good hot summer day,you'd think they would never get off the ground! The century series jets are the coolest,especially the 105!

     I was at Moody in 83 <I think> when we saw supposedly the last 105G taxi in.  Did your bird have a
giant shark mouth painted on the nose?  Valdosta wasn't that far from Marietta, so it's very possible it's
the same aircraft.

[mike8318]

Yep. Sharkteeth,ECM pods,still in the SEA livery. They were getting F4-Ds as replacements.