Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report. USAF Tactics Against Air & Ground Defenses in SEA, November 1968 - May 1970

摘要

Tactics against air and ground defenses pose a dilemma. Any effort to avoid or suppress defenses invariably detracts from effectiveness of the primary mission. In dive bombing, the higher a pilot must pull out to avoid ground fire, the lower his accuracy. Sorties fragged for combat air patrol or gun suppression are unavailable for striking interdiction targets. Carrying electronic countermeasures (ECM) gear to permit an aircraft to survive in an area defended by surface-to-air missiles or radar-controlled antiaircraft artillery eliminates two pylons of ordnance. Guilio Douhet, fifty years ago, argued that offensive potential of aircraft was so great and their defensive potential so small, designers, commanders, and aircrews should give their entire attention to the offensive, accepting whatever losses the defense might inflict. This unrealistic reasoning proved costly to the United States Army Air Corps in World War II. Nearly all commanders and aircrews today accept a more realistic view, knowing that defenses reaching a certain level must be countered. Effective tactics must be carefully tailored to take advantage of the strengths of the particular weapon system and to protect against the particular threat anticipated. The USAF weapons systems employed in Southeast Asia were numerous and varied: the threat was ever changing. Defensive tactics impinged upon nearly every aspect of aerial operations from the choice of routing, accepting the risk of mid-air collision while operating without lights, to making an airfield traffic pattern in guerilla-infested areas.