In 1966, the US began a bombing campaign in the Vietnam War called Operation Rolling Thunder. Most of the bombs were dropped by F-105 Thunderchiefs (called Thuds) fighter-bombers. The pilots faced some of the best air defenses in history. By late 1967, over 325 had been shot down by anti-aircraft guns (called flak), anti-aircraft missiles (SAMs), and Soviet-provided MiGs. When the Thuds were provided with electronic countermeasures pods to defeat enemy radar, losses from ground fire and missiles decreased, but fighter attacks were not impacted. Despite the losses, the MiGs could not be simply destroyed on the ground because the rules of engagement forbid attacks on their airfields!
When Col. Robin Olds was made commander of the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, he came up with a plan to take on the MiGs. Olds was a 13-kill ace from WWII. His pilots flew America’s state of the art fighter, the F-4 Phantom. Each Phantom was flown by a pilot and had an electronics warfare officer in the backseat to target enemy fighters. The Soviet Union had given the North Vietnamese MiG-21s. The speedy, maneuverable fighter was the most produced fighter in history. The plan was to lure the MiGs up by having F-4s mimic F-105s.
Operation Bolo (named after the Filipino cane-cutting knife that didn’t look dangerous) took place on Jan. 2, 1967. The 45-years-old Olds led several flights of F-4s on a typical flight path for F-105s. They flew at the same speed as Thuds and were equipped with the anti-radar pods that when turned on would be picked up by the enemy (Olds had to borrow the pods and only had one week to use them). Each Phantom was armed with 4 radar-guided Sparrow missiles and 4 heat-seeking Sidewinder missiles. The MiGs came up to play, expecting the slower and less maneuverable Thuds. A 12-minute dogfight ensued. 7 MiGs were shot down without an American loss, one by Olds and his radar intercept officer. The seven MiGs was almost half of the North Vietnamese force. Of the crews that shot down MiGs, only one of the fourteen had seen a MiG before. The result of the mission was a big boost in Air Force morale. And the North Vietnamese took the MiG-21s out of combat for three months.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1198sweep/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo
0 Comments