Cold War At Sea

[Stuart Galbraith]

Another good one on the A7 Corsair.

https://www.fighterpilotpodcast.com/episodes/039-a-7-corsair-ii/

[Stuart Galbraith]

[RETAC21]

All this stuff is interfering with my Pavarotti sessions...

[Stuart Galbraith]

[DougRichards]

They spiced up the ending some in the film, in that they get chased down and destroyed by nuclear torpedo's, so nobody really has the faintest idea what happened. In the book, the U Boat captain goes insane (or sane, depending on how you look at it) and sabotages an ASROC launcher to destroy the ship after they accidentally sink the Soviet Submarine, in a forlorn attempt to avoid Armageddon that will presumably ensue when the Soviets find out. They all die, except the Journalist, who gets picked up by the Soviet Spy Trawler, complete with a recorder giving chapter and verse on how they sank the Soviet Submarine. So, its pretty much the same ending as Watchmen, Armageddon probably isnt avoided after all.

 

Its a great novel, I just WISH he had written a different ending to that. There were so many Deux Ex Machina's, they really needed to call Ghostbusters. ;D

 

Id love to write something as good though I have to admit.

 

The first and only time I saw this movie was at a cadet camp, in my teens, early 1970s. Few of us understood the irony of the movie being shown at a school cadet camp.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

The irony is, its not even a USN destroyer they show in the film. Its actually a Royal Navy County class destroyer, and they land on the ship from a Wessex helicopter, not an S58 as they portray. It maybe the Royal Navy's cooperation that they cut the sole British guy in the novel out the script.

 

Good film anyway, Widmark made some good films.

[Stuart Galbraith]

This is interesting, 3 guys who flew the Tomcat in combat, including an Iranian Colonel.

 

The bit where the Iranian pilot shot down 3 Mig23's with one Phoenix missile deserves hearing.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[RETAC21]

Everything deserved hearing, "Music" has a way with words.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yeah it was really good, Id never really heard the background to both engagements, other than the recordings obviously.. And very refreshing to hear an Iranian perspective, he really loved these aircraft.

 

This was good too, Top Gun sans mightnight motorbike rides and Gay Volleyball.

[Josh]

I can only assume flying an F-14 in the early 80s against Russian aircraft made you feel like a god. Until the Su-27 you could probably own BVR against all takers. Export MiG-23 lacked even the HighLark radar of the Soviet models.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I think even against the Su27 it had major advantages in BVR. From what ive read on the Heatblur forum, they were carrying around single rounds of Phoenix' on patrol in the latter half of the 1980's, to win the head to head BVR shot. OK, its a simulation, but in DCS, if you plink one off about 25-30 nm, its switching to putbull about the time the Mig29 (or SU27, which had much the same radar) was locking you up for an alamo shot. Which means just as you are notching him, the missile is acquiring him and he has to notch himself. It was the next best thing to having AMRAAM, which they considered by was too expensive to fit. The radar would handle them no problem, I gather the problem was figuring out a way to hang them in 'the tunnel'.

 

Not only that, but Soviet radars of this era were surprisingly difficult to use. You had to have the radar moved to a 'predicted' mode of the envisaged range given you by the controller. Thats not the same as the display range, it was almost like a radar gate you have to get relatively accurate or you wouldnt get a lockup. So in BVR, I think the F14 has a significant advantage, particularly if the Sov isnt operating with a controller.

 

WVR, both the Su27 and the Mig29 have the advantage of a helmet sight, and super manoeuvrablity. But I have to question how many R73's would have been in service before the end of the cold war anyway. Against aircraft with R60 and R27, the Soviets dont have quite as smuch advantage as they think. Ok, so the Tomcat is in theory restricted to 6.5 G, but its surprisingly agile for all that, particularly if its down to half fuel and it isnt carrying 4 phoenix around with it.

 

F14 pilots always thought they were a god.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I may have posted this elsewhere, im not sure.

[RETAC21]

I think even against the Su27 it had major advantages in BVR. From what ive read on the Heatblur forum, they were carrying around single rounds of Phoenix' on patrol in the latter half of the 1980's, to win the head to head BVR shot. OK, its a simulation, but in DCS, if you plink one off about 25-30 nm, its switching to putbull about the time the Mig29 (or SU27, which had much the same radar) was locking you up for an alamo shot. Which means just as you are notching him, the missile is acquiring him and he has to notch himself. It was the next best thing to having AMRAAM, which they considered by was too expensive to fit. The radar would handle them no problem, I gather the problem was figuring out a way to hang them in 'the tunnel'.

 

Not only that, but Soviet radars of this era were surprisingly difficult to use. You had to have the radar moved to a 'predicted' mode of the envisaged range given you by the controller. Thats not the same as the display range, it was almost like a radar gate you have to get relatively accurate or you wouldnt get a lockup. So in BVR, I think the F14 has a significant advantage, particularly if the Sov isnt operating with a controller.

 

WVR, both the Su27 and the Mig29 have the advantage of a helmet sight, and super manoeuvrablity. But I have to question how many R73's would have been in service before the end of the cold war anyway. Against aircraft with R60 and R27, the Soviets dont have quite as smuch advantage as they think. Ok, so the Tomcat is in theory restricted to 6.5 G, but its surprisingly agile for all that, particularly if its down to half fuel and it isnt carrying 4 phoenix around with it.

 

FIghter pilots always thought they were a god.

 

Fixed it for you.

 

When the Luftwaffe got the MiG-29s the first thing they noticed was the poor human engineering and interface to use long range missiles, so it was a hot plane with good missiles for dogfighting but it would (and did) suck vs F-15s. One thing pilots transitioning from the F-4 noted, was the F-15 was easier to "use" and they knew that, even in training, they would be more lethal.

 

For some reason, the Soviets never noted that gap or were unable to fix it.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Fair one.

 

The sad thing for them was, there was some evidence they recognised their pilots needed more independence, and tried to foster it. For example, in Aleksandr Zuyev book (the Mig29 defector) its apparent they were in the last decade tryng to foster more independent thought, which the younger generation picked up and ran with (though the older Generation seemingly did not). But in spite of that, their engineering to improve their aircraft in BVR still lagged. I gather the Mig29S had an improved radar over the A model. But that was in range, from what I can tell it didnt improve the integration with the pilot a damn.

 

When western airforces criticise the reds over requiring GCI, I think its less about independence of though and action, and rather more to do with the relative ineffectiveness of their aircraft in BVR. At least compared to F14 and 15 anyway.

 

This I thought was quite an interesting read. I dont agree with all of it, but the stuff about Soviet Fighter tactics is really interesting. There seems to be little available out there on the subject.

https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA171772

[RETAC21]

Air Forces Monthly has run a number of articles of ANG F-16s training with Bulgarian MiG-29s over the years and you can see how the Bulgarians mentality evolved from WP concepts to let's use this thing to its limits.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yeah its a fair point, im not sure the Soviet Model was used all that wisely among the Warsaw Pact. I cant believe the Poles would ever accept direction from anyone else.

[Nobu]

Apparently Egyptian pilots were amused at their allied Russian counterparts coming off second best against the Israelis in 1970 over the canal.

 

Attachment to doctrine may not survive first contact with a competent enemy.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, true enough.

 

Q and A with John 'Hooter' Schreiber, Phantom and Tomcat pilot.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Not really at sea, but its well worth watching.

[Stuart Galbraith]

This is a top rate film from 1974, showing the effort to bring the F-14 Tomcat into service. Has some really good film of the training facilities and some of the Phoenix missile tests.

https://archive.org/details/79574F14ProgressReport5TheOperationalTomcatRexfer

 

Incidentally, Periscope films are awesome. They also do a very nice range of repro flight manuals, including 2 for the F14 that ive found really useful.

[Stuart Galbraith]

[Nobu]

Couldn't tell if there was some film editing involved, but the ripple firing of 4 Phoenixes was highly entertaining.

 

Grumman's hiring of the narrating admiral after his retirement was highly illustrative of how the U.S. mil procurement game is played as well.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yeah, you can almost see his bulging money clip. Or maybe that was just talking about ripple firing phoenixes.

 

There must be more episodes to the series, ill post them up if any appear. In the meantime, there is this primer on the F8U Crusader to keep everyone warm and fuzzy.

 

Makes me think of all the ones that did low overlights over Cuba. Now thats a job I would want no part of.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Oh, and another one on KC130 (GV1).

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f2RLb0OOi1o

Edited April 18, 2019 by Stuart Galbraith

[sunday]

So many awesome videos, so little time.

 

Thank you, gents!