Republic F-105G “Thunderchief”, “Hanoi Hustler” of the 562nd TFS, 35th TFW, converted from F-105F-1-RE now F-105G-1-RE 63-8320 Although often incorrectly credited with 3 MiG kills (indicated erroneously on painting with three stars below cockpit), indeed it had none. F-105D 62-4284 was the sole Thud triple-MiG killer. Two MiG17s were downed by Brestel on 10MAR1967, and a third MiG17 was downed on 27 OCT 1967 by Basel. All three kills were with the 20-mm cannon. 4284 survived the war, but crashed during an air combat maneuvering training flight on 12 MAR 1976 near Clayton, OK. Capt. Larry L. Kline was killed in the crash. 19 DEC 1967 Maj Robert Huntley and Capt Ralph Stearman (in 63-8320), encountered several Mig 17s and fired at one hitting it. They claimed credit for a Mig kill but after a two-year investigation, the claim was disallowed by Seventh Air Force’s Enemy Aircraft Claims Evaluation Board.
Another Incarnation: F-105G-1-RE 63-8320 “Cooter”, assigned to Maj Wallace and Capt Hoynacki of Takhli’s 333rd TFS, tops off its tanks in January 1970 en route to North Vietnam. This aircraft is armed with both Shrike and Standard ARMs. It also boasts three MiG kill stars beneath the forward cockpit, none of which were officially confirmed. The jet served with the 49th TFW in Germany, the 23rd TFW at McConnell AFB, the 4525th TFW at Nellis AFB and the 355th and 388th TFWs in Thailand (undertaking six years of wartime flying). Finally retired by the 35th TFW after completing 5,765 hrs of flying, 63-8320 was put on display in the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, in February 1980. (USAF)
Despite initial losses on their hazardous missions, the Wild Weasel III crews proved the concept sufficiently for the USAF to order a total of 86 conversions to destroy and suppress SA-2 radars and protect the F-105 strike forces as hunter-killer flights with F-105D bombers. A further development was the move to equip Wild Weasel F-105Fs with self-protection jamming. This didn’t require external pods using pylons that could carry fuel or Shrikes. The solution was a pair of external blister fairings on the lower central fuselage, housing a QRC-380 (later ALQ-105) system with QRC-335 jammer devices. Essentially, it was a pylon-mounted ALQ-101 ECM pod divided between the two “scabbed” fairings.
To improve the Wild Weasels’ hitting power, General Dynamics produced the AGM-78A Mod 0 antiradiation missile in 1967, and it entered service with the 355th TFW’s F-105F Weasels in February 1968. However, the termination of bombing north of the 19th parallel on April 1, 1968 halted its combat use by USAF aircraft until 1971. Later in 1968 modification work began to incorporate the improved AGM-78B Mod 1. At the same time, Weasel F-105Fs were reequipped with improved APR-36 and APR-37 sets, replacing the APR-25 and APR-26. A better panoramic scanner, the APR-35, replaced the ER-142 version, and the electronic warfare officer’s (EWO’s) panels were redesigned. The improvements were sufficient to warrant a redesignation as the F-105G from October 1969. Funds were made available to update all surviving Weasel F-105Fs to this standard, and 65 aircraft eventually became F-105G-1-REs.
The first F-105Gs began operations from Takhli in mid-1969, moving to Korat when F-105s left Takhli at the end of 1970 after 101,304 combat sorties against 12,675 targets, which included 20 MiGs destroyed in the air and eight on the ground. With the 6010th WWS they took part in the Son Tay POW rescue attempt, and later, as the 17th WWS, continued to support Arc Light and reconnaissance flights during 1971. Bombing of the North resumed in April 1972 in Operation Linebacker I, when F-105Gs flew as hunter-killer teams with F-4E Phantoms, and continued through the Linebacker II raids of Christmas 1972. McConnell AFB sent its 561st TFS with more F-105Gs to share the 17th WWS missions from Korat. Lt Col Barry Miller was the squadron’s intelligence officer at the time, and he recalled some of the new challenges of this last phase of the “battle of the beams” for F-105G crews, including optically guided SAMs using a “radar-less” visual tracker mounted on the “Fan Song F” radar van. The dual Shrike launcher using an ADU-315/316 adapter allowed all F-105Gs to carry pairs of Shrikes on their outer pylons. However,
it was not popular with pilots. It produced increased drag, and at least one case where a Shrike failed to separate gave it a bad reputation. Even one of its early advocates, the 17th WWS, turned against it by mid-1972.
There was also the “Black SAM” crisis in 1972, when it was feared that North Vietnam had received new missiles, possibly the Soviet SA-4 and the T8029 radar from China, all of which would require new tactics and technology to defeat. These fears were soon allayed and attributed to sightings of SA-2s with unfamiliar camouflage.
Somehow the dark paint scheme made the missile look different in flight to the crews who were used to seeing gray SA-2s. They also felt the missile maneuvered differently. Finally, we recovered warhead fragments from an F-105G damaged by a reported “Black SAM” and analysis revealed them to be from a standard SA-2.
Sadly, the optical “Fan Song F” technique proved fatal for Lt Col Scott McIntire on December 10, 1971. He was the EWO in F-105G 63-8326 with pilot Maj Bob Belli, supporting a B-52 strike near the Mu Gia Pass where SA-2 sites had been detected in southern Laos. Warren Kerzon:
Bob and Scottie were working a “Fan Song” signal at their 12 o’clock. Scottie picked up a “launch” signal that was not synced with the signal in front of them. Their wingman called a SAM coming up and Bob started a turn to pick it up visually. The next thing Bob recalls is tumbling through the sky with no aircraft behind him, just the cockpit plus him and Scottie. He called for Scottie to eject but Scottie was slumped over with no response. Bob ejected, which blew Scottie out first. The Jolly Greens [helicopters] got Bob out that day and a para-rescue man got close enough to Scottie to declare him KIA. The post-mission brief established that they had been hit by an optically guided SAM, so there was no “Fan Song” signal from the side, only a launch light that wasn’t synced with the tracking signal [from another site] ahead of them.
When the last 17th WWS F-105Gs returned from Thailand in October 1974, the surviving Thunderchiefs had already entered the final stage of their service. The 23rd TFW ended F-105 operations in July 1972, and in 1973 both F-4 and F-105 Wild Weasel activities were centralized at George AFB, California, with the 35th TFW up to 1980. The 561st TFS was joined by the 17th WWS as the 562nd TFS from October 1974, making several deployments to Europe. Weasel development work continued with the 57th FWW at Nellis AFB until 1975 when it too moved to George AFB.
The limited MiG threat on early Rolling Thunder missions was usually handled by MiGCAP flights of F-100Ds or F-104Cs. As the VPAF gathered strength and introduced the faster, missile-firing MiG-21, the MiGCAP role was passed to F-4C units based at Ubon and Da Nang. While Thunderchief pilots measured success via the number of missions flown and their bombing accuracy, the F-4 crews’ reputations depended more on MiG kills. Despite this, in Rolling Thunder F-I05 pilots encountered MiGs more often than any other US aircrew.
The Thunderchief was not designed for the close-quarters, maneuvering air-to-air combat that agile MiGs could perform. Even so, crews were credited with 27.5 confirmed MiG-17 kills between 29 June 1966 and 19 December 1967, with credible claims on at least four more. During this period the USAF’s designated MiGCAP fighter, the F-4 Phantom II, destroyed 21 MiG-17s, but also downed an equal number of supersonic MiG-21s, using missiles – MiG-21s seldom entered the F-105’s gun envelope. Their usual ‘one pass, haul ass’ tactic meant that they did not stay to fight. In the same period, 70 F-105s were lost, but only 15 to MiGs. The rest fell to the enemy’s AAA and SA-2 defences.
