Product Description

For every American fighter pilot involved in the Vietnam War, the ultimate goal was to 'kill a MiG'. In eight years of conflict 43 Vietnamese Peoples Air Force aircraft were claimed by US Navy and US Marine Corps Phantom II crews, and one single ace crew produced. Navy Phantom IIs scored the first kills of the Vietnam War, in April 1965, as well as scoring the last in January 1973. This volume charts the successes of the navy fighter crews as they encountered 'MiGs, Missiles and AAA' over the jungles of North Vietnam.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #427431 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-25
• Released on: 2001-11-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

From the Publisher
Osprey's Combat series combines the best archival photography available with specially commissioned artworks and first hand accounts, making these books favourites amongst historians, modellers and aviation enthusiasts everywhere.

About the Author
Brad Edward has broken into aviation journalism in the past two years, having had work published in such periodicals as ‘World Air Power Journal’. This is his first book for Osprey. Peter Davies has written or co-written nine books on modern American combat aircraft, including the standard reference work on US Navy and Marine Corps Phantom II operations, ‘Gray Ghosts’. Based in Bristol, Peter is also presently working with Brad Elward on the follow-on volume on Navy F-4 MiG Killers.

Customer Reviews

Great Account on U.S Navy Phantom Operations 1965-1970
This is an excellent account of the difficulty faced by U.S Navy Phantom crews during Rolling Thunder in vietnam. A combination of overtly restrictive rules of engagement,lack of ACM training and malfunctioning missiles all contributed to a low kill ratio by Phantom crews. This book discusses these issues through first person account and rare photos of the naval aviators and their planes. It shows that despite all the disadvantages, the Phantom crews still managed a superior 2-1 kill ratio in their favour.

Missile age meets reality
This Osprey book deals with the exploits of Navy F-4 drivers in the early portion of the Vietnam War and how they performed against the North Vietnamese Air Force and more importantly how they compared to the Navy F-8 Crusader pilots. The chapters follow the Vietnam War from its introduction thru the lull point of 1970. This break point selected due to the Navy changing tactics and the overall change in the air war. Within each of the chapters is a good breakdown of events during the given year. Attention is paid to the the individual encounters and if a shoot down occurred. A somewhat depressing piece was the number of aviators who would achieve their first kill and then get shot down, usually by air defense forces. Something that was a little hard to follow at times was which squadron was from which aircraft carrier, however Osprey does have a section in the Appendices that helps with that. Speaking of the Appendices, there's a great table in there comparing F-4 kills/losses to F-8 kills/losses. Seeing this table, one has to wonder why the Navy either didn't hold on to the F-8 longer than they did or didn't equip their F-4's with cannons earlier than they did.

The bottom line is this is a solid 4 star book! The graphics are good, the pictures meaningful, and the color plates are very nice.