I always forget how small the 104 actually is.
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The comments about the 104 being limited make me wonder about the Century Series as a whole. Itās got a cult-like following but to me the series has always seemed a bit odd. The F-100 and 105 did a lot of ground pounding and weaseling in Vietnam, proving their capability. The 101 I rarely ever hear of. The 102, 104, and 106 all seem like the same airplane in different shapes with a one-trick-pony capability: go high and fast in a straight line. The 104 seems the most capable of those three given its large export, so it makes me wonder why the 102 and 106 were ever developed at all.
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It isā¦ but also donāt forget how big the Six is - when we see a delta wing weāre used to thinking āMirageāā¦
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Very fair. BIG boys.
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really recomend Peter E. Davies (dunno are they related with Steve?) books for some reading on the Century Series topic
RF101 in combat, F102 units, F104 in combat etc.
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An interesting note about the 479th TFW and the F-104C squadrons sent to Nam was not only their participation in William Tell and Featherduster but their supposed use of āDouble Attackā tactics.
Double Attack was created by Everest Riccioni in the late 1950s as a means to use the F-100 in an Air Superiority role. The Navy āLoose Deuceā was fairly similar. (The same Riccioni as was later a member of the āFighter Mafiaā and then āthe Reformersā)
Interesting because this type of flexible formation tactics with two jets in the vertical plane was a pretty difficult thing to achieve. These tactics can of course negate any turn advantage an enemy aircraft may have had.
But they never got to really use this in Nam to demonstrate how good they were at it. If they were any good it would have put them as being some of the best trained A-A pilots in Nam up to the point the F-104Cs were replaced.
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Ooh la la! check out the street lights of Vegas!
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I think it needs to be pointed out that both types suffered horrendous loss rates over Vietnam, and the Hun especially was really shoehorned into a role that it really wasnāt intended for when the plane was designed and tactics were developed.
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Iāll add that AFAIK, the F-105 is the only USAF aircraft pulled out of combat due to unacceptable losses. Something like 45% of the total aircraft produced! 
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Them afterburnersā¦
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I donāt think we can attribute those losses to the airframes, even if they were used outside their intended roles. You had brain-dead politicians dictating flight plans and what targets they could or could not hit for much of the war. If youāre flying the same flight path every single strike, and you arenāt allowed to strike a SAM site or AAA battery, well of course youāre going to have heavy losses.
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Remember Andy Bush over at SimHq? We need him here to talk about the 105
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coulda just said āanother siteāā¦ lol.
Very valid points, I donāt disagree at all. I do wonder though, didnāt every other airframe in the theatre performing strike missions have similar restrictions forced upon them?
Was it just because for that period the Thuds bore most of the tactical bombing role?
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Wow! Did the NTTR get some love (Iāve been out of all things Flight Sim this summer)?
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Well it seems like its about toā¦
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I believe so, but I also think different units/branches had different areas of responsibility? Weād have to dig into specific squadrons, missions, and time frames to get to the heart of the sweeping āgeneric aircraft model had x-number of losses.ā
Anyone having HORRIBLE download speeds off the DCS website right now? Especially userfiles. Iām getting about 35/kbs. Been like this for days. Not having the issue with any other websites. Normally its pretty quick.
Got a banner on the forum about them doing hardware upgrades so yeah.
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They had scheduled maintenance at 0400 GMT this morning/last night, which took down all MP servers and apparently even kicked people out of SP. I got disconnected from Enigma (to be expected) but didnāt get logged out of DCS like many people did.
Apparently it didnāt go well, because thereās more scheduled maintenance planned for tonight.
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