However, greater accuracy was necessary to achieve the required damage levels on the targets being attacked.
HQ Seventh Air Force was impressed with the bombing accuracies of the Canberras when operating with FACs in close support of ground troops and by November 1967, were being tasked with four day low level sorties. However, a number of aircraft were damaged by bomb fragments (shrapnel) and some navigators suffered minor injuries as a result. On a number of occasions, aircraft released their bombs from as low as 800 ft (245 metres), followed by a rapid pull-up to a height outside the fragmentation envelope. Flying at about 3000 feet (915 metres) AGL to avoid ground fire, the crews achieved accuracies of about 45 metres. Most sorties were in support of the Australian Task Force in the IV Corps area. The first low level day missions started in September 1967, with forward air controllers marking the targets with smoke. The F111s returned in 1972 and achieved outstanding results.įor the first few months, the Squadron carried out night Combat Skyspot missions where aircraft were guided on the bombing run by ground based precision radar. USAF F111As operated in similar modes in 1968, undergoing combat evaluation, but were withdrawn after three were lost. The USN and USMC operated the A6 Intruder in all-weather attack modes, usually straight and level, using radar bombing systems. Often, the Canberra could fly below the cloud while the dive attack aircraft could not see the ground to acquire the target because of the low cloud base. The Canberra filled a gap in the USAF inventory as it was the only tactical aircraft in South Vietnam which bombed, visually, from straight and level flight, albeit at 350knots. 2 SQN 'Magpies' were part of the 35th Tactical Fighter Wing and were tasked by HQ 7th Air Force in Saigon, for eight sorties per day for seven days a week, in all areas of South Vietnam from 23 April 1967 until return to Australia in 1971.
No 2 Squadron deployed from Butterworth, Malaysia to Phan Rang air base, 35 kilometres south of Cam Ranh Bay, a large USAF base in the far east of South Vietnam, on 19 April 1967.
0 kommentar(er)
