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Operation Iron Hand
Operation Iron Hand was a joint United States Air Force (USAF) and United States Navy (USN) operation conducted from 1965 to 1973 during the Vietnam War. It was a type of Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) mission, primarily intended to suppress Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems in North Vietnam, although neutralizing radar-directed anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) was important as well. "Iron Hand" refers both to the development of the tactics and equipment, and the numerous individual "Iron Hand missions" that generally accompanied strike packages of the USAF and USN. The "Iron Hand" is a metaphor to the steady hand and nerves of steel it took for pilots to fly directly at the radar-emitting anti-aircraft missile sites while the radar-seeking missiles flew down to destroy the target. The tactics employed on the Iron Hand missions were primarily designed to diminish the threat of SA-2 missiles to a bombing strike force. History The People's Army of Viet ...
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United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the United States Armed Forces in 1947 with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control. The United States Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense. The Air Force through the Department of the Air Force is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force ...
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Grumman A-6 Intruder
The Grumman A-6 Intruder is an American twinjet all-weather attack aircraft developed and manufactured by American aircraft company Grumman Aerospace and operated by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. It was designed in response to a 1957 requirement issued by the Bureau of Aeronautics for an all-weather attack aircraft for Navy long-range interdiction missions and with short takeoff and landing (STOL) capability for Marine close air support. It was to replace the piston-engined Douglas A-1 Skyraider. The requirement allowed one or two engines, either turbojet or turboprop. The winning proposal from Grumman used two Pratt & Whitney J52 turbojet engines. The Intruder was the first Navy aircraft with an integrated airframe and weapons system. Operated by a crew of two in a side-by-side seating configuration, the workload was divided between the pilot and weapons officer (bombardier/navigator (BN)). In addition to conventional munitions, it could also carry nuclear weapons, wh ...
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Military Operations Of The Vietnam War
The many allied military operations of the Vietnam War are listed on the following pages, either alphabetically, or chronologically. Lists By year * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1964) * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1965) * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1966) * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1967) * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1968) * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1969) * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1970) * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1971) * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1972) * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1973–1974) * List of allied military operations of the Vietnam War (1975) By name See also * First Indochina War * Viet Cong insurgency * Vietnamization Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administrat ...
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Battles And Operations Of The Vietnam War
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force commitment. An engagement with only limited commitment between the forces and without decisive results is sometimes called a skirmish. The word "battle" can also be used infrequently to refer to an entire operational campaign, although this usage greatly diverges from its conventional or customary meaning. Generally, the word "battle" is used for such campaigns if referring to a protracted combat encounter in which either one or both of the combatants had the same methods, resources, and strategic objectives throughout the encounter. Some prominent examples of this would be the Battle of the Atlantic, Battle of Britain, and Battle of Stalingrad, all in World War II. Wars and military campaigns are guided by military strategy, whereas bat ...
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AGM-78 Standard ARM
The AGM-78 Standard ARM was an anti-radiation missile developed by General Dynamics, United States. It was built on the airframe of the RIM-66 Standard surface-to-air missile, resulting in a very large weapon with considerable range, allowing it to attack targets as much as away. Overview Originally developed for the US Navy during the late 1960s, the AGM-78 was created in large part because of the limitations of the AGM-45 Shrike, which suffered from a small warhead, limited range and a poor guidance system. General Dynamics was asked to create an air-launched ARM by modifying the RIM-66 SM-1 surface-to-air missile. This use of an "off the shelf" design greatly reduced development costs, and trials of the new weapon began in 1967 after only a year of development. The first operational missiles were issued in early 1968. The AGM-78 was nicknamed the "Starm", an abbreviation of Standard ARM. The first version of the missile, the A1 Mod 0, was little more than an air-launched RIM ...
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Gravity Bomb
An unguided bomb, also known as a free-fall bomb, gravity bomb, dumb bomb, or iron bomb, is a conventional or nuclear aircraft-delivered bomb that does not contain a guidance system and hence simply follows a ballistic trajectory. This described all aircraft bombs in general service until the latter half of World War II, and the vast majority until the late 1980s. Then, with the dramatically increased use of precision-guided munitions, a retronym was needed to separate "smart bombs" from free-fall bombs. "Dumb bomb" was used for a time, but many military circles felt it sounded too trite, and eventually "gravity bomb" gained popularity. Bomb casings for unguided bombs are typically aerodynamic in shape, often with fins at the tail section, which reduce drag and increase stability after release, both of which serve to improve accuracy and consistency of trajectory. Unguided bombs typically use a contact fuze for detonation upon impact, or some milliseconds after if a penetration ...
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Wild Weasel
Wild Weasel is a code name given by the United States Air Force (USAF) to an aircraft of any type equipped with anti-radiation missiles and tasked with the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD): destroying the radar and surface-to-air missile (SAM) installations of enemy air defense systems.Hewitt, W.A''Planting the seeds of SEAD: The Wild Weasel in Vietnam'' School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, PhD Thesis. May 1992. Accessed 5 October 2009. The task of a Wild Weasel aircraft is to bait enemy anti-aircraft defenses into targeting it with their radars, whereupon the radar waves are traced back to their source, allowing the Weasel or its teammates to precisely target it for destruction. The Wild Weasel concept was developed by the USAF in 1965 during the Vietnam War after the introduction of Soviet SAMs and their downing of American strike aircraft participating in Operation Rolling Thunder in the skies over North Vietnam. The ...
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Republic F-105 Thunderchief
The Republic F-105 Thunderchief is an American supersonic fighter-bomber that served with the United States Air Force from 1958 to 1984. Capable of Mach 2, it conducted the majority of strike bombing missions during the early years of the Vietnam War; it was the only American aircraft to have been removed from combat due to high loss rates. It was originally designed as a single-seat, nuclear- attack aircraft; a two-seat Wild Weasel version was later developed for the specialized Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) role against surface-to-air missile sites. The F-105 was commonly known as the "Thud" by its crews. As a follow-on to the Mach 1 capable North American F-100 Super Sabre, the F-105 was also armed with missiles and a rotary cannon; however, its design was tailored to high-speed low-altitude penetration carrying a single nuclear weapon internally. First flown in 1955, the Thunderchief entered service in 1958. The single-engine F-105 could deliver a bomb load gre ...
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North American F-100 Super Sabre
The North American F-100 Super Sabre is an American supersonic jet fighter aircraft that served with the United States Air Force (USAF) from 1954 to 1971 and with the Air National Guard (ANG) until 1979. The first of the Century Series of USAF jet fighters, it was the first USAF fighter capable of supersonic speed in level flight. The F100 was designed by North American Aviation as a higher-performance follow-on to the F-86 Sabre air-superiority fighter. Adapted as a fighter-bomber, the F-100 was superseded by the high-speed Republic F-105 Thunderchief for strike missions over North Vietnam. The F100 flew extensively over South Vietnam as the air force's primary close air-support jet until being replaced by the more efficient subsonic LTV A-7 Corsair II. The F100 also served in other NATO air forces and with other U.S. allies. In its later life, it was often referred to as the "Hun", a shortened version of "one hundred". Design and development In January 1951, North Ame ...
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Avionics
Avionics (a blend word, blend of ''aviation'' and ''electronics'') are the Electronics, electronic systems used on aircraft. Avionic systems include communications, Air navigation, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, and the hundreds of systems that are fitted to aircraft to perform individual functions. These can be as simple as a searchlight for a police helicopter or as complicated as the tactical system for an airborne early warning platform. History The term "avionics" was coined in 1949 by Philip J. Klass, senior editor at ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'' magazine as a portmanteau of "aviation electronics". Radio communication was first used in aircraft just prior to World War I. The first Airborne radio relay, airborne radios were in zeppelins, but the military sparked development of light radio sets that could be carried by heavier-than-air craft, so that aerial reconnaissance biplanes could report their observations immediately in case ...
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Cluster Bomb
A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicles. Other cluster munitions are designed to destroy runways or electric power transmission lines, disperse chemical or biological weapons, or to scatter land mines. Some submunition-based weapons can disperse non-munitions, such as leaflets. Because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, they pose risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards. Unexploded bomblets can kill or maim civilians and/or unintended targets long after a conflict has ended, and are costly to locate and remove. Cluster munitions are prohibited for those nations that ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, adopted in Dublin, Ireland, in May 2008. The Convention entered into force and became binding international law upon ratifyi ...
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AGM-45 Shrike
AGM-45 Shrike is an American anti-radiation missile designed to home in on hostile anti-aircraft radar. The Shrike was developed by the Naval Weapons Center at China Lake in 1963 by mating a seeker head to the rocket body of an AIM-7 Sparrow. It was phased out by U.S. in 1992 and at an unknown time by the Israeli Air Force (the only other major user), and has been superseded by the AGM-88 HARM missile. The Israel Defense Forces developed a version of the Shrike that could be ground-launched with a booster rocket, and mounted it on an M4 Sherman chassis as the Kilshon (Hebrew for ''Trident''). History The Shrike was first employed during the Vietnam War by the Navy in 1965 using A-4 aircraft. The Air Force adopted the weapon the following year using F-105F and G Thunderchief Wild Weasel SEAD aircraft, and later the F-4 Phantom II in the same role. The range was nominally shorter than the SA-2 Guideline missiles that the system was used against, although it was a great imp ...
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