Operation Bolo: Vietnam Era Aerial Ambush

Operation Bolo

 

Military history is an area of intense interest for me, especially military aviation.  In a recent conversation, Operation Bolo arose as a topic of interest, and I would like to relate the story of what is probably one of the most dramatic and interesting operations in the air campaign over Vietnam.

 

Operation Bolo was named after the bolo, a Filipino knife that is very similar to a machete and which is often used for fighting.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_knife

 

A bolo is a large cutting tool similar to the machete, used particularly in the jungles of Indonesia, the Philippines, and in the sugar fields of Cuba. The primary use for the bolo is clearing vegetation, whether for agriculture or during trail blazing.

 

Bolos are also used as military weapons and as such they were a particular favourite of the Filipino resistance during the 1898 Philippine Revolution against Spain, the Philippine-American War, and the Commonwealth period. In as much as the bolo was first used as a farming implement, it was also used in combat for the very reason that during colonial times, the ubiquitous bolo was very much readily available to the common person. For this reason the study of the bolo is common in Filipino martial arts, such as Pekiti Tirsia Kali and Eskrima.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_knife

 

Operation Bolo pitted the US F-4 Phantom II against the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 “Fishbed,” two rougly comparable fighters.  The primary disadvantages of the F-4 were that it was large and heavy (less agile), lacked a cannon or machine guns, and generated a heavy smoke at miliatary speeds making it relatively easy to spot.  In the early days of air combat using missiles, the missiles often malfunctioned, and a cannon or machine guns were almost necessary backups.  The primary advantage of the Phantom was its thrust that allowed the Phantom to engage and disengage enemy fighters almost at will.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-4_Phantom_II#Flight_characteristics

 

By the start of 1967, the F-4 Phantom II had been in operational service with the United States Navy for six years, and with the United States Air Force since 1964. The latest fighter in American service, the F-4 had powerful engines, excellent handling, and an air-to-air configuration of eight air-to-air missilese. However, the Phantom suffered from one critical armament weakness – the lack of an internal cannon, as its original conception as a fleet defense interceptor dictated that air combat would occur at beyond visual range with radar-guided missiles. It was also a large, heavy fighter, with high wing loadings that degraded its performance in high-G turns, and with engines that tended to produce large amounts of smoke, making it highly visible in combat. 

 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo#Opposing_aircraft

The F-4’s primary adversary during this engagement was the Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 ‘Fishbed’, a small fighter designed as a short-range interceptor, a role that perfectly suited its use by the VPAF. Armed with two Vympel K-13 missiles (known to US pilots by their NATO designation "Atoll"), the MiG-21 had rapid acceleration, was agile at supersonic speeds and at high altitudes, and significantly outperformed its primary target – the F-105 Thunderchief - in all flight regimes. A small, light fighter, its low wing loadings were excellent for air combat maneuvering and its small size made it difficult to spot even when its adversary was warned of its presence.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo#Opposing_aircraft

 

At that time, the VPAF had an estimated 12-16 MIG-21s that were literally tearing apart the F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers of the day.  The exact flight path to approach to Hanoi was declared by the US high command.  This allowed the MIG-21's to sit very low and just pop up for attacks upon the vulnerable, heavy loaded, bombers in guerilla warfare for the skies. 

 

Typically, the MiG-21 was used in hit-and-run tactics; being vectored by Ground Control Intercept (GCI) to an intercept position to the vulnerable rear of an American strike formation, then executing a missile attack and diving away before fighter cover could intervene. Scoring its first kill in October 1966, in December intercepting MiG-21s shot down two F-105s and forced 20% of all strike sorties to jettison their bombloads

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo#Opposing_aircraft

 

The agility of the MiG-21 and the Vietnam People's Air Force tactic of high-speed slashing attacks from astern under GCI control posed a significant challenge to American pilots, who had become predictable by staging large formation strikes from Thailand flying roughly the same routes and times of day allowing the VPAF to challenge them with a relatively small force of 15 MiG-21 fighters used as point defense interceptors.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo#The_MiG_threat

 

Eventually, the MiG-21s posed such a significant threat to the F-105s that an aerial reverse ambush was planned.  “Bombing of North Vietnamese airfields was still forbidden at the start of 1967, and 8th TFW wing commander Col. Robin Olds proposed an aerial ambush as the best means of mitigating the threat.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo#The_MiG_threat

 

Col. Robin Olds derived a very simple plan for Operation Bolo: substitute F-4 Phantoms that appear very similar to the F-105s for the fighter-bombers and attempt to lure the MiG-21s into a trap.  To further the illusion of the aircraft, a number of Phantoms were fitted with the QRC-160 radar jamming pods to appear as F105s to electronic warfare operators in the NVA.

 

Since October the F-105s had been equipped with QRC-160 radar jamming pods that had virtually ended their own losses to surface-to-air missiles, but had shifted SAM attacks to the Phantoms, unprotected because of a shortage of the pods.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo#The_MiG_threat

 

In order to deceive the North Vietnamese, the west force had to fly the same ingress routes, altitudes, and speeds as the F-105, use the same air refueling tanker tracks and altitudes, and use F-105 jargon on the radio. (However, to Olds' dismay, the flights were still assigned callsigns of MiGCAPs throughout the war, which were the names of American-made automobiles: Olds, Ford, Rambler, Lincoln, Tempest, Plymouth, and Vespa.) The F-4s were fitted out with the QRC-160 jamming pods normally carried only by F-105s, so that their electronic signature would be the same, and the F-4s would also fly the inflexible line-abreast pod formations used by the F-105s to maximize pod effectiveness. The pods had to be mounted on one of the fuel tank wing pylons, forcing the F-4s to carry a centerline and single wing tank, creating an asymmetric imbalance that made takeoffs difficult (the aircraft would try to roll on liftoff to the side carrying the wing tank).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo#Planning_Operation_Bolo

 

Compounding the issues raised by the deception was the inefficiency and impracticality of the North Vietnamese draconian standards whereby their airmen were almost completely led by orders from the ground, leaving little flexibility in the air defense program and little room for error.  When faced with an immediate dogfight instead of being allowed to rely on their previously successful “hit and run” tactics, the VPAF ground control appeared to be at a complete loss as to what to do, and the VPAF MiG-21 squadron was utterly decimated.  As a consequence, MiG interception of fighter-bombers was not the same for a number of months.  “For the North Vietnamese (and their Soviet allies who supplied the MiG-21 aircraft and helped set up the integrated air defense network), the two reverses forced them to husband their assets by grounding the MiGs for several months for retraining and devising of new tactics.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bolo#Mission_impact_and_followup

 

MUSICAL INSPIRATION:  "Have no clue what to do with us."

 

This was an utterly intoxicating story from the Vietnam War for military buffs around the globe.  It is a great example of how micromanaging warfare such as having entire air squadrons completely controlled from the ground can be utterly disastrous even if they are being controlled by your own nation.  We can only imagine what the effects might be if another nation with conflicting rules of engagement and target selection were to control The United States Air Force or another nation’s air force.

Reviews

[Berserker[Diktator Von ..]

Wow! You are very informative! I also have intense interest in history, especially military and warfare history. This was very helpful. Thank you for all of your pieces that are educative.

[Legion]

Thanks for the lesson. I had not heard of this. And yet, we still could not win that excursion. Very thought-provoking. Kudos to you.

[richard hurndall]

I thought this was highly interesting, and it is great to see something different posted on Writers Cafe. In Britain we hear a lot about WWII tactics but Vietnam is not talked about in this respect-politics kind of takes over- so it is great to see a new slant on the topic.