ewilen

Yes. You proceeded to ascribe all sorts of racial epithets to me, when I never advocated nor defended their use. Let me ask you: when did you decide that the word "oriental" was an offensive term? Was it based on personal experience or observation (please elaborate), or were you taught that it was offensive? If you were taught that it was offensive, did the teacher provide a rational explanation with supporting evidence, or did you simply accept the assertion at face value?

Nice use of straw men, doh-dough. Time to lock the thread.

No, you will be offended by it. Education in this case meaning credulously accepting the dogmatization of linguistics in the service of politics. And I suppose the offense taken by some Indians and Pakistanis at being excluded from the term "Asian" means nothing to you?

De mortuis nil nisi bonum... I liked him in Knute Rockne: All American

Thanks for posting that. FYI to people with Macs. The version posted earlier in this thread does not work on Macs because it's in a Windows Media Player format that won't even work in the latest WMP for OS X. This one does work on Macs. I just finished watching it, and although it's unsubbed, it's a feast for the eyes.

Some help for the perplexed... PVO is the Soviet/Russian Air Defense Force (Protivo-Vozdushnoi Oborony) VVS is the Soviet/Russian Air Force (Voenno-Vozdushmiy Sily) Info from http://www.ais.org/~schnars/aero/ussr.htm Note that hte Russians organize their air-related assets very differently from us. E.g., they put interceptors, fighters, and SAMS in the PVO, and tactical air (including ground attack helicopters), bombers, and transports in the VVS.

Belated response to HC: that is very interesting and very sad. I find the history of Imperial German Navy fascinating. Also, I want to note in this thread that Line of Battle is going to be rereleased by Omega Games.

Anyway, it may not be fair to compare post-Top Gun F-4's vs. pre-Top Gun F-8's, but as we've noted, the F-8 pilots in the early part of the war were trained for WVR combat while the F-4 crews were trained for a situation very unlike what they were called upon to deal with. So that's unfair, too. Basically, it comes down to how much more the F-8 pilots could get out of their machines than what they were already doing. All we really know is the USN F-4 pilots improved a lot. OTOH, the F-15 was designed with input from pilots who had experienced with the F-4's deficiencies. It seems that the Eagle was designed to keep all the good things abou the F-4 (mainly, lots of thrust and excellent radar/BVR capabilities) and recover the good things about the F-86 (maneuverability), which the Crusader shared.

Some data cleaning is necessary to get the AF numbers... Maybe someone else can do it. Here are the spreadsheets. Again, these are from the data compiled at http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/usloss.html (last revision June 9, 2002) http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/usvictor.html (last revision May 5, 2002) by David Lednicer and Adrian Camp. (By the way, it looks like there's more useful stuff in the aviation history section one directory up at http://home.sprynet.com/~anneled/ ) I removed the second seat records from the victories database, for which I apologize. If I had more time, I'd rework it to have a separate field in each record for the second seat. vn_airwar.xls.zip

The problem with the danshistory page is that it isn't clear if the USN/USAF data you're referring to is supposed to be just F-4's or all aircraft. Here's are the F-8 losses I got from the page I linked above: 21-Jun-66 F-8E Black 14-Jul-66 F-8E Bellinger 5-Sep-66 F-8E Abbott (USAF) 24-May-72 F-8J Beeler I'll bet the last one is the one that's not in your tally. If you search on Beeler F-8J you'll find a bio of the pilot, and elsewhere you can find references to the fact that F-8J's were used toward the end of the war and incurred losses from accidents and SAMs. Here's the RF-8A record (which I didn't use in my tallies): 21-Jun-66 RF-8A Eastman

Returning to the USN Phantoms' record post-Top Gun, I used the source I linked above to calculate some stats. I first imported the data into spreadsheets, then I sorted it by Service (USN or Air Force), Aircraft type, and date. I excluded records which were unconfirmed (apparently, North Vietnamese victories claimed by North Vietnamese sources) or which didn't identify the service (apparently, North Vietnamese losses not recorded in American sources). For F-8 Crusaders, all models, throughout the war, I get a victory-loss record of 20-4. For USN F-4 Phantoms, all models, from March, 1969 to the end of the war, I get a victory-loss record of 25-4. The Top Gun program was started in March, 1969, though obviously the first class didn't graduate until later. But since there were no Navy F-4 victories or losses prior to 28 March, 1970, it is likely that I've captured the entire "post Top Gun" record for the Phantom. If Jerome Beaulier and his RIO didn't attend Top Gun prior to that 1970 victory, then the record would drop to 24-4. One problem with the data is that some of the losses are commented as "attibuted to SAM" or "attributed to AAA", even though an enemy aircraft type is often listed as the victor. If you exclude those, the F-8's record improves to 20-2, while the post-Top Gun Navy's F-4 losses to air-air combat drop to 2. The above numbers do not include the Marine Corps. I don't know if the USMC participated in Top Gun during Vietnam. USMC F-4's had 2 victories and 1 loss in the period after March, 1969. So depending on what you decide to include, based on the data used, the F-8's overall victory:loss ratio was somewhere between 10:1 and 5:1. The USN/USMC's post-Top Gun ratio was somewhere between 12.5:1 and 5.2:1 Now, in spite of the Phantom's marginal advantage over the Crusader in this particular comparison, I would hesitate to conclude that one plane was superior to the other in the air-to-air mission against enemy MiGs, or would necessarily defeat the other in a 1-1 fight. As David alluded, it's clear that training and tactics are the paramount factor given two able (though dissimilar) aircraft. Where the Phantom outshone the Crusader was its ability to work about as well as an air superiority craft, while also doing so many other jobs. Edit: one thing I noticed from going through various online sources--the biggest killer of American aircraft in Vietnam wasn't enemy MiGs--it was anti-aircraft fire and accidents.

I think you're leaving out cost. I may be mistaken, but I believe the YF-22 was considered likely to lead to a less expensive production version. Politics may have been a factor, but you may also be leaving out institutional bias. The YF-22's maneuverability advantage (however slight) may have appealed to those in the Air Force who wanted to be assured of maximum advantage in traditional WVR aerial combat.

I think if you go to the source you'll find the Eagles were mission-loaded F-15E's. I.e., not a remarkable result. Had it been F-15C's things might well have been very different.

Shin, the whole purpose of using kill ratios instead of sheer numbers is to control for the fact that one aircraft got more use than the other. Yes, the Phantoms had more victories because they were more widely used; for the same reason, they had more losses. The purpose of air-air combat isn't dogfighting. It's knocking the other guy out of the sky and protecting other assets. (I.e., protecting ships, bases, cities from bombers and their escorts, or protecting bombers and recon craft from enemy fighters.) If you can do that without getting into a turning fight, you've done your job.

This page gives a US Navy ratio from 1972 on as 12.5:1, but it doesn't break it down by type of aircraft. This page states that Phantoms achieved a 6:1 ratio during Operation Linebacker but it's not clear to me if that includes a mix of USAF and Navy statistics, or just USAF. Ah, just found a great source--assuming it's accurate: US Air-Air losses in the Vietnam War US Air-Air victories in the Vietnam War Now I just need to get it into a spreadsheet and do some database operations.

I beg to differ. If I'm not mistaken, the standard kana for "Zentradi" is ゼントラーディ which if you transliterate "normally" becomes ZENTOLADEI or ZENTORADEI. The "Zjentohlauedy" version is an attempt using Roman characters to render the "actual" pronunciation of the word, or at any rate to represent a "standard" transliteration from Zentradi to English, rather than going from Zentradi to Japanese to English.

From my reading of the article, the RAF isn't planning on reselling all of them, just some of them. But what they really want are the future (tranche 3?) block--the ones optimized for bombing.

In aerial combat, you fight to your strengths and the enemy's weaknesses. From a cursory look at the data, it seems to me that the MiG 17 and similar craft were similar to the F-8, only more maneuverable. The F-4 lacked the turning ability of those craft but significantly exceeded them in acceleration, max. ceiling, and climb rate. I'll bet that if you look at the post-Top Gun Phantom in Vietnam, not to mention Israeli use--i.e., once Western pilots learned how to use the Phantom's advantages--you'll see that it achieved a superior kill ratio to the Crusader.

Partial answer at http://macross.anime.net/feedback/index.html underr "What's in a name?" In other words, the funky version of the name is an attempt to capture the "real" pronunciation of the word in the Zentradi language. BTW, it's "Zjentohlauedy" (note the "e"). Also note that the "Zentraedi" spelling is a Robotechism. Standard Romanization is "Zentradi" (no "e"). And look at http://www.animeigo.com/Liner/MACROSS.t under Secrets of Macross. Edit: there's a PDF version of the animeigo liner notes, too, which differs slightly in that it generally uses the "Zentraedi" form. I don't remember which appears in the printed notes, but I think this version of the info is probably correct:

Shin and I always seem to end up on opposite sides when it comes to aircraft... I like the F-4 better than the F-8, though I have to admit it's a visceral thing--and sentimental as well, since the F-4 was the first fighter I ever learned to recognize. Still, the Crusader's record (8-0?) isn't the stuff Cy Young winners are made of...once the Navy started thinking about how to use the F-4 (i.e., post Top Gun) it dominated in Vietnam. I don't have time now but I can also drag up links pointing to why it was chosen as the main Navy fighter over the Crusader.

How so? I'd say both terms are Eurasia-centric, since they take their frame of reference as somewhere in between East Asia ("the Orient") and Europe ("the Occident"). (To a Hawaiian, North America is the East and China is the West.)

That's not it. That's an original Takatoku (not a bootleg), and it's the small "Henkei" SDF-1. The bootleg which is the subject of this tread is based on the Takatoku "block system" SDF-1. The Henkei was also bootlegged, though...plus it was used as a Mark/Select Convertor. Take a look at the Takatoku Part 2 datafile at Toyboxdx.com

Yes, but in Vietnamese, many other places get the multiple word treatment (sometimes hyphenated, sometimes not). Or conversely they get cut down to a single syllable. So turnabout is fair play

Glad to see it got reopened. The thing about the Asian vs. Oriental issue is that neither term is accurate if interpreted literally. Is "oriental" Eurocentric? If so, why are Europeans and Americans called "Westerners"? (And I notice that Japan doesn't mind referring to itself as the land of the rising sun, which is etymologically analogous to the term "Orient".) The same applies to many other racial and national terms. (E.g., whites aren't white and blacks aren't black.) Ultimately I think it's best to try not to give offense, but also not to be too quick to take offense. Now, Stamen0083, while Vietnam is "Viet Nam" in Vietnamese, in English it's become normal to use the single word form. I don't see why there should be a problem with that--or should Germans be offended that we don't call them "Deutsch"? For that matter, the name "Viet Nam" is rather a Sinocentric label. Look here and here.

Wasn't someone just recently arguing that the Tomcat (or a swing wing NATF) could be made stealthy because the wings would mainly be used in just two positions? So how much does the Tornado give up by only having four positions?