It still used vacuum tubes! If a part broke and couldn’t be located, it had to be made. It was the ONLY system on the jet that had never been updated. It was very expensive to maintain the Fire Control System. As a former B-52 gunner and a reader of The Aviation Geek Club explained us “we (Gunners) were done away with for two reasons 1) Budget. Butler, then Strategic Air Command (SAC) commander, announced the elimination of the gunner position and the deactivation of the guns on the B-52. Vietnamese sources attributed a third air-to-air victory to a B-52, a MiG-21 shot down on Apr. Several pieces of the aircraft exploded, and the fireball disappeared in the undercast.”Īlso the B-52D tail number 55-00083 has been preserved and it can be seen on display at the United States Air Force Academy, Colorado. Chute, who reported: “I went visual and saw the ‘bandit’ on fire and falling away. This kill too was confirmed by another tail gunner, TSgt. I fired at the bandit until it ballooned to three times in intensity then suddenly disappeared from my radar scope at approximately 1,200 yards. When the target go to 2,000 yards, I notified the crew that I was firing. I called the pilot for evasive action and the EWO for chaff and flares. I immediately notified the crew, and the ‘bogey’ started closing rapidly. He locked on to the Fishbed at 4,000 yards and began to fire against the blip on his radar scope until it disappeared.Īccording to an extensive piece written by Tom Docherty and appeared in the December 2015 issue of FlyPast magazine, in his combat report Moore wrote: “I observed a target on my radar scope 8 o’clock low at 8 miles. Moore, the tail gunner of the B-52D Tail No. One of them was acquired on the radar scope by A1C Albert E. Thirty BUFFs which took off from U-Tapao had to hit rail yards at Thai Nguyen and Kep, 40 miles north and northeast of Hanoi and during the bomb run, the B-52s were attacked by the MiGs. The second Stratofortress aerial victory during the Vietnam War took place on Dec. Today the B-52D tail number 55-0676 is preserved at the Fairchild AFB Heritage Park at Spokane where it can be seen sporting the classic MiG Killers emblem, in the form of a red star under the cockpit. in his book MiG Killers A Chronology of U.S. Le Blanc who was tail gunner on another B-52, as explained by Donald J. This kill was the first for a bomber crew since the Korean War and it had been confirmed also by MSgt. One of the MiG-21s was preparing to launch its missiles against Brown III, but Turner was able to lock on to the approaching Fishbed and once it was in the firing range, he opened fire against it, hitting the rear of the MiG which exploded in a huge fireball. The B-52Ds reached their target, dropped their bombs and while they were heading home, several MiGs took off to intercept them. It was during this air campaign that two B-52D tail gunners belonging to the 307th Strategic Bomb Wing from U-Tapao RTAFB (Royal Thailand Air Force Base), Thailand, continued the long tradition of tail gunners from previous wars, downing two North Vietnamese Fishbeds. The MiG kills were both scored during Operation Linebacker II, the Christmas strategic air offensive against the industrial and logistical heart of North Vietnam, that started after the failure of the negotiations at the peace talks in Paris. The Boeing B-52 is the ultimate embodiment of the principle of strategic air power: developed to carry a hydrogen bomb over intercontinental ranges, the Stratofortress was used extensively for conventional bombing in the Vietnam War, where it was able to become also a MiG killer, shooting down two MiG-21 fighters. The BUFF MiG kills during the Vietnam War. The BUFF MiG kills were both scored during Operation Linebacker II, the Christmas strategic air offensive against the industrial and logistical heart of North Vietnam
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