The Vietnam Conflict was a new battleground in the Cold War. The Cold War was a strategic global campaign of wits and psychological games involving sponsored satellite states and funding - either monetarily or threw arms shipments and sales. When the Soviet Union-sponsored North Vietnamese invaded the United States-sponsored South Vietnamese, a new line in the sand had been crossed. What would follow next would be years of deadly warfare in the skies and on land. The Vietnam Conflict would see the rise of the turbofan-powered jet fighter that could handle multiple roles at speeds topping Mach 2. In the end, the conflict would be a disastrous psychological defeat to the United States of America and a much needed morale booster to communism across the globe. The Vietnam War saw heavy use of bigger, faster and more potent aircraft than ever before. Carpet bombing was taken to all new heights (literally) and Napalm was used on massive scales to weed out an enemy that could not be seen in the thick dense jungles. The United States would employ aircraft armed with the latest in air-to-air homing technology on platforms such as the Vought F-8 Crusader and the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom. By the middle of the conflict, it would be realized that the "missile only" design theories of the new generation of American fighters was a crutch to the close-range fighting that raged in the skies. As such, the cannon would eventually be brought back into aircraft design for all future American warplanes.
On the contrary, the Soviet-produced jet fighters like the MiG-21 Fishbed would enjoy a sense of advantage with it's nimbleness and close support weapons consisting of cannon and short ranged homing missiles. The war would still have to be decided by the pilots themselves, though the technology at their fingertips would play and increasing larger role by conflict's end. The air war was not only limited to jet aircraft. Rotary aircraft like the Huey Cobra and Huey transport helicopter could be armed with a plethora of weapons - from rockets and miniguns to grenade launchers and machine guns. Vietnam became the first true "helicopter war" as both sides fielded a variety of gunships and transports. By the end of the conflict, the United States war machine could not keep up with the mounting losses at the front and the pressure at home. With a last ditch effort to instill a fighting cause in the South Vietnamese, the United States officially pulled out and closed a forgettable chapter in its history - a chapter that would, with time, right the wrongs of aviation design in the last half of the Cold War and bring America's military might back to life. |
