Mason
The receiver systems installed in the F-100 Wild Weasels became known as “Radar Homing and Warning,” or RHAW. Jack Donovan and his pilot Alan Lamb completed a brief training session in their new mission at Nellis AFB. They were joined by four other Wild Weasel crews and 4 F-100F aircraft and deployed to Korat AB, Thailand on Thanksgiving Day, 1975.
As nobody had battled SAMs before, there were no prescribed tactics to guide the Weasels. They knew the SAMs had a range of about 15 to 20 miles and the missiles were guided by a dual target tracking radar system whose radar pulses sounded like a rattlesnake rattle coming through the RHAW systems. They also knew that the SAMs were not very effective at low altitudes, especially if there were mountains or hills that could shield them from the SAM radars and missiles. Therefore, they would use their RHAW systems to warn themselves and other aircraft of the presence of one or more active SAM sites, then turn toward the signals, home in on them and attempt to locate the sites, often camouflaged.
Initially, the Weasels struggled unsuccessfully to kill a SAM site. One Weasel Aircraft and crew were shot down and lost without a successful mission. Then, Dec. 22, 1965, Donovan and Lamb picked up a SAM signal in the Red River delta area, not too far from Hanoi, NVN. Lamb says, “I kept the SAM signal between the 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock position so it wouldn’t be too obvious that I was headed for the site.” The signal kept getting stronger and Donovan said, “We kept hopping over ridges until there weren’t any more ridges, the SAM radar signal reached the outer edge of the scope, and I just inhaled and said, Aah!” Lamb said, “We were coming down the delta, and I kept looking until I finally spotted the radar van. I just started strafing, even though we were out of range, but I walked the bullets right up to the van, and the radar signal went off the air! I popped up, rolled inverted and fired our rockets into the site, to mark it for our “killer Thuds.” The 4 ship F-105 formation rolled in and dive bombed the missile site with 750-pound bombs, putting it out of commission. When they got back to Korat, the F-100 crew led the F-105s in a “V” formation (for victory) in a low pass over the control tower. The whole base knew what that meant, and a big party was on!
The F-100 Weasels continued leading flights of 4 Thuds in a hunter-killer roll, but they then assumed an additional roll of escorting entire strike forces of usually 16 or 20 F-105s on bombing missions. The F-100s would precede the strike force and alert them to the presence of threatening SAM radar signals, give the directions to active SAM sites and also call out, “SAM launch at the 1 o’clock position, (or whatever direction)! Take it down!” The favored SAM evasive maneuver was to turn toward the missile and place it in the 10 to 11 o’clock or the 1 to 2 o’clock position off the nose, put the aircraft into a 45-degree dive and wait until the missile got close, and then pull a 6 or 7 g pull-up while turning toward the missile. If you timed the maneuver correctly, the missile would zip harmlessly underneath the aircraft.
It soon became apparent that the F-100 aircraft was not really compatible with the F-105s it was escorting. The Thuds could cruise at over 600 knots airspeed without using afterburner, and leave the “Huns” behind. The Air Force began converting 2 seat F-105Fs to the Wild Weasel role.
By late spring, 1966, of the 7 F-100 Wild Weasel aircraft deployed, five had been shot down! Surviving F-100 crews returned to Nellis AFB to train F-105 crews.