Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980
F-105 Thunderchief, the combat losses were well, outrageous.The Thud lacked the more advanced bomb sights and thus was forced to dive bomb, much like a WW II era dive bomber.The Thud, while very fast was large and not that agile, pilots had a difficult time evading SAMs and clouds of flak that other planes dealt with but did not suffer the loss rates.
Brave me they were, to go into battle in a plane like that...
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Disagree. It racked up high combat losses due to being at the forefront of the bombing campaign. The dive bombing issue was due to it being designed as a low level strike bomber and since production had stopped they weren't going to update it.
It was the perfect example of an aircraft being asked to do a job for which it hadn't been designed.