The Wild Weasels

[ilellis]

I know it'll probably be a while before the F4 sees the light of day but I did want to throw this in since I have some sentimental history with this "pig". My first assignment in the USAF was at George AFB in the high desert of California years ago working with the F4 Phantom, man those were the days. This bird has a long history with the "Wild Weasel" bunch in the Tactical Air Command. Their motto, "First In Last Out". The Wild Weasel has a unique mission which started in the Vietnam days, killing SAM sites. SAM being short for (S)urface to (A)ir (M)issiles. The EWO (Electronic Warfare Operators) as they called them in those days, sat in the rear seat of the F-4G model sniffing out these radar sites with some pretty capable electronics packed into the belly of this bird. Basically if you were a bad guy on the ground working at one of these SAM sites you did not want to power up your radar looking for aircraft to shoot down because the EWO sitting in the rear seat of a Wild Weasel aircraft passively drinking his coffee would be delighted to see your radar signature pop up on his screen. The EWO would most certainly know what kind of anti-aircraft site they were dealing with and come packing a few special missiles of his own on the F-4G just to make the bad guys day. If the bad guys got a whiff that they were in trouble and shut down their radar to try and hide from the Wild Weasel well sorry, that EWO probably already had them "locked" in and had a missile on it's way to be surgically rammed down the bad guys radar dish leaving their day FUBARed. Without that radar dish all the missiles on site were Tango Uniform and it was game over! Hence the motto "First In", take out the bad guys that wanted to score points while our strike packages were going in to take out a target, then they would meander around waiting for them to come home, keeping the path clear, "Last Out". That mission was still alive and well when the Iraq war started. By then I was an aircrew member on the E-3 AWAC but the Wild Weasel bunch lives on, the only noticable difference was the paint on the aircraft, now gray camoflage instead of green camoflage. You will know when you see a Wild Weasel, just look for the WW on the tail. So to the painters in A2A, don't forget to give us a WW paint job as the Wild Weasel brand has been used on the F-4 platform for many years. It is a fasinating history with war stories galore...

Sincerely,

ILEllis

[Ian P]

It's not just WW on the tail these days, there are other codes in use as well, but yes, this is a role that's always fascinated me as well, whether called "Iron Hand" (USN) or "Wild Weasel" (USAF). Another phrase found on crew badges is "YGBSM", which is the response the crews usually had to the tasks that they were assigned in South East Asia. It stands for "You've Gotta Be S%$£#@g Me!"

The only problem is that the F-4s used for SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defences) were very different internally and significantly different externally, from the gun equipped E/F Phantom that I believe A2A are developing. I'd love a Navy one, but that has the same issue.

Ian P.

[Gypsy Baron]

I saw a lot of F-4's going in and out of Tan Son Nhut and DaNang during my two
deployments there in '66 & '67 but most of the Weasel flights originated elsewhere.

After I left the Navy in Dec '67 I went to work for Applied Technology in Palo Alto
(at the time as well as Sunnyvale). We built RWR equipment for the Air Force and
Navy. One of my tasks was to mount the RWR antennas we built onto a nosecone
and test the pattern with a RF sweep generator, receiver and plotter to insure
the antennas met spec.

Another task was to test some jammers we built, running them up to 80K feet
in an altitude chamber to insure the power supplies didn't arc over...the most common
type of fault. One unique aspect of those jammers was the complete lack of
identifying markings

Another Weasel-related project I worked on was a recorder/playback system. We
placed a video recorder in the cockpit of the F-105G Weasels that recorded all the
data (freq, waveforms, etc) that the onboard RWR equipment 'saw'.
Back at base the recordings were played back and used both for intelligence
briefings and crew training.

A couple of engineers that worked that project 'spun off' and started a company
called Antekna. They called me up and offered me a job and I signed on as
employee #17. We buildt EW simulators that were used to test RWR equipment
as well as train EW operators. We installed several large, multi-emitter simulators
at USAF, USN, Canadian Navy and other allied bases.

I became quite familiar with the sounds and signatures of Fan Song radars as
well as myriad other 'hostile' systems. Latter on I went to work for a company that
was in the Commint business...3-letter agency type work. Now THAT was a whole
new experience!!

Paul

[ilellis]

Hi Paul,

Interesting work you describe and I believe I recognize some of it. When I was stationed at George AFB I was assigned to the 37th CRS as a PMEL tech (Precision Measurement Equipment Lab). Our job was fixin the test benches that the individual shops used to fix the "black boxes" taken off the birds (weapons shop, ECM shop, avionics shop, you get the idea). In those days we were the component level guys that took it down to the smallest part of everything and believe me I worked on everything, including the huge "cans" that covered the weapons radar on the nose end of the Phantom to test all the internal ECM equipment, amazing stuff. I came into the USAF with plenty of experience from prior civilain work and eventually got stuck fixin the worst of the worst including most of the ECM gear (was hard for them to get experienced techs in those days) and basically I got a whole lot more experience working with that bunch before moving on but I love every memory of working there. Very rewarding!

BTW, my dad did Vietnam, did radio communications work and was stationed for the better part in Cam Ran Bay.

ILEllis

[Michal - A2A]

I'm reading Viper Pilot: A Memoirs of Air Combat by Dan Hampton, he was a part of Wild Weasels and flown F-16s. It's an awesome book, very well written. I highly recommend it.

[MTFDarkEagle]

I'm reading Viper Pilot: A Memoirs of Air Combat by Dan Hampton, he was a part of Wild Weasels and flown F-16s. It's an awesome book, very well written. I highly recommend it.

That one's next, right after I finish Warthog by W. Smallwood

[Sundowner]

I saw a lot of F-4's going in and out of Tan Son Nhut and DaNang during my two
deployments there in '66 & '67 but most of the Weasel flights originated elsewhere.

That would be Korat RTAFB, and F-100Fs at that, until July 11th 1966, when the F-105 Wild Weasel II took over.

For books on the subject, Ed Rasimus (thank you Dudley for that contact) recommended Tony Thornborough’s book: "Iron Hand:'s Smashing the Enemy's Air Defenses". Folks at Amazon.com strapped a copy to a sea turtle and I'm expecting it somewhere in the next century... seriously, it's two weeks already, I'm accustomed to 3-day delivery from across "The Pond".