The Revolt of the Majors

[Procopius]

Many of you have, I am sure, read Marshall L Michel's excellent book CLASHES, about air-to-air fighting in the Vietnam War. Here is his graduate thesis, "The Revolt of the Majors", about the USAF before, during, and immediately after the Vietnam war: https://etd.auburn.edu/bitstream/handle/10415/595/MICHEL_III_55.pdf

I've found it very interesting, and I hope you do too.

[Alan P]

Still reading it, but the first chapter and summary make interesting reading. Particularly interesting is the reception the F-15 earned during its development and early service: too expensive, unnecessarily high tech, prone to niggling problems and unsuitable for service in the current fiscal environment.

Plus ça change, etc etc!

[Procopius]

Still reading it, but the first chapter and summary make interesting reading. Particularly interesting is the reception the F-15 earned during its development and early service: too expensive, unnecessarily high tech, prone to niggling problems and unsuitable for service in the current fiscal environment.

Plus ça change, etc etc!

Oh, it only gets better. It's four in the morning here and I've stayed up all night to read it. I particularly love this brutal summation of John Boyd: "Boyd had flown a few missions as an F-86 pilot in the Korean War and had been the head of the Fighter Weapons School Academic Section at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, where he acquired a reputation as a relentless self-aggrandizer and a great fighter pilot 'from nose to chin.'"

[Alan P]

Oh, it only gets better. It's four in the morning here and I've stayed up all night to read it. I particularly love this brutal summation of John Boyd: "Boyd had flown a few missions as an F-86 pilot in the Korean War and had been the head of the Fighter Weapons School Academic Section at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, where he acquired a reputation as a relentless self-aggrandizer and a great fighter pilot 'from nose to chin.'"

Sounds like the Air Force equivalent of Col David Hackworth. Just read a brutal treatment of his "methodology" in the endnotes of "Black Hawk Down".

I'm still reading...!

[gingerbob]

I particularly love this brutal summation of John Boyd: "Boyd had flown a few missions as an F-86 pilot in the Korean War and had been the head of the Fighter Weapons School Academic Section at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, where he acquired a reputation as a relentless self-aggrandizer and a great fighter pilot 'from nose to chin.'"

Not to support or condemn Boyd, but that remark also shows a predictable reaction from other "great fighter pilots".

"How many combat missions did you fly?"

It is easier to be dismissive than to try to understand what someone's got to teach you. Especially if they don't have the best people-skills to begin with.

bob

[Procopius]

Not to support or condemn Boyd, but that remark also shows a predictable reaction from other "great fighter pilots".

"How many combat missions did you fly?"

It is easier to be dismissive than to try to understand what someone's got to teach you. Especially if they don't have the best people-skills to begin with.

Oh, Michel also extensively examines Boyd's contentions and philosophy, which can't really bear the scrutiny.

[Cookenbacher]

It's an excellent read, especially considering that it's a PhD dissertation rather than a published work (I'm only on pg 130) - thanks for pointing it out PC!

I think that Michel gives Boyd a pretty fair reading. Boyd's philosophy of higher numbers of simpler fighter jets is plenty sound - it's what the Soviets did after all. My main problem with this is that it wouldn't have been any cheaper overall, just cheaper per unit. It would have required a much larger fighter force and all the training and logistics that entails, and it would have meant implementing a system that would have intentionally allowed higher combat loss rates for USAF pilots.

One of the most telling incidents recounted in the paper is of Boyd's presentation to the Top Gun instructors:

Boyd...insisted it was impossible for an F-4 to win a dogfight with the highly maneuverable MiG-17. The Top Gun instructors disagreed (at least two had shot down MiG-17s in dogfights), but Boyd was adamant in saying it was impossible.

[Alan P]

Cookie your quote could have been that famous scene from Top Gun. Art imitating life again....

As far as combat goes, there is no substitute for experience. Bright people can derive useful theories from little experience, but will not gain respect unless those theories can be proven in actual real-life experience. The difference with people like Boyd and Hackworth is that their conclusions have not been proven by actual experience (of others, naturally) so they have to resort to embellishment, distortion and sometimes plain untruth in order to maintain their foothold with sympathetic but questionably motivated press outlets.

Edited August 18, 2015 by Brokenedge

[-Neu-]

Not to support or condemn Boyd, but that remark also shows a predictable reaction from other "great fighter pilots".

"How many combat missions did you fly?"

It is easier to be dismissive than to try to understand what someone's got to teach you. Especially if they don't have the best people-skills to begin with.

bob

Michel's effort was really to correct the record when it came to Boyd's influence on air force doctrinal development. Many of the people who laud his contribution do it in order to further their own institutional preferences, like that of Sprey and Stevenson. They have significantly overstated his role, though I haven't read the (relatively) new book by Robert Coram, though he too seems to be overly laudatory, claiming that Boyd changed the air force. Certainly the OODA loop was an important innovation, as was EM, but I don't know if it was as great as people believed.

If I could recommend one more book, I'd really urge you guys to read Creech Blue, by LCol James Slife. Lt. Gen. Wilbur Creech was the commander of TacAir from 1978 to 1984, and pushed hard for the creation of a multirole airforce that that would technically outfight their opponents. Stuff like the Block 40 F-16 (with Lantirn), JSTARS, the F-117 program (at least its conceptual employment), and the mid-altitude air superiority strategy. ITs really a fascinating insight that fits in well with Michel's work. 100+ pages, though a very easy read: you could do it in two hours.

http://aupress.maxwell.af.mil/books/Creech/Creech.pdf

[Cookenbacher]

I didn't mean to be piling on Boyd with the quote above - it merely shows his 'tunnel vision' when it comes to his beliefs, which I don't think is the worst thing in this case. Driven people are needed to keep the procurement process in check and I think he provides a service. I believe that the best example of what Boyd was after would be the F-8, and you can't really blame him after its performance compared to the F-4 in Rolling Thunder. I think that is where he's coming from. Michel points out that this was largely due to pilot training and does a good job of backing that up with evidence.

[Latinbear]

This is undoubtedly a slight aside but sitting on my bookshelf and as yet unread is Robert Coram's biography of John Boyd "arguably the greatest fighter pilot in American history"........"Boyd was relentless, Brilliant, stubborn and virtually always right".

The above quotes come from the rubric on the back of the book.

When I get round to reading the book it will make for much more interesting reading in the light of the above comments.

[XV107]

David R Mets (retired USAF AC-130 and KC-135 driver and faculty at the Air War College amongst other things) reviewed Coram and Grant T Hammond's books on Boyd in 2004. If the Air and Space Power Journal website is behaving itself (which it has a habit of not doing), you can read the review essay at:

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj04/fal04/mets.html

If you have Coram and/or Grant Hammond's book, probably best to read it/them before clicking on the above and then see if you agree.