Customer Reviews

MiG Killers: A Chronology of U.S. Air Victories in Vietnam 1965-1973

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One of the first things to catch your eye is the hardbound front cover of an F-4E Phantom in its famous shark's mouth livery. The next thing is the menacing title. Once inside its covers you will find a touching dedication to the author's father who I would bet has his own fantastic story I hope Mr. McCarthy Jr. gets around to telling.

The book starts out with some lessons on Air Combat Maneuvering and training along with some technical information on missiles used during this span of time and some nice maps to give the reader the "Big Picture" as to where all the action was taking place. There is a short primer on Air Combat Credits.


The book is written in chorological order as the title implies starting in 1965 and moving through 1973 in a trim and clean fashion. Now here is the real gem. The author supplies you with a photograph of the aircraft whenever he can. A few of the pictures are of the aircraft prior to scrapping or as it currently looks in a museum.

Each page has a small block with the date, aircraft tail or BuNo along with its assigned ship or airfield and the name of the pilot and RIO when applicable and a narrative of the event. Most pictures are black and white but more than a few are in color. The quality is very high and the layout is easy to read and easy to refer to when doing research.

I found this book a great piece of work for model builders and history buffs alike. I recommend it to all with an interest in Vietnam era aviation and at right below $30.00; I think it is a bargain as a research tool.

Military aviation expert and U.S. Air Force veteran Donald J. McCarthy has deftly written the first book to list all 202 MiG kills of the Vietnam War in chronological order. This roster includes MiGs downed by either U.S. Air Force or U.S. Navy combat aircraft. Informed and informative, this Vietnam military air combat history is replete with a profusion of both black-and-white as well as full color aircraft photography. Each aircraft citation includes serial number, tial code, perational unit, crew member names, call sign, and specific weaponry and tactics used for every MigK made from April 1965 though January 1973. A superbly documented military aviation history, "MiG Killers" is a seminal and very highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library reference collections and reading lists.

The Vietnam air war witnessed slightly over 200 VPAF MiG fighters downed by their U.S. opponents. Donald McCarthy presents a text-and-photos guide to those aerial victories in this 2009 release from Specialty Press. MIG KILLERS is basically an updated and expanded version of McCarthy's earlier USAF F-4 AND F-105 MIG KILLERS OF THE VIETNAM WAR volume put out in 2004 by Schiffer Publishing.

After discussing Vietnam air combat, armament and the - still frustrating - issue of air combat credits, McCarthy presents a year-by-year log of the kills scored by USAF, USN or USMC pilots/crews. Appendices include sections on VPAF MiGs, a comprehensive kill listing and glossary.

Since McCarthy is covering 202 kills in 120-odd pages, each kill typically includes a fairly short narrative and one photograph of the aircraft involved. If you're interested in lots of 'yank-and-bank' action, you'll need to check out the Elward/Davies Osprey books, the F-8 books done by Peter Mersky and Paul Gillcrist or my MIG KILLERS OF YANKEE STATION book.

In any case, MIG KILLERS is a visual delight with shots of almost 170 A-1s, A-4s, B-52s, F-4s, F-8s, F-100s and F-105s credited with MiG kills. Of the 220+ photographs, about 1/3 are color, the rest b&w. Likewise, about 3/4 of the pix show the aircraft around the time of its kill; the rest show the a/c in other units, at the boneyard or on display at a museum. There are several shots of MiG-killing pilots or aircrew as well.

Vietnam air war buffs should enjoy this colorful, informative and easy-on-the-pocketbook guide to the kills scored over North Vietnam from 1965 to 1973. Recommended.



****
NB. McCarthy is unsure of the identification of several MiG-killer a/c. The BuNos and a/c numbers given in my book were obtained from the USN crews who downed the MiGs. The definitive source for post-WW II U.S. air combats is Frank Olynyk's UNITED STATES CREDITS FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF ENEMY AIRCRAFT IN AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT POST WORLD WAR 2.

One correction. The "Clay Johnson" mentioned on page 25 was actually Clay Jansson. If it hadn't been for that erstwhile shutterbug, who died some years ago, we wouldn't have nearly as many great images of early- and mid-war USN MiG killers as we do. Thanks, Clay!

This book is a must for any aviation historian. Having photos of each of these history making aircraft, is outstanding. The text is well done and does credit to the subjects.

We don't think of the Vietnam war as having much air to air combat. In fact there were officially 202 MiG kills in ait to air combat during the war.

In this book each of these kills is described. It shows 169 photographs of the 174 aircraft that are credited with these kills. In addition the first twenty or so pages of the book describe various aspects of the engagements including a description of the aircraft involved, the weapons used (missiles and guns), some general information on jet combat tactics.

Some of the details he brings out are quite surprising. For instance the Sparrow missile had about a 10% kill ratio. In movies when you fire a missile the enemy plane goes down. Instead 612 missiles were fired, knocking down 56 enemy. 404 of the 612 didn't function properly, and 152 missed - that's twice as many misses as kills even when the missile functioned. The Sidewinder did a little better, 81 kills out of 454 fired. The 20 mm Vulcan cannon accounted for 31 kills. And another surprising point, two MiGs were shot down by the tail guns on B-52's.

All in all, a fascinating and informative book that I highly recommend.

I've spent a few hours with my nose in this book so far, and offer these impressions...

MiG Killers looks and feels like a quality book, well printed on fairly heavy glossy paper. The photos are plentiful, well rendered, and obvious thought went into their selection. Many are from the Vietnam years, and others are more contemporary, but still enjoyable.

The book provides a welcome mix of factual data, narratives on individual kills, and broader narrative on the air war, air combat maneuvering and other contextual subjects.

The writing is authoritative, giving the reader an appreciation for the author's extensive research. Some of the narrative writing is a bit cumbersome, and there are sporadic typographical errors. Few readers will likely notice, and fewer still are likely to enjoy the book less for the errors. I only remark on it because it's a shame that a quality volume is marred by simple editing oversights.

In spite of its minor flaws, I highly recommend this book for historians or aficionados of the Vietnam conflict or jet warfare.

While this is a very good book relative to all the MiG killers during the Vietnam war I wish some of the planes pictured would have been shot while the aircraft were in combat and not later during the airplanes subsequent use. I did enjoy reading this book. Will have to do some research with the title..
MiGs over North Vietnam..should prove interesting.

Great book and well worth having if you're a fan of the great warbird, the F-4 Phantom II.

Book arrived within a few days and was in the condition that it was described or better, very happy with there service.

The book seems to be a good one however little confusion was found when comparing the claims of air-to-air kills with recent studies publicized by others. What I like about this book is a handfull of differenet account that came alive and were towed into daylight from distant history dark corners. I like that the book dares to point out all of uncertain cases of shoot downs while we all know the Vietman War was so much political issue, the rules of engagement etc interference of Chinese Air Force, seldom and little influential however existing. Plenty of interesting photos, some of them I had never seen before, extremely brief accounts, written correct way when space's so limited, of the air action treats those examples which seem to be not outstanding in terms of standard or common sense consideration of dog-fight participants, still very interesting despite the fact that each of the air clashes could be accounted and described on dozens of pages otherwise. What was fine I found the sequence of kills accounts not split USAF / USN standard but the victories described by year that it took place. This way I received more clear picture of overal awarness what intensity and cycle of boom and bust in air action fluctuated duriong different phrases of this extremely wrong way managed war. Nice photos again. In my summary, the book is unaccomplished due to limited space which I do not understand as I could have paid more to get more knowledge in the subject with this a bit unique approach to air-to-air fighting there over SEA.
The book worth it's price.