Hi all, need some info, Im starting to build a collection of Vietnam war birds so far I have a skyraider,thundercheif 105D, & a7D corsair.Now can anyone tell me did the F4G serve in vietnam I believe it was a wild weasel bird which is what I want.thanks for any help. also does anyone make that kit preferably in 1/48 the old eyes aint so good.

Hi John,

Hasegawa make the F-4G in 1:48

I dont believe it served in Vietnam - Wild Weasel duties were taken up by the F-105G Thunderchief. Perhaps someone else can give you a definitive answer.

Lee

Hey John, not sure if you have these also, the A-6, F-100 Super Sabre, A-4 RF-101 Voodoo just to name a few. Here is a little bit of F-4G’s used in Vietnam. Though I’m no expert I am a huge Phantom Phan

In 1963 twelve F-4Bs were pulled from the McDonnel assembly line for the addition of special equipment. They were to test the new AN/ASW-21 air to ground data link. These twelve aircraft were redesignated F-4Gs. The new data link system and approach power compensator were the only changes to an otherwise standard F-4B airframe.

When the Navy brought them to Vietnam, the F-4Gs were assigned to VF-213 “Black Lions”, flying their first mission from the deck of the USS Kitty Hawk in Dec. of 65.

In 66 the Navy took the 12 G’s and tested them for the new tactical camouflage paint. There were others types of aircraft tested including the A-1 and A-6 (my favorite). Anyhow the Navy decided against as the camouflage paint did not hid the aircraft very well and found it a pain when attempting to move the aircraft around he deck during the dark nights. So the navy went back to the standard color of 36440 gull gray upper and gloss white under. When the G’s returned to the states they were converted back to F-4B’s and the G’ designation was dropped, but was used again during the new production of the Phantom II.

As for a great kit, yeah I to agree with Lee.

Joe

According to my Squadron Signal "F-4 Phantom II in Action"

The Wild Weasel F-4Gs are based on F-4E airframes. The F-4B based machines were a short lived experiment, and were not Wild Weasel machines.

"The first F-4G Wild Weasel was delivered to the 35th Tactical Fighter Training Wing at George AFB, Calif. on 28th April 1978."

Prior to that the USAF was using F-105 Thunderchiefs, which were out of production and therefore couldn't be replaced when lost. This prompted them to install some of the Wild Weasel package into F-4C airframes, which were used in Vietnam, notably during Linebacker II. It was after this that they looked at modifying the F-4E

I believe Two-Bobs do a decal sheet for the F-4C ones, its titled "first of the weasels" or similar.

good luck - make sure you post any builds.

Cheers
Wiz

PS: I have the 1/72 Hasegawa in my stash, cockpit started. Its going to be a Euro 1 bird from 480TFS in Germany.

Yes…true, Wizard is right, they are F-4G’s USAF Phantoms, my fault not pointing out that I was talking about the Navy’s F-4G’s, and my post was to an insight of some of the first ones used in Vietnam. Good looking out

Joe

Many thanks for the info guys,excuse my confusion,I figure the Hasegawa F4G is not a Nam bird ,which mark should I get to represent a Phantom in triple camo scheme serving in vietnam?.Joe Ive been looking for a Hun for a while now I like that plane I may have to try Hong Kong for that one the kits getting hard to find, re the pictures I aint going their Im not that good :-) thanks for your help guys.

Hi John,
You maybe able to get a 1/48 Monogram Hun off E/Bay. I bought mine off there just before Xmas.
I don't know how many different camo scheme versions they produced, as mine is supplied with either a Danish or French version.
So far I haven't found any A.M decal sheets for any Nam Huns.
Andy

Thanks for that Andy I will give Ebay a try Ive tried all the usual suspects but I havent found one yet. cheers

John,

For Vietnam F-4's you need to look at -

Navy - F-4B, F-4J
Air Force - F-4C/D and F-4E (early)

Hasegawa do them in 1:48

And Tamiya do them in 1:32 - My F-4C/D should be here this week

For the F-104G wild weasel, Monogram/Revell do one in 1:48 and Trumpeter do a HUGE 1:32 one.

Lee

Thanks for that Lee the fogs cleared.

Italeri also makes a F-4E in 1/48. I am building it right now for the Vietnam campaign.
It is a decent kit, but if I could reverse my decision I would spend the extra money and get a Hasegawa instead.

Thanks for that Jesper, i just ordered my hasegawa A7D so I will have to wait till next month for the F4.

Hi gents,
You can use the slatted E-model in Viet Nam. We had a batch ( maybe 8-12) up at Udorn RTAFB in late '72- thru early '73. They modded some birds and used them during LInebacker II and later. A real test of the concept. I believe they wore Nellis FWS markings - WA tail code. Don't have the serials, either. They finally got around to retrofitting the slat mods in Europe in '74 down at Ramstein AB, FRG. We Bitburgers were done by mid '75, as I recall. And once you checked out in the slat bird, you couldn't fly a "hard wing" as we called the original configuration. I liked the hard wing bird; better acceleration, didn't run out of steam as fast.
A bunch of those original Wild Weasel G models were old Bitburg E models. One of the first was our old Bicentennial jet, with the RWB tail.
Just my 2 cents worth.

Hi John,

I haven't read all the posts, but IIRC, USAF did start using F-4s as Weasels in 'Nam. They were -Cs and -Ds with extra goodies. IIRC, only a handful were in service during Linebacker I & II, but they were taking more and more of the Hanoi area missions.

Bull's eye! We had F-4C Weasels flying out of Korat for Linebacker II. They were marked as Kadena birds of the 67 TFS. IIRC they did the night Wild Weasel missions(?), the Thud Weasels flew days. My squadron, the 34th TFS, flew both day & night as "Killers" in these Hunter-Killer missions. We were the "JJ" tails, but the old 469th birds were still on station, with their "JV" codes. We flew both, since some of us "Rams" started out in the "Bulls". And they also brought in some Thud Weasels from George AFB, 561st TFS. I don't recall those tail codes, but they all had the yellow squadron patch.
I don't think we ever had D model weasels, but I'm no expert on that subject. It could have been a test case, but they didn't fly combat sorties. The C weasels had a few extra little antennas, but nothing externally obvious like the mods done to the Thud Weasel and its ALQ-105 pods or the massive mods to the the E to G model F-4s.
We flyers of the Killer missions considered the Thuds the "real" weasels. We had an unofficial patch for these missions with the motto "You gotta be sh---ing me!" You had to be a little daft to intentionally put yourself between the surface to air missle batteries and the mission aircraft.
Hope y'all enjoy this little tidbit.

Thanks Obiwan,nothing better than from the horses mouth.