Share Facebook

Twitter

Stumbleupon

LinkedIn

Pinterest

Here is why The A-10 Is not A Real Tank Killer, Its forgotten F-111 AARDVARK. If I asked you to name the greatest tank killer of the Gulf War, you’d probably guess the A-10, and you’d be wrong.

No, the largest number of armored vehicle kills in that conflict belongs to the much-maligned F-111. The plane the Navy didn’t want and the Air Force didn’t even bother to give an official nickname to until they retired it.

Initial combat tests in Vietnam in 1968 resulted in the loss of three (out of six) aircraft due to a fault in the horizontal stabilizer. Not a very auspicious start to an already troubled aircraft.

The F-111 returned to Vietnam in 1972 and was highly successful, with only six combat losses for 4,000 sorties flown. It had two big things going for it. It carried enough gas to not need tanker support and it didn’t need standoff ECM (Electronic Countermeasure) support.

Legend has it the Vietnamese called it “whispering death”. I tend to take these stories with a large grain of salt. I’d guess it was something more like “F*ck you Yankees! Stop bombing us!”

The F-111’s crowning moment was Desert Storm. Sixty-six F models plus eighteen E models were deployed for the conflict. Most of them were based at Incirlik Turkey. At least some of the EF-111s were based at Taif in Saudi Arabia.