By COL. JOHN C. MEYER, Deputy Commander. 4703rd Defense WIng. USAF

Most people think of fighter tactics as a vast, complicated, difficult field in which clever and tricky rules of thumb carry a gifted few to glory. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The first rule in fighter tactics is “keep ‘em simple.” Even these simple rules must be flexible, however, to meet the rapid changes in the battle situation. But the rule is “simple changes of simple fundamentals.” These fundamentals are the heart and guts of the fighter ace and the fighter unit of which he is a part.

There are only three. We call them “The Triple-A Threat” or “The One-Two-Three” of air fighting. They are: 1. Air Discipline. 2. Aerial Gunnery. 3. Aggressiveness.

Air Discipline is just a combination of all the principles of military flying which make it possible for a pilot to play as a member of the Air Force team. Air Discipline is a measure of all his pilot abilities—technique and judgment in all kinds of weather, in formation flying, cruise control and the many other matters which are the everyday lessons of future aces now in Air Training Command.

This Air Discipline is just another name for teamwork, and it’s the team that wins. It’s the line and the blocking back that make the touch down hero. The line and blocking back of air fighting are rolled up into one name—wingman. The team of element leader and wingman is the heart of the successful air unit, and the cardinal sin is for them to break up. Jim Jabara very nearly had the tag “posthumous” before his title of jet ace when, on one occasion, his wingman lost him in an air battle over MiG Alley.
Aerial gunnery is self-explanatory. It’s obvious that when the aggressive team succeeds in getting into position for the kill, the pilot must hit the target. Good training in high-speed camera gunnery with immediate film assessment is the key to training for this fundamental requirement of an air fighter.

Aggressiveness, of course, is the will to fight. A successful fighter pilot must want the job. If you don’t have a fighting heart, the air fight is not for you.

Only the simple, the fundamental, the thoroughly practiced and the completely disciplined reactions will work smoothly in the hot breath of battle.

Combat flight consists of two “elements.’ Numbers (I) and (2) make up one element numbers (3) and (4) the other. This is fingertip formation. Flight turn is diagramed in center above. Combat flights fly much farther apart allowing more room for maneuvers. Echelon formation (right) is used just prior to peel-off for landing. Plane on for right first breaks away to his right. Others follow of regular intervals, placing the entire flight in “trail.”

It is easy to compare air combat tactics to brilliant plays in a football game. Fans credit the winning coach with genius and the victorious quarterback with astute field generalship. But the same plays, executed by the losers, appear ridiculous.

Simply, good tactics are really good fundamentals. In football they are blocking, tackling, aggressiveness and teamwork. A fighting heart wins the games. The battles and the fancy plays are merely refinements.

The fighter plane is first of all an offensive weapon, and all tactics must be based upon aggressive thinking and action.

While the concept of fighter aviation at the highest levels is defensive—defense of the target (city, factory, transportation system, etc.), defense of the area (battlefield area) or defense of the bomber—the use of his aircraft, from the pilot’s point of view, is offensive. “Attack, attack, attack,” must be his watchword. He must press the attack to successful conclusion once committed, chase the enemy in the sky, over his home airdrome, into his pilot’s hut, shoot the pilot’s information file from his hands, kill his crew chief and burn his brand-new aircraft with the just-painted name of his girl, on the side. For, while the destruction of the enemy fighter pilot in the air is winning the battle, destruction of his aggressive will to fight by constant pressure is the attainment of air superiority and the winning of the decisive phase of the war.

It was an axiom in Korea that “courage is the full exploitation of skill.” The tide of an air battle has often been changed by the sudden, aggressive tactics which confuse the enemy.

Audacity is a refinement of aggressiveness—especially when applied to seemingly overwhelming odds. The audacious use of fundamental principles is the key to the success of the F-86 in Korea against an enemy who holds all the trump cards of superiority in altitude, numbers and intelligence of our movements (due to our operation within his radar range).

I recall an outstanding example of this principle in World War II when two American pilots attacked a formation of 25 Me-109s. In this case our pilots attained complete surprise and destroyed two 109s on the first bounce. The two attacking 25 was such sheer audacity that, in the conviction that they must be outnumbered, the enemy formation broke for the deck and Tail-End Charlie bailed out in panic, bringing the total American claims to three and a formation of 25 enemy aircraft never reached our bombers.

Air Discipline cannot be overemphasized. When we talk of aggressiveness we do not mean that every pilot should personally become a lone wolf and go off on the prowl seeking glory. The chances of survival are slim for such a performer. Teamwork and close coordination are essential and it is no easy task to instill this in the mind of a fighter pilot who flies alone and must think for himself, using his personal initiative many times.

There has been a great deal of discussion in both World War II and in the Korean war regarding the tactics of fighter escort. The bomber pilot generally feels he is getting the best protection from the fighters he can see in close escort.

If we apply one of the simple principles of air warfare (aggressiveness again), it becomes clear that this is not so. The speed of fighter aircraft is such that they can approach from any direction and attack the bombers before the close escort fighters can take action. The only hope the bomber has is for friendly fighters to engage the enemy before he begins the attack.

To be able to do this, the friendly fighters must know from where the enemy is coming. Under normal conditions, the friendly fighters cannot know from where the enemy is coming when he is in the middle of enemy territory. His only solution (and the bomber pilot’s only solution) is for the fighter to apply the principle of aggressiveness and range far afield, seeking the enemy where ever he may be, and attain air superiority.

Until other means are developed, this is the only means of bomber protection. In other words, the bomber force determines the field of aerial battle and the fighter force must be in the same piece of sky, but for it to remain in “close escort” gives the initiative to the enemy and leads to failure of the escort’s objective.

In Korea, I used to like to refer to the pilots in my group as “Old Pros,” and we had them. Glenn T. Eagleston, for instance, as deputy commander for the first P-51 group in Europe and an ace credited with 23 Germans, again applied the principles of air fighting to his command of the famous 334th Fighter Squadron of the 4th Fighter Group in Korea, and again distinguished himself as a brilliant tactical commander.

Then, Jim Jabara was not new to the game, having already won the title of ace in World War II. Don Nance, commander of the 335th Fighter Squadron was a veteran of the North African and Middle East campaigns. There were also many other battle-scarred veterans to make the 4th Group the most experienced group of air fighters in the world.

That application of the Three-A’s does not necessarily need combat experience is shown by the fact that Bruce Hinton, whose valuable service in training during World War II prevented him from having the opportunity to prove himself until Korea, showed all of us the way to do it when he destroyed the first MIG. His skill, aggressiveness and artful leadership of the 336th Fighter Squadron clearly established him as one of the outstanding combat leaders of all time.

Jim Jabara may not have been the best fighter pilot in the 4th Group, but he was certainly one of the best. He maintained a high level of air discipline and was one of the better gunmen. These factors alone would have made him a high scorer. But what made him the first jet ace was that he wanted to shoot down MIGs more than anyone else. Jim was a Triple-A Threat air fighter who spelled AGGRESSIVENESS in capital letters.