First successful use of air to air missile in the history of air combat.
It was era of 1958. The communist People’s Republic of China was preparing to invade the U.S.-backed Republic of China, a.k.a. Taiwan.
In the course of related operations, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force received the order to establish air superiority over several islands close to mainland China still held by Taiwan’s Nationalists, specifically Quemoy and Matsu.
When the People’s Liberation Army began shelling Quemoy and Matsu, in August 1958, the United States helped re-equip several squadrons of the Republic of China Air Force with North American F-86F Saber fighter jets.
When the PLAAF took the skies, the Nationalist scrambled their own interceptors. Fierce clashes resulted.
Although outnumbered, the Taiwanese pilots achieved a positive kill-to-loss ratio. However, they found no solution for reaching the PLAAF’s MiG-15s when these operated at their maximum ceiling, several thousand feet higher than that of the Sabers.
Correspondingly, the Pentagon decided to equip some of the ROCAF’s F-86 with its then brand-new and still super-secret weapon, the infrared-homing air to air missile with the designation AIM-9B Sidewinder.
The Americans took 40 Sidewinders and 40 launching rails directly from U.S. Marine Corps stocks and sent them – together with a party of five experienced technicians from Marine Fighter Squadron 323 – to Hsinchu air base in Taiwan.
Once there, the VMF-323 team jury-rigged 20 Taiwanese Sabers with the launch rails they brought with them. While an improvisation in every sense of that word, this installation worked — and at least four of Sidewinder-armed Taiwanese Sabers soon saw combat.
On Sept. 24, 1958, 48 of the ROCAF’s F-86Fs clashed with up to 126 MiG-15s and MiG-17s over Shantou. Deploying their Sidewinders from – for those times – the very long range of 3,000 yards and from positions well below the MiGs, the Taiwanese achieved major surprise. They claimed a total of nine confirmed and two probable kills for no loss of their own, six of these by Sidewinders.
#Gm
Source of data-#Nashionalist
It was era of 1958. The communist People’s Republic of China was preparing to invade the U.S.-backed Republic of China, a.k.a. Taiwan.
In the course of related operations, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force received the order to establish air superiority over several islands close to mainland China still held by Taiwan’s Nationalists, specifically Quemoy and Matsu.
When the People’s Liberation Army began shelling Quemoy and Matsu, in August 1958, the United States helped re-equip several squadrons of the Republic of China Air Force with North American F-86F Saber fighter jets.
When the PLAAF took the skies, the Nationalist scrambled their own interceptors. Fierce clashes resulted.
Although outnumbered, the Taiwanese pilots achieved a positive kill-to-loss ratio. However, they found no solution for reaching the PLAAF’s MiG-15s when these operated at their maximum ceiling, several thousand feet higher than that of the Sabers.
Correspondingly, the Pentagon decided to equip some of the ROCAF’s F-86 with its then brand-new and still super-secret weapon, the infrared-homing air to air missile with the designation AIM-9B Sidewinder.
The Americans took 40 Sidewinders and 40 launching rails directly from U.S. Marine Corps stocks and sent them – together with a party of five experienced technicians from Marine Fighter Squadron 323 – to Hsinchu air base in Taiwan.
Once there, the VMF-323 team jury-rigged 20 Taiwanese Sabers with the launch rails they brought with them. While an improvisation in every sense of that word, this installation worked — and at least four of Sidewinder-armed Taiwanese Sabers soon saw combat.
On Sept. 24, 1958, 48 of the ROCAF’s F-86Fs clashed with up to 126 MiG-15s and MiG-17s over Shantou. Deploying their Sidewinders from – for those times – the very long range of 3,000 yards and from positions well below the MiGs, the Taiwanese achieved major surprise. They claimed a total of nine confirmed and two probable kills for no loss of their own, six of these by Sidewinders.
#Gm
Source of data-#Nashionalist
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