Talk:Operation Iron Hand

Mission or Operation?

Most sources I've seen indicate that Iron Hand was more of a mission type than a specific operation. Intothatdarkness (talk) 15:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

The Air Force also flew Iron Hand missions using the F-100F, F-105F, and F-4 Wild Weasels. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.150.146.16 (talk) 23:56, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

For future reference this is correct, Iron Hand was a mission type like Wild Weasel according to every Vietnam-era document I've ever encountered. Rsemmes92 (talk) 20:17, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Issues.

This article has issues. It is too Navy-centric, it didn't even provide links to the AGM-45 and AGM-78 pages (until I added them), it doesn't mention cluster bombs and the team-tactics used by the SEAD aircraft. As the guy above mentions, "Operation Iron Hand" was the development of the aircraft, weapons and tactics. Individual "Iron Hand" missions accompanied strike packages; this title makes it sound like it was some mass-offensive against SAM sites. I wouldn't swear on it, but I believe "Iron Hand" covered the radar-directed AAA emplacements as well as Fan Song SAM radars. Also, depending on the particular point of the war, SAM's came in second to AAA in terms of US aircraft downed, so I question the statement at the end. It also might be nice if it mentioned somewhere that this type of mission is what is known as a "SEAD", or suppresion-of-enemy-air-defenses mission and linked to the page on that topic. Maybe I should do that real quick..45Colt 22:42, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

A-3 Skywarrior

The A-3 could jam enemy radar and communications (EKA-3B), but was not capable of launching Shrike ARM weapons. It would have been a sitting duck for SAMs in that role as it was not fast or agile. It was used offensively in limited capacity in the early years of the conflict in dropping iron bombs and maritime mines, which ended in 1967. 2600:8802:B00:712:E835:9F2B:4B5E:7D2B (talk) 23:41, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I was about to bring that up. My dad was an EWO on an EB-66 which was a USAF development of the A-3. The two planes had similar mission sets. The main differnce was the Navy A-3s would double as tankers. Spmaiorca (talk) 14:39, 12 July 2026 (UTC)