The Black Ponies
By Lieutenant Commander Daniel B. Sheehan, U. S. Navy (Retired)
From The U. S. Naval Institutes' "Proceedings" Magazine April 1988
In retrospect, March 1969 was a strange time to have a newly commissioned
Navy OV-10 Bronco squadron in South Vietnam. Increasing public pressure to
end he war resulted from and in turn spurred massive bombing campaigns in
and around Vietnam. While Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the North
Vietnamese envoy argued over the shape and size of the peace conference
negotiators' table, Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark marched a little too
enthusiastically to their own drummers, and increasingly frustrated U. S. military
forces continued to take casualties under an increasingly obvious no-win policy.
But these thoughts were not foremost in my mind when the stretch DC-8 carrying
the Light Attack Squadron Four (VAL-4) arrived in Saigon. I was a first-tour naval
aviator and a plankowner in the only Navy squadron flying OV-10As the Black
Ponies. VAL-4 was the only Navy OV-10 squadron and, as far as I know, the only
squadron in Vietnam to use the Bronco in an attack role. Our mission was
important: to provide close air support for U. S. and South Vietnamese forces in
IV corps and the southern half of III Corps. Once in-country, we were eager to
show what we could do and anxious to measure the impact of our presence upon
the heretofore stalled war. In short, we were naοve. I certainly was, at least.
As we debarked from our aircraft, we sprouted weapons. Personal pistols
appeared from carry-on luggage and Thompson submachine guns emerged from
a cruise box with a red cross prominently stenciled on the lid. The unarmed
short-timers who casually witnessed this metamorphosis laughed at us. This was
lesson number one, in a year full of lessons.
According to the rumor mill, the commanding officer (CO) of VAL-4 had
requested naval flight officers (NFOs) to fill the OV-10s' back seats. All weapon
selection and firing were done by the front-seat pilot, and not all flight controls
and instruments were duplicated in the rear seat. For example, the back seat had
stick and rudder pedals, but no trim controls. The back-seater could lower the
landing gear, but raise them; and he could shut down an engine and feather the
prop, but not restart the engine. He could not jettison ordnance or eject the front-
seat pilot. The back-seaters primary duties were flight communications and
navigation. Occasionally, in routine situations, he took the stick for a few minutes
to give the pilot some rest.
Unable or unwilling to assign NFOs, the Navy Bureau of Personnel (BuPers)
solicited volunteers from my class of student pilots finishing the advanced multi-
engine prop training pipeline. Twelve of us volunteered, but were not told until
much later that the squadron considered us back-seaters only. This judgment
greatly affected our pre-Vietnam training.
Combined with the twin tasks of forming a new squadron and preparing to move
to permanent bases in Vietnam, the stateside training program was hectic:
counterinsurgency lectures, OV-10 maintenance training orientation, river patrol
boat (PBR) operations, familiarization, small arms and hand grenade checkout,
and survival school.
Survival school was a real eye-opener. Our executive officer (XO) was in one of
the first groups of squadron personnel to endure the school's prisoner of war
(POW) compound at Warner Springs, California. During his "incarceration," two
OV-10s appeared overhead dropping leaflets. Ostensibly addressed to the
prisoners, these leaflets encouraged them to rally around the XO, who was
described as a "Commie killer and street strafer extraordinaire." Naturally the
"guards" took notice and gave our beleaguered XO even more unwelcomed
attention than before.
Consequently, he insisted that each VAL-4 "POW" group be similarly identified,
and often led the leaflet flights himself. Each leaflet batch outdid its predecessor,
describing heinous war crimes of unimaginable dimensions in scatological
terms. This practice continued until the day 200 leaflets hung up on a rocket pod
and were held in place by the airstream until the pilot reversed upon landing. The
leaflets scattered across Admirals' Row at the North Island Naval Air Station. We
were ordered to cease and desist immediately and irrevocably.
Because of our "back-seater only" status, we nuggets received virtually no flight
training in the aircraft. That training was given to the mixed bag of second-tour
A-1 Skyraider (Spad) and S-2 Tracker (Stoof) pilots, designated as front-seaters.
The omnipresent rumor factory asserted that the jet community spurned fleet
seats in a prop aircraft hence, the assignment of Spad and Stoof pilots from
decommissioning squadrons.
One combat-tested Spad pilot was openly contemptuous of a perceived lack of
sophistication in the Bronco's weapon system. "The ordnance panel of the OV-10
is simple compared to that of the Spad," he would pontificate. We did not hear
that comment again after he launched two rockets into Mexico while attempting
to drop flares over a Yuma, Arizona, bombing range.
We rode back-seat on all flights that did not have an instructor there. Back-
seaters got in a bit of stick time and even made one or two back-seat landings.
When I arrived in Vietnam, I had 20 hours of OV-10 flight time, two of which were
in the front seat. This was typical for most nuggets going into combat.
The author is smiling here, but it was a different story when he and his fellow
pilot volunteers for the Navy's Black Ponies squadron found out they would be
riding in the backseats behind second-tour Spad and Stoof pilots. He later
transitioned to the front seat and continued a distinguished naval flying career.
Photo courtesy of Daniel Sheehan.
The squadron split into two groups. One operated from Binh Thuy and the other
from Vung Tau. Upon arrival in-country, each group set up its own operation.
First, the Vung Tau detachment had to depreserve and check-fly our 14 aircraft,
which had been cocooned and shipped as deck cargo. The pilot of the first plane
to complete a functional check flight let the troops know their efforts were
successful, by roaring low over the field and executing a high speed victory roll.
The pilot of the second Bronco imitated the maneuver, but neither his technique
nor his airspeed were equal to the task. The nose fell through and the plane
disappeared behind a low knoll before it struggle back to pattern altitude. This
same pilot repeated his inept roll on at least one other occasion a dog-and-
pony-show for ranking U.S. and South Vietnamese personnel. After that, he was
told to stop, and we named the maneuver after him.
My first fleet-squadron instrument check was in a plane without a tactical air
navigation (TACAN) system installed. With the plane's only aid missing, the "up"
criterion became the on-time delivery of the sleeping R&R-bound check pilot to
Saigon. He woke up at the touchdown, signed my papers, and deplaned to catch
his freedom bird while I returned to Binh Thuy. That was a far cry from the B-26
check at Corpus Christi.
We began in-country flights to familiarize ourselves with the operating area and
to regain aircraft and weapon proficiency. Navigation and communications
duties quickly assumed greater importance than they had in the states. All pilots
carried all required maps and publications, but we back-seaters bore the brunt
of these duties and quickly became adept. All navigation was by visual flight
rules, requiring bags that contained 90 charts or more. Standard practice was to
use 1:250,000-scale charts for "to/from" navigation. These charts were
extensively annotated with province and sector boundaries, and with the
numbers of the 1:10,000-scale charts we used for shooting. A standard operating
instruction contained the hundreds of callsigns and frequencies of units within
our operating area. We back-seaters were often busier than the proverbial
"monkey trying to seduce a football" while navigating to the target area, getting
Navy and sector clearance to fire and locating precisely both the target and any
nearby friendlies.
Weapon and tactics training was definitely on-the-job; we wrote the close air
support tactics doctrine for the OV-10. Because the Air Force and Marine Corps
Broncos were primarily used for forward air controller (FAC) and artillery
observer (AO) work, they carried only 2.75 inch white phosphorous rockets and
at night flares. Our Broncos, on the other hand, were loaded with 5- and 2.75-
inch rockets, flares, and 20mm and 30-caliber gun pods, and four internal .30
caliber machine guns. Our ordnance had to consist exclusively of forward firing
weapons to keep us from coming under Air Force tactical control. Their
cumbersome control systems sometimes took hours to grant clearance to fire on
targets that needed to be hit immediately.
A standard weapon load for a two-plane section consisted of: eight 5-inch Zuni
rockets and either a Mark-IV 20-mm gun pod or two pods of 2.75-inch rockets for
the leader; and eight Zunies and either 14 or 38 2.75-inh rockets for the
wingman. Occasionally, an SUU-11 .30-caliber gun pod would be substituted for
one of the rocket pods. Later, wing racks were added to each plane, enabling us
to carry four additional 5-inch rockets per plane.
The Zuni quickly became the weapon of choice. It was accurate and could be
fused for bunkers (base detonating fuses) or personnel (proximity fuses). At
night, it produced a spectacular flame trail; we quickly learned to close one eye
when launching.
One senior pilot was notorious for continuing his dive past the pickle point, so he
could watch his rockets hit. He would pull off power during the run and break
minimum pullout altitude. Not surprisingly, he often holed his own aircraft, by
flying through his own shrapnel. When I flew his back seat, I added power for him
at 2,000 feet and then initiated pullup at 1,500 feet. These unrequested actions
invariably drew a response:
"Goddamn it Dan, don't add power!"
"Yes, sir."
"Goddamn it Dan, don't pull up. I've got it, Dan!"
"Yes, sir."
The next run would be exactly the same.
One night, I was shooting below a 3,000-foot overcast. On pullup, my aircraft
passed between the flare and the cloud layer. Rapidly scanning for the leader, I
looked forward. For an instant, I knew for certain that I was going to collide with
him. And as I tore through my own plane's silhouette on the overcast, I think I
used up a year's supply of adrenaline.
U.S. and Vietnamese forces in the Mekong Delta area had not seen much of the
supersonic Zuni; they reported a large number of secondary explosions when we
used them. Only later did we realize that the troops mistook the rocket's sonic
boom for warhead detonation and then reported the warhead explosion as a
secondary.
Listening to friendlies calling in my fire in whispers over the radio because they
were too close to "Charlie" to speak normally made me want to whisper back.
When your side is that close to the enemy, you've just got to be accurate.
The 2.75-inch rockets were much less accurate and less spectacular than the 5-
inchers. It was not uncommon to observe a pair of 2.75-inch rockets fired
together, weaving and rolling around each other before pursuing independent
earthward courses. They could be loaded in 7- or 19-shot pods. The 19-shot LAU-
3A/A pod had two firing settings: single fire, which produced a pair of rockets
fired simultaneously, and ripple fire, which launched all 19 rockets in a brief
interval. The interval, less than two seconds, was designed to prevent these
randomly erratic missiles from hitting each other.
I preferred the ripple setting. With a little more than one G on the plane at the
moment of firing, the rockets would spread along the run-in line, which was
perfect for treeline targets; with slightly less than one G, they would cluster
nicely in a small circular area.
Theoretically, the Mk-IV 20-mm gun pod was a superior weapon for our type of
support. It offered excellent firepower that could easily be used very close to
friendly forces. However, it was disappointing in practice. The pod was too heavy
for the Bronco's centerline station and designed for faster aircraft. Our 240-knot
dives produced insufficient cooling airflow. As a result, overheating limited burst
duration and frequency, and caused frequent barrel and jamming problems. On
one occasion, the barrels and the nose assembly's blast-suppressor orifice
became misaligned, and the gun shot its own nose off, peppering the underside
of the aircraft with shrapnel.
Each flight that fired weapons had to submit a message "spot report" detailing
target coordinates, damage assessment and ordnance expended. The job of
drafting this message quickly fell to the back-seater in the number two plane.
Tallying rockets was easy enough, but giving an accurate account of the .30-
caliber ammunition fires was both tedious and unnecessary. Most of us
estimated the totals in round numbers, but I took it one step further. If 1,500
rounds was close, then 1,537 rounds sounded far more accurate and better
researched. Plus, some GS-14 would have to add up figures in all four columns.
The flight leader had been impressively accurate, placing his Zunies squarely on
target. In deference to his skill, my spot report read "three military structures
vaporized." Later, the Commander Naval Forces Vietnam duty officer wanted to
know what new weapons we were using. Ma argument when you hit a hooch
with a Zuni, it is damn well vaporized was not well received.
The Broncos' Zuni rockets (above) were prized by the aircraft's crew members
and the troops below for their accuracy, and were notorious for their
spectacular flame trails. In addition to flying the only Navy OV-10s, VAL-4 crews
had the rare opportunity to alternate between front and back seats. U.S. Navy
photo (A. Hill)
I expected our initial operations to concentrate on reacquiring aircraft and
weapon proficiency, as well as learning the operating area. But I did not
anticipate the public relations campaign we would have to undertake just to find
work. Few people outside the squadron had a clear idea of our mission or
capabilities. The riverine forces in the field who theoretically were to be our
primary customers had no inkling of the squadrons presence and purpose, nor
did they know how to obtain OV-10 fire support. The operational chain of
command did little to ameliorate this situation. They did not develop an
employment plan, or even specify combat objectives for the new capability. We
were never told, in so many words, to "just fly around and see who wants you." In
effect, however, that is exactly what happened. Therefore, as we flew over the
rivers and canals, plotting and memorizing checkpoints, we solicited targets
from every province and sector headquarters, and every PBR and outpost that
had a published radio frequency. Whenever someone listened, we delivered a
canned spiel advertising our capabilities which also listed radio frequencies
and telephone numbers for the naval operations center that controlled us.
U.S. Navy photo (A. Hill)
Gradually, we became known around the Mekong Delta. The squadron operating
area was basically between the My Tho and the Parrot's Beak for the Vung Tau
detachment, and from My Tho to Bac Lieu for the Binh Thuy group. Within these
approximate north-south limits, detachment aircraft ranged from the South China
Sea westward to the Cambodian border and the Gulf of Thailand. Later in the first
year, the Binh Thuy group's area expanded to include Vietnam's southern tip
the Ca Mau Peninsula. There we supported area sweeps and cruise-and-destroy
missions by PBRs and Swiftboats based at Sea Float, a nest of barges moored in
the middle of the Cua Lon River.
Patrols normally lasted one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours. Even if there were
no hot targets, we usually shot at something, even if only at abandoned hooches
in free-fire zones. Thus, we got some target practice and showed the troops what
we could do. Because this aggressive approach got us recognition, we were
loath to abandon it.
Operations covering sea-air-land (SEAL) commando, PBR, and Sea Float
missions required centerline station fuel tanks, which extended our combat
endurance to approximately four-and-a-half hours, but reduced our ordnance
load. Belly tanks were in short supply, so despite the hazards, we never
jettisoned them even when we took fire.
One pilot ignored low fuel-gauge readings until he was forced to acknowledge
independent "fuel caution" and "fuel feed" warning lights. He landed at a South
Vietnamese helo field and flamed out from fuel starvation while taxiing to the fuel
pits. The remarkable aspect of this story was that he openly briefed us all. He
admitted his mistake and taught us all something. That display of honesty took
courage and moral fiber.
Each detachment maintained a scramble alert crew nearly 24 hours a day in
facilities next to the revetments. When alerted, each scramble crew front-seater
boarded, started the left engine, and completed as many of the checklists as he
could. His back-seater copied coordinates, frequencies, callsigns, and other
situational information from the squadron duty officer's list. After the back-
seater climbed in, the right engine was started, ordnance armed, and the flight
launched. The normal reaction time from alert to airborne was six to eight
minutes in daytime and 10-15 minutes at night. Three minutes was our record at
Binh Thuy, but we had advance notice and briefed coordinates on the radio.
On night scrambles, we often reacted faster than we could wake up. On several
occasions, I fully awoke only after the flight was airborne and had to read a
scramble sheet written in my own handwriting to learn where we were headed
and what was expected of us. It was an eerie feeling for me to have started an
OV-10, taxied, and taken off only minutes before, without any conscious
recollection of those events.
As The squadron became more successful, the Navy chain of command, which
initially dismissed us to pursue targets on our own, became concerned that the
bulk of our firing was done to support Army units, and not the Navy forces the
squadron was supposedly chartered to support. This "misuse" of Navy assets
was probably politically embarrassing to upper-echelon staff personnel; it was
quickly changed. Before, we had flown 80% of our missions during the daylight,
roaming our operating area at will. Now, almost 90% of our patrolling was done
at night along prescribed routes covering the Cambodian border from Ha Tien to
Chau Doc, the Vinh Te Canal, and the Parrot's Beak. These "interdiction"
missions were supposed to deter infiltration and supply efforts across the
border. In theory, the very sound of OV-10 engines reduced border crossing. In
practice, the shift in operations actually degraded squadron effectiveness, but it
put the Navy back on politically solid ground. Navy units were again supporting
other Navy units.
We shared a good working relationship with an Air Force tactical air support
squadron (TASS) flying the infamous Pushme-Pullyou (O-2). They made no
attempt to control us. However, they were often able to give us good targets
while they waited for their tactical aircraft. This cooperation ended when a TASS
FAC told a very tardy flight of F-100s, "Jettison your bombs here. The Navy has
already hit my target." From somewhere on high came a directive that Air Force
FACs would no longer work Navy air. About a month later, as a TASS FAC tried to
steer my flight of OV-10s into a night action involving U.S. advisors in an overrun
South Vietnamese Army outpost, an authoritative voice over the radio forbade
the FAC's involvement. Ever the professional, he remained on station
"inadvertently jettisoning" flares until we could arrive overhead. That such a "my
war, my glory" attitude could get in the way of supporting those poor SOBs on
the ground was deeply disillusioning. In time, the policy was rescinded.
Within two months of the squadron's arrival in Vietnam, BuPers announced a
pilot replacement schedule, which set up an orderly transition from the
commissioning crew to fleet replacement pilots over a four-month period. This
schedule did not recognize the squadron distinction between front- and back-
seaters, and kept junior pilots in-country longer than second-tour pilots. Under
this plan and existing squadron policy, the only combat-experienced pilots
during the latter part of the transition period would be back seat-limited nuggets.
Now we were permitted even encouraged to transition to the front seat.
After two front-seat familiarization flights and a solo (with a mechanic in the back
seat), I was front seat-qualified. My ordnance training was equally as rigorous.
During a one-day standdown from normal patrols, each nugget was allowed one
flight on a free-fire zone. My first and last ordnance practice consisted of
shooting eight Zunies and 14 2.75-inch rockets at Dong Island. Thereafter,
weapon practice was conducted under combat conditions, and pilots now
alternated between the front and back seats.
The Bronco was a good weapon platform; I had little difficulty learning to be
accurate. The gunsight was not even necessary: the M-60 machine gun tracers
indicated where the rest of the ordnance would go. Zunies landed on top of the
tracers, while 2.75-inch rockets hit just short of where the tracers hit. For this
reason, the transition from the back seat to front went more smoothly than the
reverse. Front-seaters fumbled with the charts and frequency books and took
even longer to master the despised communications/navigation duties than we
thought they would. Eventually, our fire teams became even stronger and more
professional. My morale certainly improved when I was fully given a chance to
fight the aircraft.
Using the Bronco in an attack role in Vietnam was an anomaly. Far Slower than
jets but faster than helicopters, our planes were initially untouched by hostile (or
sometimes friendly) ground fire. The first hits accumulated in aircraft tail
sections and slowly worked forward with time.
I was fired on by friendlies one night near Rach Gia. Fifty-caliber tracers (white,
not green) passed between my aircraft and the leader's. Not surprisingly, we
could not get clearance to return fire to the outpost that clearly was the source
of the tracers. I wonder how many times supposedly friendly troops took pot
shots at us without our ever knowing it.
The Broncos were lightly armored: fuel tanks were self sealing up to .30-caliber
hits, the center panel of the windshield was bulletproof, and the area directly
beneath the crew members' seats was armor-plated. We joked that the rest of
the plane was semi-bullet-retardant, at best. It seemed possible to poke a
number two lead pencil through the structure just about anywhere on the plane.
The squadron's first casualty occurred when the flight leader was hit in the head
by a .30-caliber bullet that penetrated the windshield just to the right of the
bulletproof section. The back-seat pilot recovered the aircraft from its 30
degree, 240-knot dive, pulling out below PBR masthead height, and returned to
Binh Thuy. The flight leader, who had helped down an enemy MiG while flying
Spads in the north, was dead on arrival.
That was my first exposure to the sudden death we were all subject to, and it was
chilling. Intellectually, I knew it could, and probably would, happen. But
viscerally, I had naively believed we were just too good, too skilled, too much on
the side of the righteous and holy for one of our own to be killed. When it
happened, illusions shattered and defenses tumbled. Now I knew that it could
happen to me too.
Five squadron mates died that first year in-country. After the first casualty, we
lost two aircraft and their crews. These events were upsetting not only because
we lost friends, but also because we never knew for sure just what had
happened.
One of the Binh Thuy Broncos, flying number two on a night patrol, took a 10 15
degree nose down attitude from 3,000 feet and flew into a 700-foot rock hill,
exploding on impact. The flight had been taking sporadic small-arms fire as it
transited the area, but had reported no hits. The crewmen of the downed plane
made no radio transmissions, nor did either attempt to eject.
The Vung Tau detachment lost a Rung Sat Special Zone patrol a single OV-10
carrying a Marine Corps air observer. This daily patrol covered the shipping
channel into Saigon, flying at 100 200 feet, one-half flaps, and 110 120 knots
while the crew searched for signs of ambushes, booby traps, and personnel
movements, and called in artillery fire on suspect locations. After failing to return
from the patrol, the aircraft, with crew still on board, was discovered deeply
embedded in mud, in an attitude characteristic of a low altitude stall. Attempts to
recover the aircraft failed and nearly resulted in the loss of a CH-47 Chinook
helicopter when the lift strap broke, hurling the helo upward and almost out of
control. Too deeply mired for salvage, the wreckage was destroyed.
I do not know if the loss rate in following years was better or worse than in the
first. I am certain, however, that the casualty rate and number of aircraft
damaged by enemy fire would have been much higher had the squadron been
located farther north, in I Corps. The Bronco was just too lightly armored to
withstand heavy or high-caliber ground fire, and our tactics would have offered
insufficient protection in a much more hostile environment.
I finished my year in Vietnam with 330 missions and a profound sense of relief
that it was finally over for me.
My last OV-10 ride was memorable. I rode to Saigon to catch my freedom bird in
the cargo section, with two other people. The cargo door had been removed and
we were tied in with a cargo strap. Although we had borrowed parachutes,
hedging against the bailout possibility, we never gained enough altitude to have
used them. At Saigon, I think we had to climb to reach pattern altitude.
Commander Sheehan retired on 1 July 1987 after 20 years of Navy service. From
March 1969 to March 1970, he served in VAL-4, as fire team leader, first
lieutenant, and quality assurance officer. In subsequent assignments, he flew C-
1As, C-130s, C-131s, C-12s and instructed in T-28s. On a 1975 77 cruise in the
Coral Sea (CVA-43), he participated in operations supporting the evacuation of
Vietnam and Cambodia, and the recovery of the SS Mayaguez. He received the
Navy Air Medal (23 strike/flight and two individual action awards) and four unit
citations, including the Presidential and Navy awards. He was commissioned an
ensign through the Harvard University NROTC program in 1967 and was
designated a naval aviator in 1968.
