"America Obliterates Half North Vietnam's MiG-21 Fleet" | Kip Reacts to The Fat Electrician

[@shannonrhoads7099]

4:56 No American military member would *ever* call a politician a snake, Kip. We respect snakes too much!

[@hoshinoutaite]

These men, Olds and Chappie are Air Force legends, and true American heroes. That man's moustache is part of the lore, to the point that the Air Force celebrates Moustache March, where male members of the AF try to grow out a moustache over the course of one month as much as they can within the boundaries of the regulations.

[@judgem0rt1s23]

Fat Electrician should've called the video "Why I Hate Politicians" Edit: Also, "Blackman & Robin" is just too fricken good.

[@andryu_0764]

Fun fact, before Robin Olds got "caught up" he pointed to every flight lead and told them point blank that "I will be better that all of you." This dude basically said "Im'ma get spun up on this and make you guys look like total newbs, get ready."

[@XtreemAlan]

This is why Rambo asked “Are they gonna let us win this time?”

[@chrismaverick9828]

"You don't need to know how they did it in the old days". Winning tactics in warfare are literally earned in blood. To this day the fighting maneuvers developed and written down by Oswald Boelcke as a German pilot in WWI are taught today in every military flight school because they are the foundation of air combat. From infantry to tanks to planes to business, things were learned at high costs and while some may become a bit outdated and need massaging into the modern world, every one of them is still valued learning.

[@sierramike0913]

"Lessons learned in blood" is a very real description to most (I can at least attest to the US in this case) militaries' doctrines. "Someone needed to get something done, did something and got people killed, with further review showing that they should have done X instead" is something that happens a lot when you dig in to why certain things are done the way they are. Not everything (and why one should always be flexible when it comes to doctrine) but enough that the question should always be asked.

[@snewsh]

"how easy it is to pick up... how user friendly..." Kip: "so easy, a woman can use it 👍"

[@I_Stole_A_BTR-80]

"...and they do"

[@alaxbird4954]

sounds like we got "proportional" with them

[@pyronuke4768]

Devil's advocate here. At this point in the mid-60's the United States and the Soviet Union were working to improve relations after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tensions are still really high and holding on by a thread. So I get the reasoning behind the whole "don't attack airfields or SAM sites because there might be a foreign advisor there" holds up when the war starts, but by the time Operation Bolo happens the conflict has been going on for a while and the Americans might be able to get away with "Hey, the entire area's been an active war zone for the last three years, it's their fault they stuck around for this long."

[@anzaca1]

32:10 IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) had existed since WWII (Britain invtented it), but evne in Vietnam it wasn't completely reliable. In addition, the AIM-7 Sparrow (the radar-guided missile) wasn't super reliable either. So while shooting down an enemy beyond visual range was technically possible, positive identification etc wasn't certain.

[@tanall5959]

It's not so much the Sparrow wasn't reliable as much as it wasn't reliable the way they were trying to use it. The AIM-7E1 they went into Vietnam with was a bomber slapper. You lock onto something flying straight and level at long distance, the missile has plenty of time to dial in, and then you fire. They were never designed for the kind of close range fights they got forced into. The E2 fixed a lot of it, but you still had to give the missile some seconds to stabilize after a lock before firing.

[@colinbeatty]

38:25 Don't worry, the DoD's budget also often forgets the Marines too.

[@watchface6836]

40:26 Kip going on a tangent based off the setup for a joke made my day. It's been a rough shift, thanks for making it better.

[@GamingCeo420]

There is a non zero chance he did that sponsor to mess with Kip

[@digitalhomic8155]

bureaucracy is a plague

[@Johan_the_Marshal]

No truer words have been uttered

[@DumbChaoticPhoque]

yup

[@AshRain-nu3vz]

In media involving war they always depict the bureaucracy as overly evil and incompetent to the point you would think it HAS to be an overexaggeration for the sake of drama. But nope, they're really just like that.

[@sean5662]

Fuck yea it is

[@joshkendall8372]

Politics Polly Latin for many ticks blood-sucking creatures

[@colinbeatty]

32:10 As an artillery officer, we use permissive fire support coordination measures to "free up" fire support. In simple terms, let's say that at this phase of an operation, we don't have anyone north of a particular northing line on the map; that means we can basically fire artillery or drop bombs north of that line without concerns for fratricide (generally speaking). I imagine the airspace controllers utilize similar permissive systems for their operations, just as they do when they support us in attacking stuff on the ground.

[@jadenkarnatz5292]

Also there was IFF (identify friend or foe) in place on carriers in wwii so the tech existed

[@colinbeatty]

@@jadenkarnatz5292of course, sometimes I forget they have those systems :)

[@ryanhampson673]

His dad was a fighter pilot, raised him AND named him after a bird…Dudes the main character…Also don’t you think Tom Hardy sorta looks like him? Would be a badass movie IMO.

[@Gr33nOfGrundleburg]

17:00 I have been in this exact situation but as a fast food cashier. You are expected to constantly be on top of maintaining a dining room while also having to immediately drop everything if a customer shows up (even though there are at least 2 people right there who could handle the customer's order for you while you're taking care of a completely separate task that you were asked to complete).

[@InstrucTube]

Ah, the dreaded "I'm the manager, so I'm going to manage, you're the worker so you're going to work." I hate those people. That's why I got out of that business. It was either that or there was going to be some jail time in my future.

[@Gr33nOfGrundleburg]

@@InstrucTube Can't forget that you get chewed out for not having the task complete that you were interrupted doing to go take care of the thing you were ordered to do.

[@GhostWatcher2024]

That last documentary interview clip was definitey a *vini, vidi, vicci* moment.

[@chrismaverick9828]

The largest problem with the US fighting the Vietnamese was that bombing campaigns require the enemy to have something the enemy values to bomb. In an agrarian society such as Vietnam, there really isn't much. They only had a small number of power plants and factories and most of those were in Hanoi, which was not targeted for much of the war for political reasons, such as keeping the NV willing to come to the table. What was coming down the trail was partly off-limits due to their moving through other countries and were supposedly off limits to strikes. Lessons learned were to not let politics infect the game. Unfortunately too many have forgotten that in this day and age.

[@Snelson5094]

Interesting fact that you might like Robin Olds is till this day I think the only pilot in history to shoot down an enemy fighter plane while gliding. Dogfights air ambush talks about this. Also there was a fighter plane called the f8 crusader that was nicknamed the last gunfighter. It was a single seat aircraft with four guns but was replaced by the f4 that had no guns. Also another interesting fact the missiles that the politicians believed in were faulty at best like the mark 14 torpedos were since they either shot up towards the sun or hit the forests below because of heat and humidity or just fell away from the aircraft and never launching. Guns were installed in the f4 after two A1 sky raiders shot down an enemy mig on June 20th 1967 or 1965 I think.

[@Archangel1862]

Technically the President has sole authority over the US Military but Congress has power of the purse if I remember the Constitution correctly If I remember correctly Robin Olds is the only fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy plane while gliding because he and his men saw a squadron of BF-109s in front of them with Olds and his men were behind the BF-109s so Olds drop his drop tanks and forgot to switch to the internal tanks

[@psymar]

Congress can enact restrictions on what the President can do, and they also have sole authority to declare war. It wasn't until after Vietnam that they finally restricted how long the President can have troops fighting overseas without congress declaring war or giving explicit permission. They still haven't actually declared war since WW2 though.

[@Archangel1862]

@@psymar Where in the Constitution does it say that

[@theshig9618]

@@Archangel1862 Article I, Section 8, Clause 11: "The Congress shall have Power to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water." Basically the founding fathers didn't want a situation where a SINGLE person would have the ability to declare war, so that Power was vested in Congress instead of the President. If I remember correctly though, the President CAN send the Marines into a conflict without the ok of Congress due to how they were originally authorized when the Navy was founded to fight the Barbary Pirates. I think the Fate Electrician mentions it in his video on that conflict too.

[@Archangel1862]

@@theshig9618 That still doesn’t change the fact that the president is in charge of how a war is fought. And the Supreme Court has upheld that if the US is attacked (whether it be civilians or military personnel or buildings, ships, or anything that can have people in or on it. That’s a declaration of war and the president has the power to retaliate.) The Supreme Court has also upheld that during war Congress’s war powers are primarily in the economy and private citizens economic impact not how the war is fought. And on top of that section 8 sounds more like it deals with captured ships and soldiers not how the war is fought. Granted that is if you believe that the Supreme Court has the power and authority to interpret the Constitution which I honestly believe it doesn’t.

[@noodlelynoodle.]

​@@Archangel1862lmao considering the supreme Court was set up by the people who created the constitution to do exactly that and decide what does and doesn't follow it your opinion on if they have the authority is irrelevant it's why they exist in the first place and they were given the authority by the people who created the constitution because they knew that the government would inevitably try to do unconstitutional things. Without them the constitution is functionally meaningless and the government is free to enact whatever human rights violations it wants

[@firefang600]

Youth and exuberance does not stand up to old age and treachery and beware the old man in a young mans game are the best quotes fat electrian has ever said and to applies to so many things not just the military but more so for it.

[@fearzila]

If you like his talk about deception, I'd definitely recommend his video on the drip rifle. It's even crazier...

[@SoMuchFacepalm]

Respect the Drip.

[@Ender-bg2hx]

Also the US won technologically but lost the war for morale back home. Edit: Also guess what happens when an army that isn’t adapted to Jungle warfare fights a heavily motivated enemy that knows the terrain and made some gnarly booby traps that make that war a paranoia horrorshow, i recommend Dark Docs 5 ‘s video on the booby traps of the vietnam war, the vietcong were really creative when it came to using local environmental resources and make every step you make a potential last

[@TensuMakadi]

He forgot about his favorite engineers in this video.... shock horror, how could you forget the Marines? Edit: So watching to the end, the Marines are technically a branch of the Navy but outside of some minor(and in the case of budget oversite major) aspects the Marines are effectively their own branch.

[@KipReacts]

I understood the Marines were a subsection of the Navy?

[@DecentCanvas-mt1bk]

@@KipReacts The Marines do a lot with the Navy but they are their own branch.

[@KipReacts]

I actually didn't know this, thanks for the clarification!

[@chrismaverick9828]

The Marines operate their own flight squadrons, especially back then, though off of Navy ships.

[@anzaca1]

22:01 There have been no new American fighter aces since Vietnam. In Desert Storm, the two highest-scoring US pilots only got 3 kills each.

[@niftynetty0129]

Gotta love when the Mrs is on lol 😅

[@trentthehehim3936]

“Service Guarantees Citizenship” has a reason behind it sounds like Kip is agreeing with. 😂

[@lenny_has_arived6679]

I’m honestly glad with the stance you are now taking in regards to politics in videos. I think what you have going on is good so far

[@Flash_Flood44]

First! Really like your reacts and the respect to TFE. Great work

[@OldDragon0]

To be an ace it is still five kills even in modern times.

[@dillonpierce7869]

That was an excellent way how u described what all the BS of the Vietnam war can be easily related to civilian jobs. Most people haven't done that quite that well.

[@captin3149]

Marines answer to the Secretary of the Navy, but they're their own branch.

[@theveazel13]

Army Navy Marines Air Force At that point in time the Coast Guard was under the Department of Transportation

[@KipReacts]

I didn't know they fell under the DoT. Thank you!

[@user-jl9ul4ko9h]

When I was in JROTC, we had to do a presentation on old pilot hero’s and they told me to do Robin Olds, in front of everyone, when I saw a picture of him for the first time, I said « that’s a fucking nice ‘stache »

[@ZagzigingZigzagoon]

Hey Kip if "pro" and "con" is complete opposites what is the opposite of "Progress" ? . . . . . . . . . "Congress"

[@brothersgt.grauwolff6716]

if I remember correctly at this point in time IFF (Identification Friend/Foe) had not been perfected to the point we have today and as it was the hight of the Cold War there was always espionage attempts at capturing IFF frequencies so having to visually confirm if the aircraft was in fact either one of yours or an enemy was crucial at this point in time

[@steadfastscout4606]

40:00 Kip gets so animated lol. never seen that many expressions from his model in such a short time before

[@PolymurExcel]

I think it should be important to note, that even after the guns were added, gun kills were still a tiny fraction of the planes that were shot down. Getting more reliable missiles and better training was what did the most good. The navy from my understanding , their F4s never had guns and they were even the first to have an ace in the war.

[@BuiltStupid776]

All these men with amazing mustaches starting to make me feel subconscious about my peach fuzz (it refuses to grow)

[@DragonSlaya817]

Look up aces of the Korean War, Israeli fighter pilots and the Crusaders pilots of Vietnam (consider the last gunfighter)

[@kondomonster]

the Navy and Marine Corps are sister services within the Navy department but they are also considered separateseparate services. They do coopede with each other like since len Marius don't have medics , they use Navy's hospital Corpsmen.

[@hendyallen5993]

32:12 I believe that what you are talking about are IFF aka Identify Friend or Foe. While this time and Vietnam did have these, it's a broadcast " hey over here! OVER HERE!" To all ground and air receivers. They get turned off during missions.

[@nuclearTANK]

In reality Col. " Boots " Belsse was fighting really hard to get the suu-16 gun pod out on the F-4 pointing out the fact that dog fighting was inevitable and it was going going to be needed. Olds was opposed to it's use because he didn't want his pilots to do what " Boots" wanted them to, he knew his pilots would get it and go mig hunting, he wanted his pilots to do what they where trained to do, use the phantom how it was intended to be used, engage aircraft from long range how the plane was designed to be used. The migs where designed as fighters and used as fighters, whereas the phantoms where designed as interceptors but used as fighters

[@Spicy_Lavender]

Politicians is the reason this war was a cluster f and we lost so many American troops.

[@owenvalcq4449]

Dagoth ur approves of this.

[@Plastikdoom]

Also I wish I could remember the name of the episode that covered this fight, and later ones, led by him, including some batshit crazy ones, was on the history channel, at the very end of the 90’s or right before, maybe shortly after 9/11 the last era of the history channel being good, informative and teaching awesome history. And especially awesome military stuff. But they covered it, is probably on YT. As a lot of their older stuff is.

[@ImprovmanZero]

had that problem with a chemical. We kept having to restrict it because of Risk Managers. Eventually we just switched to something else

[@loganb7059]

Kip, for a really really good military analysis video, I have to recommend you watch the channel Operations Room. Specifically the Desert Storm set of videos.

[@Ender-bg2hx]

Also “allegedly” some American GI’s mentioned seeing European looking guys among the Vietnamese and there were rumors that Spetznas was operating in the area and destroyed the first AH-1 attack chopper

[@KipReacts]

I wonder if there were official engagement procedures for if the Spetznas were encountered.

[@Ender-bg2hx]

@@KipReacts Same, then again its rumors and thats the problem that went here with the video’s topic as well, the US was worried of killing any Russian personnel out of worry of increasing tensions in the cold war.

[@chariscale]

Yup this is the situation that led to the creation of Top Gun❤

[@t26e3pershingtank]

As a Kokomi main, I approve of all the fish memes (it's me and I just have over 90 different accounts I send them with)

[@dakotalynde1913]

I love the Idaho reference. Since I grew up in Boise we literally said, If you don't like the weather just wait 5 min it will change 😅. But yeah loved that reference

[@dakotalynde1913]

Also idk if you're actually in Idaho or what but if you are I only know one kip there. I'm sure there are plenty more but there's only one I know. I'd Laugh My Ass Off if you were the person I knew. Probably don't but it'd be a really small world if I did

[@jolyric6441]

As far as the narrow air corridor part, I think it was more about staying out of Cambodia or Thailand. They were both neutral in this.

[@r-fitz9739]

Bro can’t go five minutes without mentioning how much he loves compartmentalization

[@dejavu3741]

Most important book I’ve ever read Marcus Aurelius meditations

[@nanniatheneko4524]

Looks like a Duck, quacks like a Duck, walks like a Duck, it was NOT a duck. XD

[@h1n14lifegaming]

Three things the entire 🇺🇸 can agree is one: give uncle sam his money. Two: don't make uncle sam improvise. Three: DON'T TOUCH UNCLE SAMS BOATS.

[@ElimGamin109]

Kip with the Obi-wan defense: “Oh no not brave enough for politics.”🤣

[@theshig9618]

Friendly fire incidents with modern planes and military vehicles DO happen. If you go look at videos about Operation Desert Storm, there were a number of friendly fire incidents (more common with the tank forces), to the point where a British Commander remarked that they'd lost more troops to fire from the Americans than they had from the enemy.

[@wolfoflove1959]

It was strictly the politicians that we're trying to control how we made our way into Vietnam and how we fought our way in and throughout the course of fighting Vietnam restricting our soldiers while the Vietnamese through all those rules and more out the window which was one of the causes in my case the major cause if I do say so myself of us losing that war

[@generichardson4771]

the other name given to rolling thunder was rolling blunder because of mcnamera and his infinate wisdom he knew what he was doing and the military didnt it cost hundreds of planes and air crews until col robin olds came in and the north a valuable lesson dont mess with our bombers or we will come after you ... there is a wonderful doc about col robin olds might want to give it a watch his daughter talks about after he retires he goes to get his civilian pilots license the instructor has no idea who he is now civillian ols gets his license in 2 weeks after scaring his instructor to death doing combat evasion manuvers

[@Plastikdoom]

And oh, sore all of us branches will be savage towards to each other. In shit that doesn’t matter, like day to day shit talking and what not, stuff like that. For anything that actually matters, we work together extremely well, even while still giving each other shit, even more so if it’s the boniest chance to give the bureaucracy the middle finger, while doing our job and nothing wrong, just makes it even better, and more so when we get a chance to actually do our job and perform. At least at like a the unit commander and below level. Sometimes higher levels also. After a certain point an officer is is a bureaucrat whether they like it or not, or act like it or not, they have to play that game, or they get forced out. That’s why 99.99% of the time enlisted are better, especially those mod rank NCO’s or even Staff NCO’s that don’t play that game, cause they only care about the mission and the men under them. And they look out for them, in every way possible.

[@alucardvanhellsing6805]

I just realized he has the ultrasound pictures of his kids On the gun save

[@JAEUFM]

I can see the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines agree to ground their birds on the day of the mission just to jerk around the NSA.

[@raikbarczynski6582]

Well the "ACE" term is still 5 enemy aircraft shot down. and we didnt have one since the 80s. nowadays they count drones and such. so we have an ACE since Februarz 2024 . a US pilot who shot down 8 Houthi drones. Oh and dont forget the Ghost of Kyiv

[@danielbrooks732]

Kip on the argument, it the same as Engineers and mechanics, makes the plans and nothing else, then you have the ones who fix or put it together. If anything the mechanics want to have Engineers Built it them self and see the problem

[@erika_itsumi5141]

if you want to know about dogfighting in the modern day, your going to be looking at Dogfights, desert Aces, dogfights of the middle east, and dogfights of desert storm. free on youtube great series was my childhood, and great stories from the 1910s, all the way to late to early 90s.

[@minicritter7455]

I think the thing that bugs me the most in this instance of "you need to visually see the enemy before engagement" kinda doesnt make sense when you look at the other rules that requires the us to go into a murder space to make it to the other side... Like what friendly planes are peacefully flying in hostile territory? dont they instantly get attacked if they go through that spot and from what im understanding the enemy hasnt been letting planes through... also i feel like telling Russia or China "whoops, didnt know your guys were there we will pay for the inconvenience" is way cheaper than ignoring the enemy spawn and losing billions of dollars worth of planes and bombs regularly but thats just from my understanding from what ive been listening to

[@niftynetty0129]

It gets to a point where someone who has the stones has to say well it's easier to ask forgiveness than it is permission I mean given the fact that "it's never a war crime the first time" 😉

[@ImBirdBrained]

To quick add on to the fish memes, guess what the nickname for the MiG-21 is. That's right, the Fishbed. Im not kidding. NATO gave it a nickname of "the fishbed."

[@jaybaby5834]

Blackman and Robinson is an awesome name

[@KipReacts]

@@jaybaby5834 Right?

[@militaryman815yt5]

39:24 Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force

[@dimitrijensk2845]

The reason it was so bad bureaucracy-wise was because it was supposed to be a police action not a war. A “special military operation” if you will.

[@lurkingedge]

Don't get me wrong, the chain of command can and will mess you up. But politicians? Politicians lose wars. They also start them, but that's another discussion. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. Don't worry. We Marines are used to being forgotten by our friends. But our enemies... they don't forget. And they fear. The Marines are a department of the Navy, but also our own branch.

[@ShAdoWj1995]

Literally the origin story of top gun

[@davegray3049]

Well you know the Marines were founded in a tavern before the Navy was founded by Washington

[@aikidodude05]

Ok you started to touch at the issue and that was the Cold War we were not at war with china and Russia, and the world was looking at a real possibility of a nuclear holocaust if the cold war turned hot. What is the better way restrictions on how you fight that get people killed or do you go in and risk kickstarting ww3 and the apocalypse. Which is the better option?

[@SuperBossGiovanni]

You should have a new model made for TFE reactions that's wearing one of his merch shirts

[@USMCScorpi02]

Marines.... You forgot the Marines

[@davidkeese3372]

It’s exhausting hearing tales of great warriors being handicapped by insignificant weaklings. Both the Korean War and Vietnam war were two shining examples of what could have been, had the politicians removed the regulations and let the military do, military things. Could have ended them in months not years. Same goes for our 20yr long waste of time in Afghanistan.

[@adamskeans2515]

a little too late for the Red Scare, but politicians, as always, did suck.

[@0sirus1989]

... You forgot the Marines...

[@KipReacts]

I thought they were a subsection of the Navy. I have since been corrected on this, and I am so, so sorry!

[@nightrun17vr23]

feeeeeeeeesh !!!!!!!!!!!!

[@BoazT51]

Sorry Kip, but your analogy at 17:00 was long-winded and overly complicated. Here is an easier one. It is like being hired on to a job sight, and the boss says you have to dig a hole 12 ft x 12 ft and 10 ft deep. You see the nice fancy digging equipment, and the boss looks at you and say oh by the way, here is your shovel.

[@sonofjack6286]

4:42 About the same as today, but less geriatric.

[@kuro_emiya]

you can thank politicians for the military being filled with pencil pushers pumping so much bureaucratic philosophy.

[@Battlestargroup]

Ohhhhhhh how bureaucratic knob heads still to this day screw things up for our commanders and the troops on the ground. As far modern aces go, last I saw the closest one of our guys got was during Gulf War 1 where an F-15 pilot nailed 3 planes and that was it. Otherwise there’s debate of a USMC pilot who flew an AV-8B Harrier and shot down 7 suicide drones from the Houthi rebels a few weeks ago. The reason for “debate” is no one knows if unmanned suicide drones count for the Ace title. There was a Brit during WW2 who knocked off I think 10 or so V-1 buzz bombs and he didn’t get the title at all.

[@ealtar]

yes you do know ... john mcain and ... JOE ..... haaa soorry . i know you don't want to get political it is funny there are a LOT of senator and representative who were on those comities and are STILL around in power, making the same kind of dumb mlstakes

[@adamskeans2515]

I think most of the modern aces are Israeli.

[@matthewbyrom5394]

It's asinine wat it is