Confusing the Enemy [S2Ep14]

Understanding maneuver warfare, with Thomas Withington

The title character in the movie Top Gun: Maverick is a legendary fighter pilot and flight instructor who’s so skilled that he wins every dogfight. Time and again he goes up against his elite students in simulated air combat, and time and again he comes out on top. He gives them every advantage, even letting them gang up on him two to one, but still he flummoxes them, disappearing from their gunsights and then reappearing suddenly on their tail as if out of thin air. It’s all Hollywood mythmaking, of course. No pilot could win every single time against students who are themselves among the best of the best.

Except it’s not a myth. The character of Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is based on a real person.

Born in 1927 in Erie, Pennsylvania, John Boyd joined the Air Force after during the Second World War and flew a F-86 Sabre fighter jet over Korea. When his tour ended he returned Stateside and was assigned to teach at the F-100 Super Sabre at the Air Force Fighter Weapons School, a forerunner of the Navy’s Top Gun program, where his prowess earned him the nickname “40 second Boyd.” Boyd had a standing $40 bet at the local bar that, with any other fighter jockey on his tail, he could get on their tail in 40 seconds or less. And he never lost.

Here’s how it would go. Boyd and his opponent would each take off and then meet up over the Nevada desert. The other guy would get in position behind so that Boyd was in his gunsights. Then came the radio call: “Fight’s on.” Boyd would bank hard into a steep turn, and his opponent would follow. What happened next was a blur. All the other pilot knew was that Boyd’s plane had suddenly turned into a fuzzy streak that disappeared under his plane’s belly. Boyd was gone. The opponent rolled and hauled back on the stick, jerking his head back and forth in a fruitless attempt to get his eyes back on the target. And then the radio crackled with Boyd’s exuberant voice: “Guns! Guns! Guns!” The opponent looked back: sure enough, the Super Sabre was on his six. If this were a real fight, Boyd would have hosed him with automatic cannon fire.

What was Boyd’s secret? As an Air Force flight instructor John Boyd felt it was his duty to understand as fully as possible what his jet was capable of doing. He once flew a fighter so hard that its tail almost ripped off. In his intense devotion to his craft, Boyd wound up gathering such a detailed picture of his plane’s capabilities that he built a complete map of everything that could happen in a dogfight.

Seventy years later, John Boyd is a legend in the US Armed Forces, but not for his prowess in air combat. Boyd used his insights to ultimately develop, much later in his career, a way of thinking about how to turn a goal into action. In today’s episode, I discuss Boyd’s ideas with one of his many fans, Thomas Withington, an expert in electronic warfare who also visited with us in Episode 7. Tom recently published a fascinating article entitled “Manoeuvre Warfare and the Electromagnetic Spectrum” that discusses Boyd’s role in modern strategic thinking. They are fundamental to understanding the context in which MH370 took place.

Later in the show, I get feedback about the UFO episode from Ed Dentzel, host of the Unfound podcast, and I talk about an exciting new idea for gathering Lepas barnacle data. I also talk about a new feature for paid subscribers to the show page on Substack: special exclusive content, in addition to the free weekly podcast, that will drop every Tuesday. To start with, I'll be posting remastered versions of the original 31 episodes of Season 1. After a week, I'll make the content freely available on YouTube. Financial support is incredibly helpful to me in keeping this podcast going and I'm deeply grateful to everyone who can help out. You can sign up here. Thanks very much!