The F105 sustained the heaviest losses among American aircraft types during the Vietnam war. Was there some factor that made it more vulnerable than other types. Were losses do to flying disproportionately more missions than other types? How did F105 loses vs. number of missions flown compare with other American aircraft?
The F-105 was designed to be a nuclear strike fighter. Fly in low and fast, pop up, drop 1 nuke and GTFO. When Vietnam kicked off you had a military that wasn't accustomed to conventional warfare which extended to aircraft as well. Their great balance of speed, payload and combat range meant they were the aircraft of choice to go into heavily defended north vietnam and thus got most of the dangerous missions. They were used in an attack and suppression of enemy aerial defenses (SEAD or wild weasel) role, and the SEAD role is essentially a first in, last out job where you use a combination of electronic jamming, maneuvering and attacking the SAM and radar sites while the B-52's rolled by hopefully unharmed. The Russian "advisors" were providing the vietnamese with state of the art equipment and training so if they debut a new missile or AAA piece that the American pilots haven't seen or learned about before their countermeasures may not be as effective. Also the very limited ROE's meant many of the SAM sites couldn't be attacked and the missions were very predictable. So when the Vietnamese gunners saw Americans coming in at noon with 10 F-105's and 20 B-52's at 30,000 feet from the east, they knew the next day they would probably see the exact same attack package at the same time and altitude from the same direction, which makes their job easier. Americans sometimes planned ambushes to take advantage of that, coming in with dedicated air combat aircraft to lure the MIG's up against what they thought were slower and heavy bombing aircraft. Another random tidbit is when crews reported seeing new SAM systems they would fly special C-130's loaded with drones and electronic monitoring equipment to fool SAM operators into thinking a drone was an attacking F-105, get them to take a shot, then record the electronic signature and characteristics of the missile and radars to come up with effective counter tactics.
TLDR version: The plane wasn't designed for the mission but they were the best suited for the job, they had more dangerous missions, and the rules on engagement left them more exposed than they should have been.
Sources: Thud ridge & Bury us upside down