On 19 Apr 2004 22:00:08 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

That logistic analysis sounds real good at the micro-fiche machine,
but if you'll talk to some Marines who were at Khe Sanh and Hue in MR
I and some ARVN and US troops at An Loc in MR III, you'll find that
the bad guys seemed to be doing just fine regarding supplies.

Which would show you why first hand accounts aren't always the best pieces of
info. Post war interviews with NVA regulars engaged in the Easter offensive
attest to severe shortages, including the tale of a young NVA 2nd Lt., sent
into battle with an AK-47 and a sidearm with no ammo. For every NVA unit with
"just fine supplies" there were two others with *none*.

Seems to me that you can't have it both ways. If on scene US observers
aren't reliable sources of information, why should lowest level,
in-the-jungle, low-tech, guerillas on the enemy side be more reliable?

And you haven't explained to me when Phuc Yen, Kep, Cat Bi, Hoa Lo and
Yen Bai airfields were struck during LB.

They weren't. I never claimed *every* LBII target was a "repeat", but a great
majority were. And even those new targets (like Phuc Yen and Kep airfields)
were hit repeatedly, beyond what kind of "maintenance" bombing you would do to
keep an airfield shutdown. Come on Ed, B-52s alone dropped nearly 1,000 bombs
on the Kep airfield. Other non-airfield targets got hit with as much as 4 times
that amount. All in 11 days!

Dare I say that the Kep strikes by the BUFFs didn't close the airfield
down? Recall that two MiG-21 kills were awarded to B-52 gunners? (I'm
not saying they happened, merely that they were credited.) Also note
that on 27 Dec. Maj. Carl Jeffcoat and 1/lt Jack Trimble were shot
down in daylight by a Mig-21 flying out of Kep. I engaged a pair of
MiG-21s on Dec 23rd, out of Phuc Yen. And, on Dec. 26th put four
CBU-52 on the N. end of the relatively unblemished runway of Yen Bai
during egress on a H/K mission near Hanoi.

And, you might note, that if the archives told you that SAM
sites were specifically targeted during LB II, they fibbed.

Well, if you have Marshall Michel's phone number, you better give him a ring
because he (and at least three other authors) claim that on night #9 B-52s went
after SA-2 sites including the "infameous" VN-563 site (I think that was the
number?). Karl Eschmann lists 8 SAM sites as B-52 targets and 7 SAM sites as
F-111 targets in his book.

The operative word on those targettings is "probable". Regular
locations for the highly mobile SA-2 units were listed as VN numbers,
but few of them were occupied during LB II. We often carried 8x10 BxW
glossies of known sites taken by recent RF-4 runs as a backup. The
priority was attack sites that fired on us or the strike package,
attack sites that we fired Shrikes at, and finally F-4s in the lead to
visual recce SAM possible sites.

Talking to Marshall in December last, he was in Hanoi researching his
next book. I asked him for a photo of the site on the downtown lake
(peninsula on the E. shore, still has a network of roads on it--now a
park). Marsh reported that there never was a site on that location. I
led the H/K element that killed the site on 12/21 in a scene that was
reminiscent of the SAM City finale of Flight of the Intruder. There
was most definitely a SAM site at that location.

SAM sites
were too mobile for specific targeting and were always response
targets for the Hunter/Killer flights.


Not according to nearly every reference source I've seen....

Then you need to meet some Weasels. From the earliest days of F-100F
Weasels to the end of the war with third generation F-105Gs, we could
never be sure of exactly where a SAM site was going to pop up. While
early ('64-65) sites were classic Star-of-David bladed and surveyed
bases, in very short order they disappeared from view and became
heavily camouflaged and a "shell game" of which one is going to have
someone home.

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8