The two targets I mentioned were included in the lists of
targets destroyed in the ACSC and Air War College texts.

Which include "documented facts" on how 8th Air Force won WW in Europe. See my
earlier posts for my opinion of AF PME.

Don't believe
all you read unless the author was there himself.

That's ridiculous. Using that logic there is only one "believeable" book on the
Peloponnesian War. Conversely, according to you I could right a definitive work
on Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, which wouldn't be worth the cost of the paper
because I was so deeply buried in B-52 stuff (flying and mission planning),
that the "big picture" blew right by me.

I never cared much about BDA numbers
but I understood them to be fairly accurate from recce photos and from
Specter's night vision and IR gear.

Except that the over inflated truck count is now a documented fact and one of
the accurate things taught at SOS and ASCS (I'm not sure about Air War
College). Recently there was a program on the Discovery Channel that
highlighted the Ho Chi Mihn Trail vehicle repair facilities and pointed out
that many of the trucks on the trail were "destroyed" several times over.

Not sure you can say that damage was a secondary concern.

It was, at least for the politicians who ordered the operation.

If so then why were the LGB and Loran bombers sent up in the daylight to go
after targest that the bombers had missed?

Because it made military sense to do that, however it would have made little
difference in the end had the targets not been re-struck.

Certainly would have been easier for
the fighter bases that were having to put sorties up around the clock. I
flew
a 18 hour crew duty day with two sorties over RP 6 on Day 2/3.

Giving the North Vietnamese no rest was an integral part of the plan.

SAC couldn't hit a point target with strings of up to 300 bombs in a
crosswind
or wind shear in other words?

Nope. The BUFF OAS calculates a release using the winds at altitude, should
those winds change drastically on the way down, it could have a significant
impact on accuracy. It happened in LB II, then again in DS. It was fixed after
DS.

We managed reasonably well with the LORAN
equipped
A-6s, F-111As, and F-4s.

Not sure about the F-4s, but neither the F-111 or A-6 was dropping from inside
or above the jet stream. If the F-4 has that capability great, its too bad they
didn't give it to the BUFF following Vietnam, we could have used over
Iraq/Kuwait.

An A-6 with two flights of three waqs accurate enough
to nearly destroy the DaNang POL facility when the BN forgot to switch
steering
from his offset aimpoint to his target

A BUFF could do that from 5,000' AGL too. Its a whole different story at
30,000+' AGL.

That revisonist history tries to say that the bombers won the war and any
contribution from the fighters was purely coincidental.

I've never read anything that infers that, however, I will admit that the
bombers definitely have gotten more publicity.

but I don't believe the bombing was all that effective..

Depends what effect you were looking for...

What brought the North back to the bargaining
table was the threat that the bombing was going to become a lot more
effective.

What brought them back to the *signing* table was the fact that congress was
going to let the bombing continue; that and we told them (through the Swedish
ambassador I believe) that we were ready to sign the original agreement.

They were running out of missiles

Marshall L. Michel's book "The 11 Days of Christmas" attributes this to myth.
He supports this claim with interviews from NV SAM operators and commanders.
They were never short of missiles in Hanoi (they did have trouble getting them
out to some of the sites, but were given a reprieve when night strikes in Hanoi
decreased markedly night #5 through #7 when the BUFFs went to targets outside
Hanoi). The missile firings decreased because the bombers began to make the
operators job much more difficult with varied routing.

and fuel

They had been low on fuel since May due to LB I. LBII had little to no impact
on NV POL stores.

I don't think it wold have
happened as it did if NVN had more missiles.

See above, or better yet, pick up Michel's book. Although, be forwarned, it
includes very little about you fighter guys.

I sat in an orbit over downtown
for 15 minutes on Day 3 until a single cloud drifted away from the target the
the Ubon LGB guys were after. We had a total of seven rounds of 57 mm fired
at
us at 15,000'. It was a good day for sightseeing

The NV SAM operators were under strict orders to fire SAMs at only F-111s or
B-52s. The one guy interviewed said he took a shot at an F-4 on night #1 and
was very concerned he would face disciplinary action.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"