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.

I don't disagree with you relative to overstating numbers . My body, truck,
and tonnage of enemy supplies destroyed counts were ridiculous at times. I am
trying point out that you are very much understating, at least with respect to
my own personal observations. I've enough pre/post strike recce photos of
truck parks and convoys to know that there were a lot of trucks, numbering int
he hundreds, certainly more than the hundred you mentioned unless you want to
tell me those photos wre faked.

I wasn't impressed one way or the other by the accounts of LB I and II when I
went through SOS and ACSC. The AWC readings were shown to me by an 0-4 and an
0-5 who were taking AWC by correspondence. I understand they upset a few folks
when they pointed out the errors in the photos to the staff.



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.

Possibly for some but not all the daytime targets that were struck. If it made
little difference then why were the bombers targeted against them in the first
place? You seem to be building a case that the the only thing that mattered
was having the bombers scatter bombs all over the country side whether they hit
anything or not, scaring the government back to the table and i don't quite
hold that view. My own opinion is that the bombers failed miserably until HQ
SAC got its collective head out of its ass, paid some attention to what the TAC
guys had learned the hard way, and then the collective actions of both forces
convinced the NVN there was no future in their current strategy once they
started losing assets..


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.

So was blowing away their infrastructure.




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

The pathfinders usually operated above 15,000' to stay out of small arms and
lighter AAA.like 23 and 37 mm.




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.


Certainly did in the ACSC reading I referred to above.

You are making my pointwhen you say the bombers got all the publicity. Same
difference. Several who have challenged that viewpoint have become pariahs,
Dana Drenkowski for one.




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

Depends what effect you were looking for...


As in the very first Arc Light in VN, that splintered 400 acres of jungle
killed four monkeys and was hailed as a great psychological victory?




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

I read that too but I don't agree. The missile firings dropped off after Day
3.


They were low on everything which also explains why the daytime AAA was so
light. I was over Hanoi and saw the sky go from absolutelyclear to totally
undercast from AAA. I never saw that in the daytime sorties I flew in LBII.
You are making my point about why their follow-on warfighiing capability was
set back by the fighter strikes. Whether the changed B-52 tactics or lack of
operation missiles reduced bomber losses is almost a moot point but you are
making my point that history downplays the role of the fighters in LB II


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


I have the book and have read it a couple of times. I agree with nearly all he
has written. I guess we just see the accounts he describes differently. He
does quote a squadron mate, Rex Rivolo, in several places.but there isn't a
vast amount written about the daytime fighter sorties.




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.


There must have been quite a few SAM shooters getting disciplined that night
then. . One crew in our squadron had one fired at them, dodged it, then took
it down again for another. The backseater saw the altimeter unwind to zero as
they bottomed out in the pullup, but the SAM missed. It was the backseater's
first mission in country.

The F-111s operated far too low to be targeted once they were out onto the Red
River delta and in SAM country.