I
personally saw hundreds of trucks that our intel said were similar to our own
2
1/2 T to 5 T trucks, parked in a marshalling yard just inside the PRC buffer
zone that we were fragged against in LB I.

Trucks parked near the PRC buffer zone were not the trucks in use along the Ho
Chi Mihn trail in SVN, Laos and Cambodia.

There were tanks and SAMs in the south during the April 72 offensive. 100
"duece and a halfs" certainly couldn't haul them south.

Now you're mixing apples and oranges. The easter offensive in '72 was a true
conventional offensive and as such, was supplied like one. The "hundred or so
trucks" I referred to were the ones used to haul supplies to VC forces in SVN.
The logistics pipeline for the Easter offensive was what you would expect for
any nation supporting a 3 division offensive, that's what made it such an easy
target and why the Freedom Porch missions were so successful.

The order from the President to just scatter bombs at random away from
inhabited areas sure never made it down to the working level!

Obviously the EXORD wasn't for "random bomb scattering", it was for round the
clock maximum effort bombing against any legal target in NVN, including
previously restricted targets in Hanoi. The military did what they were
supposed to and went after what they determined to be critical targets. The
fact the military took the CJCS order and turned it into as sound a military
operation as they could, doesn't change the fact that Nixon didn't really care
what damage was inflicted, his purpose was political, not military.

There were a
lot of energy, lives and materiel expended in actually trying to hit
critical
targets.

The problem is, by DEC 72, there were very little "critical targets" left and
by Day #6 there were nearly zero. The only critical targets remaining were
SAMs, radars and dikes and dams and the legality of striking them is
debateable.

I have a little trouble with the insinuation that it didn't matter if
targets wre hit or not.

Then tell me, what critical targets were hit and what problems was it causing
for the NVN that forced them to return to Paris (to sign an agreement they were
ready to sign in OCT 72)?

That might have been true for the bombers; I can't
speak for that. Certainly not for the tactical forces.

I'm sorry, but testimony from nearly all major players on both sides attest to
the fact that; the NVN were not experiencing any drastic effects (not already
experienced from LB I) of *any* bombing and that Nixon ordered LBII, not to
disrupt any specific NVN infrastructure, but to show resolve and convince the
NVN that the U.S. was capable of unrestricted bombing.

My three daytime
Linebackers against targets that the bombers missed certainly weren't just to
scatter bombs.

Militarily, you're right, but the ultimate objective was political not
military.

You are overlooking the difficulty in blowing away infrastructure in a thrid
world country that has been bombed for years.

Yes, keep going with that thought and you'll realize that the damage inflicted
during LB II caused little additional hardships on the NVN government or
people. The B-52 bombings were quite a psychological shock (as POWs and NVN
attest to), but never to such a degree that anyone in Hanoi pressured the
government to go back to Paris.

The NVN were able to
reconstitute pretty quickly.

What they were able to reconstitute from LB I made little difference in regards
to the offensive in the south or in the lives of anyone up north.

You allude to references that say the materiel
was there in LBII but the NVN weren't able to get it where it was needed to
rearm and reload. That infrastructure was somewhat rebuilt after LBI and hit
again in LB II.

It wasn't the infrastructure damage that kept them from resupplying their SAM
batterys, it was you in an F-4 and the fact that resupplying Guideline missiles
is a fairly slow and highly visable process.

I Personally don't
buy the argument that the NVN really didn't run out of missiles but if in
fact
we did destroy their missile assembly and tranportation infrastructure, then
you are arguing against yourself.

The only damage to the NVN Air Defense system was on the SAM batterys and
associated radars themselves. Michel wonders out loud in his book, why a
concerted effort wasn't made from the beginning of LBII to find the SAM storage
areas. Obviously someone *thought* they knew where they were, as several B-52
sorties targeted "SAM storage areas", but none of those targets up till night
#11 stored anything related to NVN Air Defense. On night # 11 when a 3-ship of
B-52D models attacked the Trai Ca SAM storage area, we hit pay dirt. According
to NVN reports "hundreds" of surface-to-air missiles, both Guideline and
tactical varients were destroyed. Most people would say; "see, when Trai Ca got
hit that's when the NVN decided to return to Paris". This would be incorrect,
Le Duc Tho had already informed the State department on Day #9 that they were
willing to return to Paris to sign the original agreement. Nixon continued the
bombing for another 2 days and nights to insure Le Duc Tho kept his word.

You have got to be kidding! Never having been in SAC I can't speak to the
bomber employment philosophy and that might explain why the bombers missed a
lot of targets.

First, I would question that B-52s "missed *a lot* of their targets. Prior to
night #3 they missed several due to the already mentioned wind problem, but
besides that their accuracy was within advertised unguided CEP, with the
exception being the guys who were fighting for their lives with Guideline
missiles.

However, for the tactical forces that certainly wasn't the
case by a long shot.

I'll have to disagree, the ultimate objective was political, not military and
as such, any damage you did was secondary to the fact you just did damage.

It certainly doesn't explain away the use of the laser guided bombs
against critical targets.

Sure it does, the military took purely political objectives (actually not
transmitted to the forces, but they took the vague Presidential guidance)
converted them to military objectives and executed the mission. You can argue
against this all you want, but all you have to do is pick up Nixon's memoirs
and read for yourself.

You paint is as more of a case of the bombers being
sent to Hanoi just to keep the people awake while the tactical forces did the
real work.

The bombers were a bold political statement, used to make the strongest point
Nixon could, the fighters were also a political statement, allowing 24 hour ops
and debilitating the NVN efforts to defend themselves after the sun went down.


BUFDRVR

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