The road was,
according to his on-the-ground description, "wide enough for a pair of
deuce-and-a-halfs, side-by-side."

I fail to see how this refutes the position that only 100 (or so) trucks were
stationed and operated on the Ho Chi Mihn Trail?

It increased
drastically in the next year and by '67 was massive. That amount of
manpower consumes a lot more in the field than 100 trucks could
deliver.

Nope. I realize you're not a Clodfelter fan, but throughout Rolling Thunder the
supply requirement in SVN remained consistant and Clodefelter's data comes from
Vietnamese sources including captured documents as well as NSC estimates. On
page 134-135 in his book Clodefelter states; "Hanoi had only 55,000 North
Vietnamese Army troops in the South by August 1967; the remaining 245,000
Communist soliders were Viet Cong. None of these forces engaged in frequent
combat, and the Viet Cong intermingled with the southern populace. As a
result, Communist supply needs were minimal. Enemy battalions fought an
average of one day in thirty and had a total daily supply requirement of
roughly 380 tons. Of this amount, the Communists needed only 34 tons a day
from sources outside the South. Seven 2 1/2 ton trucks could transport the
requirement, which was less than 1 percent of the daily tonnage imported into
North Vietnam."

Here's the breakdown--is it a hundred or so, or is it thousands?

Are you intentionally doing this? OK...lets call it 1,100 trucks. 1,000 trucks
operating north of the 20th parallel and 100 trucks working the Ho Chi Mihn
Trail. By the way, I have no friggin' idea how many truck were working north of
20-degrees, I only offer it to make my point as clear as I can!

The implication of your earlier
statement was that LB II was lemons out of Washington that the
military (theater commanders and operators) turned into lemonade.

Well, I wouldn't call Nixon's order a Lemon, just vague on details. The JCS
took the vague order and put it into a militarily executeable plan.

You then cited the day 11 raid on a SAM storage area. I was
saying that defensive reaction throughout RP VI had become minimal by
day 6.

Minimal for whom? When BUFFs returned to Hanoi on night 8, two were hit by
SA-2's and 4 more would be shot down or damage by the time the whole thing
ended three nights later. I hardly call that minimal.

Resupply might be easier in the jungle because of concealment by the
canopy, but it is considerably more difficult because of lack of
navigable roads.

I agree, but we're not taking about speedy transportation of Guidelines from
Haiphong, we're talking about resupply operations at the site. Much more
visable near Hanoi then points south.

The SA-2 is a large missile and the TEL is a big
piece of equipment for a jungle trail.

I'm sure it was a bitch to get it out there, but I bet those guys had far less
attacks on them then the guys working Hanoi in DEC '72.

Keep in mind that even today the folks that Marsh was talking to in
Hanoi are living in a strictly regimented Communist society.

He was allowed access to records as well. Doesn't sound to me like they were
hiding anything.


BUFDRVR

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