Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 13:34:00 -0700, "Leadfoot"
wrote:

Thats a campaign, not a mission

Same for Linebacker II.

Some one else posted linebacker II not me. I did consider it and decided it
was a campaign not a mission when I started the thread

I'd think that maybe 11 days might be closer to a battle, but if you
want it to be called campaign, then let's just go with December
18/19th night. One hundred fifty BUFF sorties scheduled and most of
them flown into an area the size of Rhode Island. Accompanied by a
bunch of F-111's against the airfields and followed up with the full
force of all the USAF/USN airplanes in theater the next day, hitting
virtually every worthwhile (and many sub-worthwhile) targets in RP VI
within 24 hours.

Looked pretty impressive from my seat.

No doubt, Ed.

I'd call the whole Linebacker II campaign a strategic success. As I
remember, the North Vietnamese had walked away from the Paris negotiations,
and had to be 'persuaded' to come back. Seems like taking the gloves off
worked.

I don't know how long we could have sustained that level of losses,
specially the BUFFs, but I'm reasonably sure the NV thought we'd go as long
as we had to. If only we'd done it earlier...

| George Ruch
| "Is there life in Clovis after Clovis Man?"