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#91
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Well, perhaps my definition of truck is too narrow. My "understatement" comes from Robert Pape's "Bombing To Win" (I think, I'm moving and can't find my copy), IIRC Pape states there was "a hundred or so 2 1/2 Ton trucks" (I'm paraphrasing). Perhaps there were smaller trucks in use that account for your personal experience? I frankly don't care what he states, he and/or his sources are wrong. 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. I am pretty sure tht in most cases the trucks came south in convoys of less than 100 but not always. Dependedoin where they were, under the junglecanopy or in the open where the trails were exposed. Specter could "see" through the jungle foliage and that is why it became a great truck killer. Evidence that the truck convoys moved a lot of supplies is the passes through hills west of the DMZ, such as Ban Karai and Mu Gia, and river fords were heavily attacked and defended throughout the war. There were tanks and SAMs in the south during the April 72 offensive. 100 "duece and a halfs" certainly couldn't haul them south. My flight got targeted by a slow FAC (c/s Nail IIRC) against a SAM transporter with two missiles on the trailer that apparently had gotten stuck in a river crossing near the DMZ. Apparently was real as there were some impressive secondaries. There were hulks of tanks in that area as well though I never caught any in the open. An offensive of this scale needed lots and lots of trucks to haul fuel, ammo, and parts, not to mention halling the tanks themselves.. If it made little difference then why were the bombers targeted against them in the first place? Because Nixon wanted B-52s over Hanoi. B-52 targeting in Hanoi was sometimes ridiculous. BUFFs were targeted against Radio Hanoi which consisted of a small building and a couple of antenna. 12 B-52s dropped weapons near Radio Hanoi without ever knocking it off the air. 4 were lost. Yeah, the nearest bomb missed by 800'. We got it the next day with four LGBs. I'grant you this one. I always wondered why the bombers even bothered with that one. 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 As far as Nixon was concerned, that was true, as long as the civilian casulties were kept to a minimum. The order from the President to just scatter bombs at random away from inhabited areas sure never made it down to the working level! There were a lot of energy, lives and materiel expended in actually trying to hit critical targets. I have a little trouble with the insinuation that it didn't matter if targets wre hit or not. That might have been true for the bombers; I can't speak for that. Certainly not for the tactical forces. My three daytime Linebackers against targets that the bombers missed certainly weren't just to scatter bombs. That may have been the situation in Cambodia near the bombing halt, but not in LB. 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 True, although I think "failed miserably" is a little too harsh. Night #2 saw no BUFFs lost and about average bombing accuracy. Giving the North Vietnamese no rest was an integral part of the plan. So was blowing away their infrastructure. That had already been accomplished for the most part by LB I. You are overlooking the difficulty in blowing away infrastructure in a thrid world country that has been bombed for years. The NVN were able to reconstitute pretty quickly. 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. The bridges had been partially reopened and the intell was that they had built up in the interim to greater than LB i levels. Damage from LB had destroyed much of the LOC infrastructure in the Panhandle but not in the Red River Delta area. It got hit again and you stated that was the reason why fewer and fewer missiles were fired on later LB II nights. 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. You are making my pointwhen you say the bombers got all the publicity. And you are making half of mine. 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? No; as in it doesn't really matter if the Kihn No Vehicle repair yard get hits tonight or not, as long as bombs land somewhere near it and the NVN government gets a personal, up close viewing. but you are making my point that history downplays the role of the fighters in LB II Like I said, you're making half of mine. All you have to do is admit that the accuracy of the weapons you dropped wasn't nearly as important as dropping them and you and I will be in agreement. 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. However, for the tactical forces that certainly wasn't the case by a long shot. I find your statement very startling. I can see how you can say that the bomber raids were purely political if you in fact feel that way. It certainly doesn't explain away the use of the laser guided bombs against critical targets. 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. BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" |
#92
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#93
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If you read the history of LB II, twenty years from now, you'll know
that two BUFF tail gunners killed MiG 21s. Today, while some of the participants are still around, we'll tell you that while it is remotely possible it is extremely unlikely. Well put Ed, as usual, far better than I ever could. Had my interview with Ray Sullivan today at the AF Museum for the LB II documentary. Interesting session. He told me that his dad was the Gen Sullivan mentioned in the accounts as the SAC senior officer who signed the SAC LB II impelementing order and was later "fired" into Air Rescue Service for opposing the LB II initial tactics as documented by Mitchell. My copy is loaned out and I don't recall the exact circumstances. He spoke very highly of you and has your bio and picture in a list of major contributors to the production.. Thus far he has 16 hours of interviews and Discovery Channel and Hstory Channel are going to pick it up but the date is still not nailed down.. He has talked at length to Karl Eschmann and Mike Mitchell. He will use Eschmann as a major source and probably as the lead in. Mitchell was involved from the start and the "11 Days" book was the seed for the documentary but he and Mitchell went their separate ways over disagreement on content and level of detail. He is well versed on all the controversy surrounding LB II but wants to tell the story from the viewpoints of the guys who were directly involved. This should a great documentary from the sound of it. The story will be told through filmed intereviews from the production cast and crew of Linebacker II rather than secondhand through the eyes of an author his own interpretations as we are debating here. . . |
#94
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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" |
#95
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My challenge has never been that historical compilation is inaccurate.
I've been contending that as long as we have first person accounts available, we can integrate the "official" record with the live on-scene experiences to get a considerably more accurate account. Not in all cases however. If I were to interview the two B-52D tail gunners credited for the two MiG kills, I would conclude that they actually shot down the two jets. If I expand my research and interview you and other F-4 MiGCAP guys, I would get a completely different version. If I then go to the the Vietnamese themselves, ask them to show me their records and discover that not only were no MiGs reported lost in the area in question, but that there were no MiGs airborn in that area during the time in question, I can reasonably conclude that no MiGs were shot down by B-52s. In many instances, availability of first-person recollections will result in correction of the historic records. As you can see above, as many times as it can set the facts straight, it can distort them. The real issue here is that on the one hand you are eager to discount first person US recollections on intensity of the fighting and simultaneously accept the NVN statements. Because the U.S. Marine is not really in a poistion to make an accurate statement regading NVN supplies, the NVN officer, and the NVN documented record is. Conversly, I would disregard NVN speculation about U.S. force issues and rely on the U.S. accounts and records. And, do you really mean to say that the NVA operating from the tunnels and jungle caves deep into SVN, short of "munition, food and POL" were devoting their time to meticulous record keeping? Not only did they keep good and accurate records, but nearly every solider kept a personal diary. If you've ever read Hal Moore's "We Were Soliders Once and Young", he can attest to the fact that nearly every enemy body recovered in LZ X-Ray had a personal diary on it. This while the massive US bureaucracy of MAC-V was simply doodling away on French cuisine and Eurasian whores? Maybe if the VC and NVA units had French food and whores their records would not be as meticulous as they are Long bomb trains walking up to and over discrete targets with one, two or three bombs out of the string possibly hitting the target---or in some instances ending before the target, starting after the target or paralleling the target but missing cleanly. I didn't mean to infer it was as easy in 1972 as it was in 1999, many improvements had been made to the BUFF release system that allowed us to drop very tight trains today, but it also wasn't so difficult that an airfield needed to be attacked by over 25 jets of all types. The runway at Bac Mai was unuseable after night #4 but BUFFs went back there the next night and the runway also received attention during the day. Perhaps it was "maintenance" bombing Ed, but that excuse doesn't hold true for the non-airfield targets. Khin No Railyard and vehicle repair complex was a total loss after night #2, but BUFFs went back there at least 4 more times. Khin No received over 4,000 weapons from B-52s alone and IIRC A-7s also visited there...and this was after LB I when it had also been hit...several times! Ahhh, Checkmate..."John Warden? I knew John Warden. John Warden was a friend of mine. And, frankly, Senator, you're no John Warden...." Nothing personal to your friend Ed, but I take that as a compliment. Read about Chuck Horner's dismissal of John Warden when setting up the offensive team for Desert Storm in Clancy's collaboration, "Every Man a Tiger." I have, great stuff, go Chuck! "blue-on-blue kill in 1971"? Sounds like some of that great history---no ops going in in MiG country in '71. Than it must have been '72, I'm reciting this from memory. The positions in the illustrations are wrong. The sequence of events is wrong. The ranges between aircraft are wrong. Even the location relative to the target and other flights is wrong. Now define; "wrong"...is it possible Ed, that you recalled it incorrectly. I'm not choosing sides in this one, just pointing out, as in the case of our fameous B-52 tail gunners, sometimes the participant is wrong. The only interview conducted to establish the definitive historic account was done eight months after the event with the flight lead in Wichita KS. Than I would conclude that unless one of you wrote it down immediately after the fact and verified it with other potential witnesses, that there is no way of knowing for sure what happened. You may be right...or he may be right, but as someone who was 4 years old at the time I can not accept either account as fact. No other participants were interviewed and the flight lead was not in a position to witness the entire engagement. Yet, that becomes the historic record. I believe much of the Air Force historical record is like that. A few months after ALLIED FORCE ended I got to read in the "Lessons Learned" about how B-52s required air refueling in order to provide a 2-hour XINT presence. Interesting since only one crew ever even saw a tanker during the entire operation, and that was so he could extend his *3-hour* XINT orbit to 5 hours. Whoever wrote that section confused B-1s and B-52s, but now that is documented Air Force history. By the way, the participants at the Lessons Learned conferance were all OAF participants as well.... For several years after LB II, Carl Jeffcoat who I mentioned earlier as being downed by a MiG 21 near Kep, believed that he was shot down by a member of the Hunter/Killer flight rather than an enemy aircraft. Maybe this was the case Checkmate looked at in the 80s? I know that the official Air Force history held it as fratricide until Checkmate concluded their study. Another F-4 driver, "Lucky" Anderreg led the study, but I don't think he was in LBII. BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" |
#96
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Had my interview with Ray
Sullivan today at the AF Museum for the LB II documentary. Interesting session. He told me that his dad was the Gen Sullivan mentioned in the accounts as the SAC senior officer who signed the SAC LB II impelementing order and was later "fired" into Air Rescue Service for opposing the LB II initial tactics as documented by Mitchell. My copy is loaned out and I don't recall the exact circumstances. He spoke very highly of you and has your bio and picture in a list of major contributors to the production.. Thus far he has 16 hours of interviews and Discovery Channel and Hstory Channel are going to pick it up but the date is still not nailed down.. He has talked at length to Karl Eschmann and Mike Mitchell. He will use Eschmann as a major source and probably as the lead in. Mitchell was involved from the start and the "11 Days" book was the seed for the documentary but he and Mitchell went their separate ways over disagreement on content and level of detail. He is well versed on all the controversy surrounding LB II but wants to tell the story from the viewpoints of the guys who were directly involved. This should a great documentary from the sound of it. The story will be told through filmed intereviews from the production cast and crew of Linebacker II rather than secondhand through the eyes of an author his own interpretations as we are debating here. . . Sounds like a great show, I can't wait. Although I am concerned that Michel left over a disagreement. Out of him and Eschmann, I find Michel's book much better documented and supported. Eschmann's book contains both the myth about the BUFF-MiG shoot downs and the "hybrid" FAN SONG-LOW BLOW radar. Michel gets the word right from the horses mouth on both those issues. BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" |
#97
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#98
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Subject: Friendly Fire Notebook
From: (BUFDRVR) Date: 4/21/04 3:39 AM Pacific Daylight Time Message-id: As you know, an airfield is a very difficult target to disable. Not with 108 bombs its not! Come on Ed, I split the runways at Batajanica with a B-52 two-ship with a grand total of 90 weapons. 2 more two-ships followed Piece of cake with 56 Marauders dropping a total of 448 500 pounders on it. Runways unuseable, hanger wrecked, machine shops and ordnance facilites in flames, barracks gone, bomb dumps all exploded and fuel dumps throwing flames up to our alltitude.Planes on the ground all burning. It was what we bombardiers live for. But that was a different war at a different time. Arthur Kramer 344th BG 494th BS England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany Visit my WW II B-26 website at: http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer |
#100
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.. .
Sounds like a great show, I can't wait. Although I am concerned that Michel left over a disagreement. Out of him and Eschmann, I find Michel's book much better documented and supported. Eschmann's book contains both the myth about the BUFF-MiG shoot downs and the "hybrid" FAN SONG-LOW BLOW radar. Michel gets the word right from the horses mouth on both those issues. Checkout the web page. http://www.teleproductiongroup.com/12_72-main.html Lots of extracts from the interviews. Ed's mug is there and I suppose mine will there there eventually. Karl is there as well. Ray really bit on some of my wildass tales, oops, I meant accounts. The outcome will truly be interesting. I have known Karl for a long time. .We were stationed at Tinker and Korat together. I have always known him to be a man of high integrity. I don't know Michael. I am not in a position to say who is right or wrong here but I know the accounts of the MiG shootdowns and the hybrid radar were pretty convincing to me when I heard them at Korat. Michael's book contains other information that desn't pass the logic test to me so I guess we each have to judge for ourselves. Karl's original manuscript reads like a medical examiners report and everything else in the book seems quite precise and acurate almost to a fault. MIchael apparently was a lot more into nitty gtitty details of LB II than Ray wanted to go. This isn't meant to be a definitive history just an account from the eyes and ears of the people who particpated including the maintainers, rescuers, and POWs. Steve. |
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