Transcript Early Flight to World War I

Vietnam
Part 2
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Uses of Airpower
Background
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Vietnam War was primarily a land war
• Most air power used in conjunction with
ground ops
North stayed above DMZ, so air superiority
over the South was never a concern
In-country operations centered around:
interdiction, close air support, airlift, recon, search
and rescue, and air refueling
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Background
• After Gulf of Tonkin, air units built up rapidly
• US Air Force occupied 10 major air bases
• All were built and defended by the Air Force
• Huge logistical effort
• Also flew from 6 bases in Thailand
• Navy flew from carriers in Gulf of Tonkin
• B-52s flew from Guam-- at times even from US
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Uses of Air Power
During Vietnamization
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Train the South Vietnamese
Air Force (VNAF)
Support the South
Vietnamese Army
Forestall suspected enemy
attacks against withdrawing
American units
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Uses of Air Power
Interdiction
• A major mission during SEA war
• Aircraft used: F-4 Phantom, F-100 Super Sabre, F105 Thunderchief (Thud), AC-130 Gunships
• Best known interdiction aircraft was the B-52: a
nuclear bomber modified to carry conventional
weapons
• Arc Light--Name for B-52 interdiction missions
F-100 Supersabre
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Uses of Air Power
Close Air Support
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Missions to support forces of the ground
Aircraft used: A-4 Skyhawk, F-4, F-100, A-37
Dragonfly, A-1 Skyraider and AC-47 Gunships
(Puff the Magic Dragon)
Gunships, cargo aircraft armed with rapid-fire
machine guns, were very effective
Forward Air Controllers (FACs) were used to
locate the enemy and mark targets for faster
flying jets
A-4 Skyhawk
A-1 Skyraider
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Uses of Air Power
Close Air Support
 B-52 Arc Light aircraft were occasionally
used for close air support
 B-52 were used extensively in close air
support at Khe Sanh
• Flew 2,548 sorties and dropped bombs
within 300 yards of of U.S. Marine
perimeter
 B-52 credited with saving Khe Sanh and
repelling the Tet and Easter Offensives
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Uses of Air Power
Tactical Airlift
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Vital to successful US operations because
of poor security on roads
Aircraft used: UH-1 Hueys, C-7 Caribous,
C-123 Providers, and C-130 Hercules
Missions often flown while under attack
Supplies often air-dropped because of
enemy fire and poor landing facilities
A major factor in keeping Khe Sanh alive
C-123 Provider
C-7 Caribou
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Uses of Air Power
Reconnaissance
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Aircraft used: RF-4C, RB-57 Canberra, and RB-66
Destroyers
Aircraft were equipped with variety of cameras
and sensing devices
Missions consisted of locating lucrative targets
and assessing battle damage
A valuable part of repelling Tet and protecting
Khe Sanh
RB 57 Canberra
RB 66 Destroyer
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Uses of Air Power
Search and Rescue
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An extremely important part of the air
support mission throughout Southeast
Asia
Buttressed aircrew morale -- fliers knew
every effort would be made to save them if
shot down
Aircraft used: HH-3 Jolly Green Giants and
HH-53 Super Jolly Greens
By’73, USAF had rescued 3,883 Americans
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Uses of Air Power
Air to Air Refueling
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Indispensable -- extended the range of combat
aircraft and enabled many aircraft to return safely
C-130s refueled helicopters, KC-135s refueled
fixed wing aircraft
SAC tankers flew 195,000 sorties, unloaded 9
billion pounds of fuel and took part in 814,000
individual refuelings
C-130 Refueling
KC-135 Tanker
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Major Campaigns
“Rolling Thunder”
• Officially began 2 March 1965
• Objectives
• Interdict the flow of supplies from the
North
• Force the North to stop supporting the
Vietcong and quit the war
• Raise South Vietnamese morale
RF 4 Phantom
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Rolling Thunder (con’t)
• Strategic bombing and interdiction campaign
• Strategic because it was aimed at the North’s will
to wage war
• Interdiction because the North had few large
industries and got most of their material from
China and the Soviet Union
• Employed mostly tactical aircraft -- F-105s, F4s and F-111s -- B-52s used in ‘66 in the
Southern part of North Vietnam
F-111
F-105
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Rolling Thunder
Restrictions
 Johnson administration controlled campaign
tightly
 Restriction imposed by civilians included:
• Hanoi, Haiphong, China border -- off
limits
• MIG bases and non-firing SAM sites--off
limits
• Dams, dikes, hydroelectric plants--off
limits
 White House selected targets, weapons and
flying routes -- with little military input
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Rolling Thunder
 Graduated increases in bombing
intensity worked to advantage of
North Vietnamese
• Gave them time to recover from
damage
• Allowed them to establish the world’s
most intense antiaircraft defense
system
• Provided them the will to fight on and
a sense they could survive
 By 1965, it became clear that
Rolling Thunder didn’t work
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Rolling Thunder
 Impacts
• South’s morale improved as the North suffered under
the bombing
• North used frequent halts and restrictions to repair
damage and resupply forces in South
• Criticism grew at home and internationally
 Johnson ended Rolling Thunder prior to 1968
elections
 Campaign, America’s longest, was a failure
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Major Campaigns
“Linebacker I”
• Easter Offensive (Mar 72) made it apparent
the North was not willing to negotiate
• Objectives of Linebacker
• Initially a close air support effort to aid retreating
South Vietnamese forces
• Later, changed to an interdiction campaign against
North Vietnam
• A systematic campaign with little civilian control -unlike Rolling Thunder
B 52 Stratofortress
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Linebacker I (con’t)
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Civilian casualties were a consideration but
didn’t determine how missions were flown
Haiphong harbor was mined for the first time
to restrict in-coming supplies for the North
Strikes were flown over Hanoi and Haiphong -B-52 strikes on Haiphong began April ‘72
“Smart bombs’ were used extensively
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Linebacker I (con’t)
• Linebacker I was the most successful US
bombing campaign of the war
• Had more impact on the North Vietnam in 9
months than Rolling Thunder did in 4
years
 Successful largely because Easter Offensive
was a conventional, mechanized attack
• Peace Talks resumed in July 1972
• Nixon restricted Linebacker I attacks to
below the 20th parallel
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Major Campaigns
“Linebacker II”
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Peace Talks stalled again in
Dec 72
Nixon ordered Linebacker II to
run concurrently with
Linebacker I
Purpose of Linebacker II was to
force the North Vietnamese to
negotiate and sign a peace
treaty
Ran from 18 Dec to 30 Dec 1972
-- referred to as the “Christmas
Campaign”
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Linebacker II (con’t)
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Very intense and logistically complex
Specific targets in Hanoi and Haiphong
B-52s used for the first time over Hanoi
By the end of Linebacker II, North Vietnam was
defenseless
• 1,200 SAMs were fired
• 80% of the North’s electrical
systems and 25% of their POL
facilities were destroyed
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Linebacker II (con’t)
• North Vietnam returned to the bargaining
table 30 Dec 72
• All bombing ceased on 15 Jan 73
• Peace treaty was signed on 27 Jan 73
• Linebacker II was a success
• Some believe that if Rolling Thunder had
been conducted like Linebacker II, the war
would have ended in ‘65 -- unlikely
http://www.davka.org/what/theleft/peoplespeacetreatyvietnam.html
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VIDEO
Vietnam
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The Vietnam War
Lessons Learned
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The U.S. can’t win a counterinsurgency war in
another country, only that country can
Force and technology are of limited value in a
“people’s war”
National leaders must base decisions on realistic
assessments before committing troops
“Graduated response” is an ineffective way to employ
airpower
Know your enemy and know yourself
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More Lessons Learned
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Congressional and public support is critical to winning
limited war objectives
Congressional and public support for war is hard to
get
Modern war is open to public scrutiny and on-scene
television coverage
Those who know most about fighting a war should be
the ones to conduct it.
We need revolutionary technology, not evolutionary.
We needed precision munitions. We needed to move
from many aircraft on one target to one aircraft on
many targets.
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