I woulen't exactly call a 50 ship Linebacker a sortie.



What's a Linebacker?


Arthur Kramer

You pullin' my leg here or just haven't been readig the dialog here for the
last couple of years?

I'd say you will have to wait for Ed's next book but I wil cut you some slack
because I've enjoyed your WWII stories.

Linebacker was the code name for Nixon's air campaign against North Vietnam in
1972 as Rolling Thunder was under Johnson inprevious years. There were two
phases. LB One involved mostly fighter ops and LB Two was a concentrated
campaign using B-52s over RP 6.

A Linebacker mission involved fighters, fighter-bombers or bombers, escorts,
comm, early warning, combat air patrols (CAP), pre and post strike recon,
tankers, airborne command and control, rescue, jammers, electronic intel
(ELINT), among other functions. On the order of a large heavy bomber strike in
the ETO. Same tonnage of bombs, just needed fewer planes to deliver. Usually
50 - 100 planes or so.