Friendly Fire Notebook

You might say the 8th
didn't destroy German industry, but you could just as easily suggest
that lack of petroleum products, lack of precision machine tooling,
lack of ball-bearings, lack of a viable transportation network, etc.
won the war.

Except that the only real shortage they had that you listed was
petroleum....and eventually land as the Army rolled into Germany. The 8th AF
bombing campaign depleted POL stores and forced Germany to use men and
equipment to defend from air strikes that otherwise would have been used with
front line units. Except, at SOS and even ACSC you'll "learn" the 8th AF
bombing campaign "won the war in Europe".

For a stone age country, the seemed to generate an incredible number
of electronic emissions, starting with the early warning radar that
would ping us on the tankers through the command/control that
integrated the MiGs, SAMs and AAA fire.

Thanks to the Soviets and Chinese certain parts of their military were in the
20th Century, but most of their military (supplied via Schwinn bicycle) and the
infrastructure and population were not far removed from at least the Bronze
Age.

Or maybe the transportation
that managed to ship arms and materiel to sustain the combat
operations in the south.

Ed, that transportation network consisted of a hundred or so WW II era French
trucks and a few hundred bicycles. Hardly "hi-tech".

I think the simple cause/effect relationship of recalcitrance in
Nov-Dec, then in just eleven days an agreement is signed and within
six weeks C-141s are flying in and out of Gia Lam bringing the POWs
home is all the proof required.

That's simply wrong. Yes, LB II was a *part* of making the above happen, but to
claim it was the single reason, or even the main reason is wrong. If Nixon and
Kissenger had not stiff armed Thieu into blessing the already agreed upon peace
plan, LB II would have lasted until congress returned from break and voted to
suspend all funding for the war in SE Asia. You're trying to make a simple
cause-effect relationship out of a situation with more than two "moving parts".
However, what you say is also being taught in Air Force PME, which IMHO is
tragic.

Absolutely true, Santayna. The lesson of LB II taken in the context of
an eight year war against NVN is that the Powell/Bush doctrine is
correct---don't enter a war without a clear objective. Once committed,
win quickly with overwhelming force. When victory is achieved have a
defined exit strategy.

If you think the lesson of LB II is something different, you're in the
wrong business.

I'd say your first statement is the lesson learned from the entire conflict.
The lesson learned from LB II is that air power can be as much a political
weapon as a military one and used in conjunction with political forces can
allow the U.S. to achieve limited political objectives. The lesson being
taught, and the wrong one IMHO is; If we had just done LB II in 1965, the war
would have ended in 1966.Or; LB II ended the war because of the tremendous
damage we caused to the North Vietnamese, forcing them to sue for peace
(without admitting they had already agreed to it).


BUFDRVR

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

BUFDRVR wrote:

Thanks to the Soviets and Chinese certain parts of their military were in the
20th Century, but most of their military (supplied via Schwinn bicycle) and the
infrastructure and population were not far removed from at least the Bronze
Age.

Or maybe the transportation
that managed to ship arms and materiel to sustain the combat
operations in the south.

Ed, that transportation network consisted of a hundred or so WW II era French
trucks and a few hundred bicycles. Hardly "hi-tech".

Damn! I had no idea that the hundreds of NVN trucks
we destroyed in Laos during 1970/71 had left them with
so few vehicles at home, just a year or so later.

Damn! I had no idea that the hundreds of NVN trucks
we destroyed in Laos during 1970/71 had left them with
so few vehicles at home, just a year or so later.

First, the "hundred or so trucks" I referred to were the ones in use on the Ho
Chi Mihn trail, not delivering goods in downtown Hanoi. Secondly, throughout
the war, post-strike assesments of trucks destroyed was so overly inflated that
by late 1968, we had destroyed more trucks on the trail then North Vietnam had
in the entire country. The CIA doesn't have a very good reputation now, but
during Vietnam they were very accurate and routinely cut in half or even thirds
the reported destroyed vehicle reports. They also were very accurate in their
assesment of the effect we had on NVN POL stores.


BUFDRVR

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