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"..on December 30, 1972, after eleven days of those B-52 attack...
On Mar 27, 11:21*am, Planet Visitor II wrote:
On Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:02:48 -0700 (PDT), David Walters wrote: The person posting this doesn't even know what a "military victory" means. It is, in the final analysis, the ability of one side to *completely overwhelm* the opponent OR to force the opponent to make the *political* choice that the loses are to great to continue do to resources (both military and human), capital destruction, national dismemberment, etc etc. Basically the argument that the US did "not lose" is the same one Hitler used to explain Germany's defeat at the end of WWI. It's a non- argument. Umm... The non-argument is that Hitler was even alive to "explain" Germany's defeat at the end of WW II. 30 April 1945 -- Hitler commits suicide in Berlin bunker. 7 May 1945 -- 02:41 Germany signs instrument of surrender in Reims, France. 8 May 1945 -- 23:01 All forces under German control cease active operations. It is true that had the US continued the bombing the Vietnamese would of been forced to the table once again. General Giap notes this in his interviews on the Christmas Bombings (while Nixon was in Beijing, as it happens) But wars are not fought as "what ifs". That is they are fought "as is". The US *was militarily defeated* by Vietnam.'' Pardon me, but General Giap would hardly be the one to admit that the U.S. did not lose militarily. *It's like asking a Muslim if he believes in Allah. The US was *militarily defeated* because it's loses of B-52, Could we have that in English? *Obviously your views must be seen as slanted since you're not an American. (12 in one day!) was too great to bear and *appeared* to have no effect. From 1942 onward the U.S. lost an AVERAGE of 170 planes a day. *Did we lose WW II because of those losses? Thye question to really ask is how many B-52s managed to complete their mission and destroy North Vietnam? *In fact, on 29 September, 1972, after all U.S. ground combat forces had already left South Vietnam, a heavy U.S. *air strike destroyed 10% of all of North Vietnam's Air Force in one single day. The stupid Air Force generals, meeting such little resistance coming out of Thai air bases, were *stupid* to keep flying the same patterns toward Hanoi. So the Vietnamese simply "lined up their remaining" SAMs and shot them down like using a .22 at a county fair. No proof offered. *Your claim fails. Proof: http://www.historynet.com/the-11-day-war.htm excerpt: There was worse newsthe attack tactics themselves. All bombers were to depart from the same initial point (IP), make the same bomb run in single-file formation, fly exactly the same airspeeds, operate in exactly the same altitude blocks and maintain exactly the same spacing between each of the three-ship cells (one minute) and between each aircraft within the cells (15 seconds). A B-52 copilot who flew Linebacker II sorties from Andersen, then- Captain Don Craig, wrote me that "We knew there were big planning flaws, starting with the long lines of bombers coming in the same routeand it was straight down Thud Ridge, for God's sake.It looked very much like ducks in a shooting gallery." B-52 radar navigator Captain Wilton Strickland, operating from the other B-52 base, at U- Tapao airfield in Thailand, concurred: "[The spacing] gave enemy air de*fenses plenty of time to track and fire on each aircraft as it came within range.Long before we entered the target area, they knew our precise altitude, spacing and approach route." Another concern was the bomb run no-evasion order issued by an Andersen wing commander (apparently on his own authority, on penalty of court-martial), despite previous evidence that if the B-52 was brought back straight and level prior to release, accuracy was not degraded. After aircrews repeatedly ignored the order on Days One and Two, without affecting bombing results, it was quietly rescinded. Most egregious, SAC planners mandated a "combat break" to the right after bomb release (post-target turn, or PTT), a nuclear-release procedure carried over into Arc Light (where it had been just as pointless; the PTT was designed solely for better survivability against a nuclear blast). During Arc Light, the PTT had rendered no harm. Over heavily defended Hanoi, however, it turned lethal. Not only were criti*cal electronic countermeasures degraded, the 120-knot-plus jet stream tailwind that B-52s enjoyed on the bomb run became a 120- knot-plus headwind after the turn, resulting in a combined groundspeed reduction of nearly 250 knots. Later, during the Day Two pre-mission briefing, a disgusted Captain Strickland, who was destined to fly six of the 11 Linebacker missions, could no longer keep silent: "Who is planning such stupid tactics," he asked the briefers, "and why?" Their response: "The planning is being done at Omaha's SAC HQ, and the common routes, altitudes and trail formations are used for ease of planning." "Well," Strickland shot back, "the enemy is using your plan, along with the after-release turn and our slow withdrawal, for ease of tracking and shootdown!" U-Tapao's 17th Air Division commander, Brig. Gen. Glenn Sulli*van, who was present during Strickland's comments, was thinking along similar lines. Sullivan and his wing commanders had been carefully listening to aircrew feedback, though their requests for tactics changes had so far fallen on deaf ears. Sullivan was most upset about the PTT; after the battle he wrote a friend, "The post-target turn was the murder point." Nevertheless, good tactics or bad, the 300 BUFF in-theater aircrews still had to fly the missions in the 206 Stratofortresses available (Andersen had 53 B-52Ds and 99 B-52Gs on station; U-Tapao had 54 B-52Ds). On Day One, 129 B-52s launched from Andersen and U-Tapao in three massive waves spaced at four-hour intervals. Shortly after dark, the first wave (33 B-52Ds and 15 B-52Gs) arrived at their Laotian IP and wheeled southeast toward seven Hanoi targetssetting the stage for the biggest air battle since World War II. Although the BUFFs were the attack's centerpiece, more than 100 additional U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine recon, radar jammer and fighter-bomber aircraft flew in support of the heavies or delivered their own assigned blows. .... |
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