Linebacker Raids - effective or not

a1rao

Sorry to be so long in answering.
To answer both.
I don't think we actually know if they ran out of missiles or not. BUT, if they didn't it seems strange that they would let us have total air superority in the later part of the eleven day conflict. We owned the sky and to them would be a target rich environment. So the general feeling was that they had run out.
Again, you have to go back to one of my eariler threads that states that with all the birds we had over the north not one ever spotted one, and helo's were fairly easy to spot. Further, if they used one of the size that was talked about I'm 95% sure we would have seen it.

Snake

Any idea who is the POW next to Vietnamese pilot?

By the way, any recomendation about books for Linebacker II....?

The 11 Days of Christmas (Michel, 2002)
Fifty Shades of Friction: Combat Climate, B-52 Crews, and the Vietnam War (Clodfelter)
Patterns and Predictability: The Soviet evaluation of operation Linebacker II (Drenkowski & Grau)
Linebacker II: A View from the Rock (McCarthy & Rayfield, 1976)

The 11 Days of Christmas (Michel, 2002)
Fifty Shades of Friction: Combat Climate, B-52 Crews, and the Vietnam War (Clodfelter)
Patterns and Predictability: The Soviet evaluation of operation Linebacker II (Drenkowski & Grau)
Linebacker II: A View from the Rock (McCarthy & Rayfield, 1976)

Thanks...

a1rao

Sorry to be so long in answering.
To answer both.
I don't think we actually know if they ran out of missiles or not. BUT, if they didn't it seems strange that they would let us have total air superority in the later part of the eleven day conflict. We owned the sky and to them would be a target rich environment. So the general feeling was that they had run out.

Before Linebacker II have been commenced NVA had some technical missile battery switched to south and another one - in vacation (this is according “11 days of Christmas’s” book). Also the crappy tactic of SAC allowed NVA to reload SAM batteries in between 4 hour raid intervals.... Than tactic changed and all bombers got on same TOT so SAM couldn’t work on them as before when they approach in a bomber stream with longer duration

Linebacker 2 was concentrated(at first) mostly against MIG airfields. The raids were conducted by huge B-52s and supporting F-111s. During these raids, there were two engagements that were never accepted by both sides. On the first day, Dec.18th - a B-52 tail gunner was credited with shooting down a Mig-21 when attacking Mig bases of Hoa Lac, Kep and Phuc Yen. The second event, which was never accepted by the USAF, was by the NVAF pilot Pham Tuan who was credited with shooting down a B-52, although US sources say that it was a SAM.

According Pham Tuam victory I believe his kill is a hoax:

1. His attack time is not near the time of neither of two Buff losses
2. His attack zone is west of Hanoi, when Buff’s were hit over targets
3. Described Damage model from survivors doesn’t match the weapons Pham Tuan possessed
4. His attack profile cannot provide him a possibility of his weapon employment on those articulate B-52