The Vietnam War by C. Westmoreland General William

Author:C. Westmoreland, General William
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-849943-19-2
Publisher: Pavilion Books
Published: 2015-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

■ Pin-point detection by electronic means

From the outset, the system successfully detected trucks and furnished information on volume of traffic, convoy speed, and hours of operation. It has been claimed that a tactical analysis officer at Nakhon Phanom, picking up an unusual sound which the computer identified as a tank engine, was able correctly to anticipate the attack by Soviet-built light tanks on the Lang Vei Special Forces Camp in February 1968 – although his report was not believed at the time.

Despite such accuracy, the anti-truck campaign suffered because the Tet offensive forced the Americans to re-deploy the aircraft that could have attacked the Communist supply routes in southern Laos. “Task Force Alpha”, which operated the surveillance center, had to abandon plans to fix and attack infiltrating troops when sensors intended for this purpose were instead committed to the defense of Khe Sanh.

Sensor equipment proved so important at Khe Sanh, as mentioned earlier, that simplified systems featuring portable monitoring equipment soon entered service with US Army, Marine Corps, and Navy units throughout South Vietnam. Task Force Alpha, however, concentrated on stopping the flow of supplies rather than the movement of troops, in a series of operations called “Commando Hunt”.

During the dry season (usually from November to March) truck traffic in Laos reached its peak, and US aircraft destroyed vehicles and bombed truck parks, storage areas, and similar facilities that the sensors located. The coming of the monsoon rains caused traffic to decline; and truck “kills” dwindled accordingly. When President Johnson restricted Rolling Thunder to the panhandle of North Vietnam, from 1 April 1968, and then halted the operation altogether in November of the same year, additional aircraft became available for Commando Hunt.

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