Vietnam's Final Air Campaign by Stephen Emerson

Author:Stephen Emerson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526728463
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

The advanced MiG-21s, armed with up to four Atoll air-to-air missiles, would prove to be the biggest air combat threat to U.S. aircraft throughout the 1972 campaign, although the steady loss of planes and experienced pilots limited their effectiveness in the waning months of the year.

Typical Linebacker Strike Force Composition.

Tightening the Screws

The frenetic pace of the campaign on the North continued unabated into the early months of the summer as General Vogt and Admiral John McCain, Jr., as Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command, sought to maintain the pressure on Hanoi and its ability to continue the offensive in the South, while Nixon and Kissinger hoped that this display of firepower might convince Hanoi to return to the negotiating table.

As a strategic interdiction effort, Linebacker targeted key elements of the North Vietnamese transportation and supply network, as well as critical components of Hanoi’s military-industrial infrastructure. A tangential mission requirement called for the degrading of the North’s air defenses. In conjunction with Linebacker operations, U.S. aircraft were simultaneously flying tens of thousands of close air support and resupply sorties in support to ARVN troops; more than 13,000 sorties around Hue alone by June.16 Air operations in South Vietnam, in fact, consumed the majority of the Air Force’s workload throughout the Linebacker campaign.

Thanks to the closure of North Vietnamese ports, Hanoi was now entirely dependent on overland routes from China to meet its nearly 150,000 tons per month of imports. The two rail lines and eight major roads out of China, which had previously carried only 15 percent of supply requirements,17 were now forced to carry the entire burden. It was up to the 8th TFW to close down these routes or at least make resupply as difficult and time consuming as possible. Thanks to the use of precision-guided munitions, General Vogt would be able to claim that “we had 15 bridges out on each railroad at any given time—as fast as they would build them, we would knock them out again.”18 Not only was the bombing effective, but it had become much more efficient—five bridges were destroyed in one day using 24 LGBs, a feat that likely would likely have required more than 2,000 unguided bombs during Rolling Thunder.19

The assault on the transportation and supply network extended well beyond the Chinese rail and road corridors, with the Navy assuming much of the burden south and east of the capital and along the rail and road corridor from Thanh Hoa southward all the way to Dong Hoi. Typical of this effort was the 33-plane alpha strike launched by the USS Saratoga’s CVW-3 against the rail and highway bridge over the Song Day River at Phu Ly, about 40 miles south of Hanoi. In the face of heavy anti-aircraft fire, A-7s and A-6s were able to heavily damage both bridges with Walleye EOGBs, as well as destroy an estimated 75 percent of the nearby military storage area with conventional bombs.20 Continuous strikes by naval aircraft in the Thanh Hoa, Vinh, and the Dong Hoi areas throughout June and July were also effective in hampering North Vietnamese bridge repair efforts.

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