Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

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SOUTHEAST ASIA
TABLE 10-6
Fixed-Wing U.S. Aircraft Losses over North Vietnam as a Percentage
of all Fixed-Wing Losses, 1966-1971
1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971
44% 45% 21% .05% 2% 4%
Source: A Study of Strategic Lessons Learned in Vietnam, Book 1, p. 6-5-58.
ment such a policy.33 The other service chiefs declined, and, for the rest of
the war, “the Air Force local ground defense mission did not extend
beyond the legal perimeter of its installation^."^^ As an official Air Force
account of security problems noted, “apathy and indifference were only
intermittently dispelled by a near-disaster such as the 1968 Tet Offensive,”
and “recreation facilities received top priority while defense works at
obscure or remote locations were ignored.”35 Base construction was
also a problem. Most airfields constructed or substantially modified for
USAF use had to be built or altered by civilian contractors under Navy
management. During 1965 alone, “16 new base supply and equipment
management accounts were opened in South Vietnam and Thailand. Prior
to 1965, Tan Son Nhut air base at Saigon had been the only major account
in either country.”36 As an Air Force historian aptly put it, “Vietnam. . .
was a small war when compared militarily with previous world wars,
but logistically it was very much a large war.”37 It was also very demanding of
the pilots who put ROLLING THUNDER in effect, as the North Vietnamese
adapted quickly and often effectively to U.S. air efforts aimed at their
territory.
ROLLING THUNDER Operations
ROLLING THUNDER was a complex military operation, which became
more complex as North Vietnam worked to develop an integrated air
defense system to thwart it. There is not space in this chapter to describe
all the elements of the ROLLING THUNDER interdiction and pressure campaign.
Instead, the focus will be on the air superiority aspects of ROLLING
THUNDER. For example, before April 1965 there was no air superiority
campaign because the only North Vietnamese defense was antiaircraft gunnery.
The quality and intensity of North Vietnamese antiaircraft fire could
and did complicate the air interdiction campaign, but antiaircraft guns
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