Archie to SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air ...

AIRMEN VERSUS GUERRILLAS
97, 121; and History, 388th Tactical Fighter Wing, October–December 1972,
27, 32–33, HRA.
55. B-52s flew 708 effective sorties; F-llls, 148; A-7s, 226; and F-4s, 283.
See Headquarters US Air Force, Briefing Books, II.
56. During periods of limited visibility, TAC fighters scored some remarkable
successes, most notably hitting two especially difficult targets, the
Hanoi thermal plant and Radio Hanoi. The latter, protected by a 25-foot high
and 10-foot thick blast wall, had survived the bombing of 36 B-52s. F-4s got
four laser-guided bombs inside the walls and destroyed the target. See
Clodfelter, “By Other Means,” 120; and Office of Assistant Chief of Staff,
Intelligence (ACSI), “Linebacker II: 18–29 December 72,” supporting document
III-KI, HRA.
57. History, Air Force Intelligence Service, 1 July 1972–30 June 1973:
Linebacker Summary III, K2, HRA; CNA study, “US Navy, Marine Corps, and
Air Force Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses and Damage in Southeast Asia
(1962–1973), Pt. 1: List of Aircraft Lost,” report no. CRC 305 (Alexandria, Va.:
Defense Documentation Center, 1977), 191–93, 223, 488–92, AUL; Eschmann,
“The Role of Tactical Air Support,” 103–4, lists 30 aircraft destroyed, including
three lost in accidents. Futrell, Aces and Aerial Victories, 17, states
that 27 US Air Force aircraft were lost. The North Vietnamese claimed 81 US
aircraft (34 B-52s). See also Gareth Porter, A Peace Denied—The United
States, Vietnam, and the Paris Agreements (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University,
1975), 161–62; and Richard Holloran, “Bombing Halt Brings Relief
to B-52 Crews in Guam,” New York Times, 2 January 1973, 3. Drenkowski,
“Operation Linebacker II,” pt. 2, 55, says that 22 to 27 B-52s were destroyed.
58. Clodfelter, “By Other Means,” 108; and Clement, “A Fourth of July in
December,” 47.
59. Headquarters US Air Force, Briefing Books, I and II.
60. Eschmann, “The Role of Tactical Air Support,” 108; Berger et al.,
USAF in SEA, 60; Drendel, And Kill MiGs: Air to Air Combat, 47, 73; SAC,
“Chaff Effectiveness,” March 1973; McCarthy and Allison, Linebacker II, 65,
116; and Futrell, Aces and Aerial Victories, 125.
61. Eschmann, “The Role of Tactical Air Support,” 46.
62. CNA, “Summary of Air Ops SEA: January 72–January 73,” 4-17.
The North Vietnamese did not have the most modern equipment; in the 1973
Middle East War, Egyptians and Syrians inflicted heavy losses on Israeli aircraft
with Soviet SA-3 and SA-6 missiles and ZSU-23-4 guns, equipment not
employed in the Vietnam War. See chap. 4. The North Vietnamese may have
improved and manned their defenses without the help or knowledge of the
Soviets. See Porter, A Peace Denied, 161; and Jon Van Dyke, North Vietnam’s
Strategy for Survival (Palo Alto, Calif.: Pacific Books, 1972), 61, 217.
63. On the third day of the campaign, a SAC commander ordered a
search for North Vietnamese SAM storage facilities. Within 18 hours, the intelligence
people began to find them, whereupon SAC requested JCS permission
to bomb them. Permission for all but one was forthcoming, although
it took another 24 to 36 hours. As a result, these targets were not hit until
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