spartans_in_darkness

EO 1. 4. (c)
Tep SEeRHh'eeMIIHi'fXl
(5//51) Other parts of the air defense SOl
proved exploitable by the Americans. A frequency
generating system, similar to the callsign system,
was easily recovered. Virtually every new tactical
code and cipher system developed by the
Vietnamese fell to the analytic axes of the
Americans." Bythe end of1966, SIGINT revealed
information about Vietnamese tracking of hostile
and friendly aircraft over Laos, North Vietnam,
and the Gulf of Tonkin, SAM order-of-battle
details, bomb damage reports, airfield status, and
other data.
(5//51) Two elements of Hanoi's air defense
system were of particular interest to American
cryptologists because of the potential for exploitation,
which, in turn, could substantially aid the
prosecution of the U.S. air offensive against
North Vietnam. These two were the tracking systems
used by the North Vietnamese SAM and
AAA units for locating and acquiring targets and
the ground controlled intercept communications
network used to direct MiG interceptors against
attacking American aircraft.
(5//51) The tracking system actually consisted
of three separate formatted messages. The
first, originated by radar stations, consisted of a
six-group message which indicated the azimuth
and range (from the radar station), time of detection,
altitude (in hundreds of meters), and the
number and type of aircraft. The second format
was a directional report which used a series of
arbitrary numbers to designate points on a compass
from the radar site. This information was
transmitted by either HF manual morse or voice
to the radar station's filter center. The filter center
received all of the information on the tracks
from the radar sites and converted it into the
I
third format - a fine grid locator. This format,
lemployed a series of numbered gri}
blocks, which registered a progressively refined
grid square, going from a 60 x 60 kilometer grid
to a 2 x 2 one, as the Vietnamese air defense system
reported more detail on the location of target
aircraft. The grids were based on center points
radiating out from Hanoi in the north and Vinh in
the south.
(S//Si) Once this information was assembled
at the filter center, it was relayed to the North
Vietnamese Air Defense Headquarters. The headquarters
reevaluated the tracking data and then
transmitted the information to the SAM, AAA,
and fighter units. The time that it took the North
Vietnamese to turn around the tracking information,
that is, from radar tracking to advisory to
defense unit, had, by 1965, shrunk to less than
five minutes." Considering that effective North
Vietnamese radar coverage extended, in some
cases, to as far as 150 miles beyond its borders,
Hanoi had the capability to detect approaching
hostile aircraft with plenty of time to alert its various
defenses.'
(5//51) The second element, the ground-controlled
intercept (GCI), was the tactical command
and control communications (C3) system used by
Hanoi to vector its fighters against approaching
American strike and escort aircraft. Simply put,
this system consisted of a controller on the
ground who relayed target and strike information
to a flight of defending North Vietnamese interceptors.
A senior controller at Bac Mai Airfield,
headquarters for North Vietnam's air defense system,
assigned targets to subordinate controllers
located near the major MiG air bases in the DRV.
Using the Air Defense Headquarters advisories,
these controllers issued instructions to scramble
the MiGs when hostile aircraft closed within
about 150 kilometers of Hanoi. 2 0
(5//5I) The senior controller exchanged
tracking information with his subordinates via
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