spartans_in_darkness

OGA
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fact, elements of COSVNcontinued their odyssey
until late June when they finally settled into a
position another forty-five kilometers farther
northeast into Cambodia."
located anywhere, even on the perimeter. AlSI
the communist antenna complexes were, in man
cases, a series of antenna "farms," situated in
pattern around COSVN's actual location. Fe
COMSECpurposes, these antennas could be use
sequentially or randomly. So, what the ARD
missions really located were the individual anter
na "farms" as they were activated by the VC con
municators. The resulting DIF plots of the sept
rate "farms," with overlapping boxes and perimr
ter fixes, appeared haphazard and imprecise t
non-cryptologists and led them to discount man
results and ignore them when planning ai
strikes.i''
(TS//SI) However, there were several problems
which undercut the effectiveness of this
union. For one, there was distinct gap in understanding
what SIGINT could deliver in terms of
precise targeting information for the bombers.
The communists remotely operated their antenna
fields from their actual transmitting complexes;
sometimes they were as far away as five kilometers.
Such an arrangement usually negated the
B-52 strikes which tended to blast just the antenna
fields. At the same time, the B-52 bombing
patterns, with their very small circular error
probabilities (CEP), were good for precise targeting
of specific
topographic features
or manmade
structures.
Direction finding
fixes, even with
the precision
that the ARDF
capability
brought into the
calculations, produced
a kind of
target box in
which the objective
could be
(TS//SI) The COSVN also had an annoyin
habit of constantly moving, often shortly i
advance of the Arc Light missions. Quick retar
geting of the B-52s in reaction to the move
proved impossible; the command and control c
the Arc Light missions always was inherent!
clumsy and echelon-dependent. Often, the Ai
Force would refuse to divert an Arc Light missio:
on the basis of a single new ARDF fix." Still, on
communist rear services group was hit on 11 Ma
during a tardy shift to a new position. Reportedl
about 150 personnel were killed by the raid a
they were waiting on the surface to move.f"
fflThe main reason that COSVNwas able tl
avoid Arc Light strikes was that, historically, th.
(U) TypiC'll darnaqed landscape 'lftet an Arc Light strike in South Vietnam
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