I can wholeheartedly agree that SAC's LB II planning was totally stupid and
screwed up. Many of us in the pre-mission briefing at U-Tapao, Thailand,
the first night (18 Dec 72) saw the problems on the screen immediately as
the curtains were retracted. When we saw the same BS on the screen when the
curtains were retracted at start of the second night's briefing, we were
damned mad. A couple of minutes after the briefer (a captain) started the
second night's briefing, I stood and asked, "Who's planning such stupid
tactics and why?" Briefer replied, "Planning is done at SAC; same routes,
altitudes, spacing, etc., for 'ease of planning.'" I replied, "Well, that
planning is making it easy for enemy to track us and shoot us down!" BG
Glenn Sullivan, Air Division Commander, was seated 2 rows in front of me.
He turned and looked up at me, but said nothing, but I could tell that he
agreed with me. It was his direct msg to CINCSAC coupla days later that got
the planners to "wise up" and change the tactics to save the campaign.
Wilton
5,000 hrs in B-52D, E, F, G, H, incl 6 missions during LB II
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mitch Haley via Mercedes" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
To: "Mercedes List" <mercedes@okiebenz.com>
Cc: "Mitch Haley" <mi...@mitchellhaley.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2019 10:17 PM
Subject: [MBZ] OT: Linebacker II - Where's Wilton
A discussion of Gen LeMay morphed into a discussion of bombing tactics,
which turned into a discussion of whether SAC planning of Linebacker
missions was silly...
Can you add anything to the below, or refute any of it?
https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Curtis-LeMay/5-2208854/?page=2#i78220777
Originally Posted By couchlord:
And yet when SAC got the go ahead in December 1972, Omaha FUBAR'd it bad.
After about a dozen losses they finally let the local commanders take over
and get it done.
Zoinks replied:
True enough at first. Mission Planning didn't rely on any sort of
deception, and the North Vietnamese could guess at the routes from where
the tankers were orbiting. But, that was also true of most of the air
attacks in the North. On the other hand, there was also a belief that the
little black boxes would be magical, and to an extent they were. But in
the end, Mission Planning really under estimated that amount of missile
shots that the North was capable of making. Then the North ran out of
missiles. Literally. And there were still plenty of Buffs.
Bigger Hammer replied with link from Wikipedia:
The SAC H.Q. botched those missions BADLY due to Lazy - stupid planning.
Each night the mission was IDENTICAL - each "cell" of three B-52s flew the
EXACT same altitude, exact same speed, exact same route, exact same
turning point, exact same exit path. To make matters worse, the mission
template called for a severe turn out after bomb drop which turned the
jammers antenna away from the ground at a time the B-52 was most
vulnerable, (bomb doors wide open, steep turn, most radar visible with
least amount of E.C.M. That is when the majority of losses occurred. The
N.V.A. were no dummies. It was like shooting skeet. If you know exactly
where the targets will be, speed, altitude, course, where they will turn
out and reduce their defense capability, ... even B-52s become easy
targets, especially for the SAMs that were designed & built specifically
to shoot them down and having the Soviet Air Defense experts there to
assist ...
The Crews basically mutinied and said, "change up the damn attack plan or
find some other idiots to be your clay pigeons"... SAC figured out that
unsustainable losses were a "Bad Thing" and changed up the attack plans
(no stupid tight post target turnouts wrecking the E.C.M. coverage, varied
courses, speeds, altitudes & routes, ect... The mixed in a B-52 D into
each cell of three B-52 (usually with two "G" models as the "D" had more
powerful E.C.M. Jamming better equipped for providing E.C.M. jamming in
Vietnam against the SAM-2 threat so the "D" model E.C.M. coverage helped
protect its newer, yet weaker, "G" model brothers.
Operation Linebacker II - B-52s over North Vietnam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Linebacker_II
Couchlord responded:
Indeed. It was even worse than that.
The turn out took them into the jet stream and an instant -100mph ground
speed hit, increasing their SAM exposure time accordingly.
The turn out was not necessary, they were dropping iron bombs from 40K'
not 10MT nukes.
The cells were split into 3 groups of attacks each night split by exactly
3 hours. Each attack, as mentioned above, flew the exact same routes to
the exact same targets. The 3 hour gap allowed the NVA to reload their SAM
sites.
The same targets were attacked on consecutive nights with the exact same
timing and routes, as mentioned above.
The SAM depots were not attacked.
The B-52's were ordered not to jink.
Splitting each nights attack into 3 waves separated by 3 hours diluted the
Wild Weasel and CAP support.
The chaff corridor was poorly timed and placed.
There was a captured SA2 radar van located in Florida, I forget where. SAC
never bothered to fly a B-52 at it. When all the B-52's were getting hit
at the turn out, SAC finally had a go at the captured van and then saw the
effect the turn out had.
SAC staff knew it was FUBAR but they were all too scared to object. It's
an excellent lesson in inept top down management. Some of this must be a
legacy of Lemay.
SAC caught a few breaks. NVA had relocated about half their SA-2 sites to
the south to cover the Ho Chi Min trail. The campaign against Hanoi took
them by surprise. SA-2 preparation was labor intensive, they could only
prepare about 50 missiles each night. It took the NVA a few days to
relocated their Sams and ramp up the missile prep.
Oh, and one night a B-52d laid a spread of bombs across the Hanoi
International Airport terminal. It was not on the target list. Accident?
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