Operation Linebacker I 1972: The first high-tech air war (Air Campaign, 8)

Once again Osprey Publishing comes through with another insightful volume about the air campaigns over North Vietnam. Linebacker I has always been touted as the first “high tech” aerial campaign of the modern era. But until recently very little has been published about this campaign as most mistaken it for the “Christmas Bombings” or assumed that it was an extension of Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968). However, the campaign was far more effective and efficient than its predecessor.As the 1968 general elections approached, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the complete halt to the bombing of North Vietnam effective on 1 Nov 1968. Many believed it was a cynical attempt by the President to give his vice president a better chance of winning the 3 way race between Humphrey, Nixon and Wallace. As it turned out, Richard Nixon won the election and inherited the war in Southeast Asia.President Nixon had no stomach for resuming Rolling Thunder in 1969. The bombing had been unpopular with the American public and world opinion was against it. It had not been conducted efficiently nor effectively. DOD had worked hard to correct the deficiencies in the campaign. They stepped up the development and production of a new generation of capable tactical aircraft – the F-4 Phantom II, the A-7 Corsair II and the F-111. Not only did they step up munitions production that ended the bomb shortage in 1967, they began development of a new generation of precision guided munitions that made servicing targets more accurate. And they refined the tactics that integrated ECM, chaff, aerial reconnaissance and radar guided bombing that would have made the Rolling Thunder more effective.All this was in place by early 1968 as the US was gearing up for a stepped up aerial campaign that year that would have really put the hurt on the North Vietnamese. Unfortunately, President Johnson imposed a partial bombing halt on 1 April 1968 that left the northern half of North Vietnam off limits to attack. The campaign reverted from “strategic bombing” to “battlefield interdiction” in the southern half of North Vietnam. This was followed by a full bombing halt imposed on 1 November 1968.US air power then concentrated on interdicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and bombing enemy sanctuaries in Cambodia. However, between bombing campaigns, the US military continued to produce capable aircraft that replaced the Century Series aircraft, develop precision munitions and improve tactics and the training of combat pilots.By 1972, as the US was completing its withdrawal of air and ground forces from SEA, the North Vietnamese leadership decided to launch the offensive they hoped would topple the South Vietnamese Government. Arrogantly believing the US would not resume the bombing of the North, the Communists moved their forces into southern North Vietnam to conduct the ground offensive that became known as the Easter Offensive. Launched on Good Friday 1972, by May the offensive had developed into five separate but coordinated attacks throughout the country that were designed to draw away, scatter or pin down South Vietnam's military reserves.President Nixon was furious that the North would make such an audacious attack and immediately ordered a limited resumption of attacks against North Vietnam's infrastructure. The renewed bombing began in April & was initially called Operation Freedom Train. However, when the North showed no intention of halting their offensive operations, President Nixon ordered a sustained aerial campaign called Operation Linebacker that began on 10 May 1972.Linebacker became an air-sea campaign that US military leaders could only dream of conducting during the earlier Rolling Thunder Campaign. The rules of engagement were relaxed and targets that were previously off limits became fair game. With an array of USAF, USN and USMC air units hastily deployed from around the world equipped with the newer and more capable aircraft and a new generation of air munitions. Unlike in 1965, the pilots who waged the Linebacker were battle tested from previous combat tours and were better trained. The renewed campaign punished the North like it had never been before. For the first time B52s were sent to strike targets deep inside North Vietnam and the US Navy mined all of the main ports. The campaign was so aggressive that a US Naval task force even entered Haiphong Harbor to destroy vital port facilities.The aerial campaign caught North Vietnam’s leadership off guard and they scrambled to counter the aerial assault. However, unlike during Rolling Thunder, neither the Soviets nor the Chinese Communists were willing to intervene to provide newer weapons and other military support. Wishing to continue improving relations with the US, the Chinese declined to send troops as they did in 1966. It just so happen the Soviets were going to summit with President Nixon that same month. Not willing to risk the summit, the Soviet leadership mildly chastised the President over the bombings, and then got down to super power business. The North’s munitions and supplies ran short and by September the Easter Offensive was decisively defeated with the North suffering over 100,000 casualties and very heavy equipment losses. The North’s leadership began to negotiate in earnest for a cease fire and by late October, a cease fire was imminent and Linebacker I began to wind down.It appeared that Linebacker was successful in pushing North Vietnam’s leadership to the negotiating table. However, it took Linebacker II to force a final agreement and by January 1973, a cease fire was agreed to and Linebacker ended. In the end, the North accomplished their goal of seizing key territory and enhancing their ability to negotiate an agreement in Paris that allowed themselves to finish off South Vietnam three years later in 1975. They quickly exploited their territorial gains to position themselves for that final offensive. The US merely bought time for the South Vietnamese.This volume gives one of the most detailed descriptions of the tactics the USAF and US Navy used during Linebacker. Armed with laser and TV guided munitions, the missions changed from a squadron and wing sized strikes of 16-48 aircraft during Rolling Thunder, to a only flight or two of 4-8 aircraft during Linebacker. The author discusses the effective use of chaff, smart munitions, aerial mines, radar guided intercepts of MIGs (Red Crown), electronic jamming and effective IFF (Combat Tree). Most of these were available during Rolling Thunder, but had been much improved or used more effectively during Linebacker.The one glaring failure that is seldom ever discussed was the inability of the Air Force to deal with the MIG threat. While the US finally had aircrews attain ace status in 1972, this covered up the inadequacies of our pilots in air-to-air combat. The North Vietnamese employed effective tactics, their pilots were better trained and their use of GCI gave them an edge over the Air Force’s pilots. Only the Navy did better against the MIGs due to their effective Top Gun program that gave emphasis on air-to-air combat training. But at the end, the ratio of MIG kills to US losses was embarrassing, especially after the successes of the Korean War, and sent the US military back to the basics of training for air-to-air combat.I have only two criticisms of this book. The book barely mentions, but does not detail the contributions of the surface units of the US 7th Fleet. They performed critical missions in support of Linebacker that included naval gunfire on high risk targets, serving as platforms for SAR helicopters, providing cover against the MIGS with their TALOS & TERRIER missiles and providing valuable GCI against the MIGs. During Freedom Train, ships of the 7th Fleet came under air attack – the first and only US military units to be attacked by enemy air since the Korean War – and successfully defended themselves with the first ever combat use of computer guided ship-to-air missiles. My other criticism is that the author devotes too many pages to the Easter Offensive and air operations in support of ground operations in the South. This would have been better covered in a separate volume and maybe Osprey should publish another volume covering air power and the Easter Offensive.Osprey now completes this excellent trilogy of books on the air war over the North. I highly recommend this book to the air war historian, the Vietnam buff and the professional who may have to plan and execute a similar air campaigns in the future. The lessons learned during Linebacker were applied a generation later during Desert Storm with great success. Those lessons are still relevant.

Author Marshall Michel offers another hardnosed assessment of a U.S. air campaign in this Osprey Series book on 1972's Operation Linebacker I against a North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam. With most U.S. ground combat forces having already departed, the U.S. responded with a massive air campaign. A variety of Air Force and Navy air assets attacked North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam. They also went after critical infrastructure in North Vietnam.The author gets a lot of information and analysis into less than 100 pages. A point of emphasis in the narrative is the application of high-tech measures for protecting U.S. aircraft and improving strike results. Another is the effect of training, or the lack of it, on results and casualties. The U.S. and its North Vietnamese opponents both experienced the deadly learning curve of combat. The narrative is nicely supported by a terrific collection of period photographs, maps, and battle diagrams, and some hard-hitting conclusions. Very highly recommended to students of the conflict.

Entering the Air Force in 1971 and graduating F-4C/D Weapons Control Systems (WCS) Tech School in mid-1972, I spent one month at my first Air Force Base (AFB) in California before being told, "day after tomorrow you'll be in Thailand". They were wrong by one day. We were transported in an Air Force staff car and a van, sometimes reaching 100MPH to meet our plane at Ontario airport where they held our plane until we got there. From there we left for Travis AFB. We carried classified tech orders on how to repair our radar to display Walleye bomb video on our radar scopes because they were using Sony TVs and our radar was able to display the video. We slept with those tech orders at Clark, AFB until we could hand them off at our destination in Udorn RTAFB, Thailand. We knew we were involved with something important. These details stick in my mind 47 years later.

Excellent time line of events and tactics. There is one photo on page 47 that has the people misidentified. Charlie Carr is the man on the left looking at the camera and Roger Sheets is the man on the right. "Blinky" seems to be somebody who really knew how to lead. Very well done book.

This was a gift to a widow of a Sabrejet pilot who was not aware of the weather and terrain in Viet Nam. She is very pleased with this information.

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Liked the book.As a B52 crewmember l wish there had been more in depth coverage of the B52 missions

Very well written with plenty of background information. Excellent explanation of the planes, missions and rules.

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Das Buch zeigt wie die Amerikaner, obwohl sie verstrickt waren im "Morast" von Vietnam, in der Lage waren ihre Luftwaffe erneut aus zu richten. Auch der Unterschied zwischen Marine und Luftwaffe kommt stark in Bild, wo klar ist dass die US Navy ihre Flieger viel besser ausbildete für den Kampf.

Excellent monograph on the air campaign and the evolution of new tactics to defeat the air defences. Very interesting to read how the rules of engagement imposed by the politicians on the USAF & USN enabled the Vietnamese Air Force to continue to operate effectively with limited resources.

Great artwork.

Excellent book