Operation linebacker

Operation Linebacker I

Part of: Vietnam War

date	May 9 to October 23, 1972
place	North Vietnam
output	Both sides declared a victory

Parties to the conflict
North Vietnam	United States South Vietnam
Commander
Võ Nguyên Giáp	John W. Vogt, Jr.

Operation Linebacker was the code name of an air offensive by the US Seventh Air Force and Task Force 77 of the United States Navy against North Vietnam from May 9 to October 23, 1972 during the Vietnam War on the orders of US President Richard Nixon .

The military goal was to stop or slow down the transport of supplies and materials for the Nguyễn Huệ offensive. The Nguyễn Huệ Offensive (also known as the Easter Offensive) was an invasion of South Vietnam by the Vietnamese People's Army launched on March 30, 1972 . Linebacker was the first continuous bombing of North Vietnam after President Lyndon B. Johnson stopped bombing in November 1968.

The term linebacker [ line · back · he ] denotes a defender in American football .

Starting position

Easter offensive 1972

PAVN offensive in the I Corps south of the DMZ

30,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, with the support of armored regiments and artillery , marched south over the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) , which had separated the two Vietnamese states since 1954, at noon on March 30, 1972 . The North Vietnamese divisions caught the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and their US allies off guard. The North Vietnamese Armed Forces switched off the defense positions of the 3rd South Vietnamese Division and brought their armed forces into disarray. The South Vietnamese armed forces fell behind and a race between the two antagonists on the bridges of Đông Hà and Cam Lộ began.

On April 4, South Vietnamese officers set up a line of defense at Bay, which provided only temporary respite. Although conventional attacks by the North Vietnamese, which involved the intensive use of armored units and heavy artillery, focused the Allied attention on the northern provinces, this was only the first of three operations launched in the spring.

Nguyễn Huệ offensive

On April 5, 20,000 North Vietnamese crossed the border from hiding in neighboring Cambodia in three divisions of combined forces to attack the province of Bình Long in northern Sài Gòn . They captured the city of Lộc Ninh and surrounded the city of An Lộc, cutting off the road to the capital.

On April 12, North Vietnamese forces marched across the South Vietnamese border from the east of Laos and seized a number of border posts around Dak To in Kon Tum Province in the central highlands. The North Vietnamese then advanced eastwards towards the provincial capital of Kon Tum. The high command in Hanoi started the offensive with the beginning of the winter monsoon , which made the use of the enemy air support more difficult due to persistent rain and cloud cover.

The initial US response to the offensive was sloppy and confused. The United States Department of Defense received inadequate warnings, and the United States Ambassador and Commander of the United States Forces, General Creighton W. Abrams, left the country.

President Richard M. Nixon's first consideration was a three-day bombing raid by long-range Boeing B-52 bombers on Hanoi and the port of Hải Phong . However, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger convinced the President to reconsider the plan, not wanting to jeopardize the upcoming SALT I negotiations with the Soviet Union , which were due to be concluded in May.

Another obstacle to the plan was General Creighton W. Abrams' request that the available all-weather bombers be used as close air support to defend the South Vietnamese forces. Nixon and Kissinger judged an operation plan presented by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be unimaginative and not aggressive enough.

On April 4, Nixon authorized the bombing of North Vietnam, which was limited to retaliatory strikes north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) up to the 18th parallel. In order to prevent a collapse of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and to preserve the American reputation in the upcoming negotiations with the Soviet Prime Minister Leonid Brezhnev , Nixon accepted the risk of a massive expansion of the fighting.

Because of the continued withdrawal of US forces and the Nixon Doctrine known as "Vietnamization," there were fewer than 10,000 US soldiers in South Vietnam, most of whom were due to be withdrawn within the next six months.

The number of combat aircraft stationed in Southeast Asia was less than half of their maximum strength between 1968 and 1969. At the beginning of 1972 the United States Air Force had only three squadrons of McDonnell F-4 Phantom II and one squadron of Cessna A-37 Dragonfly in South Vietnam stationed, a total of 76 aircraft. Another 114 fighter-bombers were spread across bases in Thailand . 83 B-52 bombers were stationed at U-Tapao Airport in Thailand and at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam . The Task Force 77 of the United States Navy stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin were assigned to four aircraft carriers , but only two of them could carry out operations. The available stock comprised around 140 aircraft.

preparation

The US and South Vietnamese Air Forces (VNAF) have been supporting the defense since the start of the offensive, weather conditions permitting. The air strikes were carried out by squadrons of the aircraft carriers USS Coral Sea (CV-43) and USS Hancock (CV-19) to support ARVN forces on the ground. However, the persistently bad weather limited the ability of the US warplanes to attack the North Vietnamese.

On April 6, US forces at naval and air bases around the world were put on alert and ships and planes were relocated to Southeast Asia. The United States immediately began to consolidate its air forces. The United States Air Force moved 176 F-4 Phantoms and 12 F-105 Thunderchiefs from airports in the Republic of Korea and the United States to Thailand from April 1 to May 11 during Operation Constant Guard . The Strategic Air Command (SAC) relocated from April 4 to May 23 during Operation "Bullet Shot" 124 long-range Boeing B-52 bombers from the United States to the Pacific island of Guam , increasing the number of operational B-52 long-range bombers on 209. The Navy shortened the overhaul work on the aircraft carriers USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) and USS Constellation (CV-64) and commanded the USS Midway (CV-41) and USS Saratoga (CV-60) to complement the fleet, so that at least four aircraft carrier squadrons could carry out missions together. The total number of 7th Fleet warships within range of the area of ​​operations increased from 84 to 138.

On April 5, the United States Air Force was authorized to carry out tactical air strikes against North Vietnamese positions north of the 20th parallel under the operation name "Freedom Train" . The first large-scale bomber attack was carried out on April 10 by 12 B-52s with the support of 53 fighter planes against petroleum stocks near the city of Vinh . On April 12, Nixon informed his adviser Kissinger that he had decided to expand air warfare to include attacks against the capital Hanoi and the port city of Hải Phong .

North Vietnamese anti-aircraft weapons

The following day, 18 B-52 bombers attacked Thanh Hóa's Bai Thuong landing site. Three days later, a night attack by 18 bombers against an oil deposit outside of Hải Phong followed. More than 100 more tactical daylight air strikes against targets around Hanoi and Hải Phong followed.

In mid-April, almost all of North Vietnam's airspace was open to bombing, for the first time in over three years. Fighter pilots of the Air Force and Navy benefited from the fact that Nixon, unlike his predecessor, President Johnson, operational planning left the commanders on the ground and the restrictions in the destination selection, the Operation Rolling Thunder were eased had restricted.

Between April 6 and 15, US planes attacked and destroyed the “Paul Doumer” and Thanh Hóa bridges and the marshalling yard at Yên Viên. This mission marks the beginning of the use of laser-guided bombs against strategic targets in North Vietnam. Both bridges had previously been unsuccessfully attacked with free-fall bombs and unguided air-to-surface missiles . From May 1 to June 30, 1972, B-52 bombers, fighter bombers and gunships flew over 18,000 sorties against the extensive North Vietnamese air defense positions and anti-aircraft guns and lost 29 aircraft in the process.

In parallel with the military action, the United States government began what North Vietnamese historians described as "the use of insincere political and diplomatic machinations ... to reduce the volume of aid delivered to us by socialist nations."

On April 20, Kissinger secretly met Brezhnev in Moscow. The party leader of the CPSU was unwilling to burden the increasingly normalizing relations with the West, and he was also suspicious of the improving relations between the US and Chinese governments. Brezhnev agreed to put political pressure on Hanoi to end the offensive and hold serious peace negotiations. He also arranged another secret meeting between Security Advisor Kissinger and the North Vietnamese negotiator Lê Đức Thọ for May 2nd in Paris. On that day, the two politicians met for a hearing that Kissinger later described as "brutal and insulting". The North Vietnamese were unwilling to make concessions in anticipation of certain military victory. As a result of this unsuccessful meeting and the conquest of the city of Quịng Tr nord by North Vietnamese infantry units, Nixon increased the deployment with the statement:

"The bastards have never been bombed like they're going to be bombed this time."

"The bastards have never been bombed the way we're going to bomb them."

Operation Pocket Money

On April 27, 1972, the defense by ARVN troops began to collapse in the northernmost province of Quảng Trị on the border with North Vietnam. Due to conflicting orders from their high command, South Vietnamese troops joined the refugee movements south and left the city of Quảng Trị. PAVN troops conquered the city on the very day Kissinger met with Lê Đức Thọ . The PAVN offensive had expanded into an extensive, conventionally led military operation and was conducted simultaneously on three fronts with 15 divisions and 600 tanks. As the North Vietnamese gained ground in three out of four South Vietnamese military sectors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff renewed their contingency plans, which had been drawn up before the bombing cessation in 1968, for resumption of the bombing in the north, and presented them to the President, who Released on May 8, 1972.

Immediately after taking office in 1969, Nixon had already ordered the preparation of a contingency plan aimed at ending the Vietnam War. Operation "Duck Hook" aimed at the direct invasion of the north by ground troops and included a proposal to mine the most important ports. The plan was judged to be too extreme and postponed, but not discarded. The United States Navy had updated its contingency plan for airborne port mining by 1965. On May 5, the President ordered the Joint Chiefs to prepare a port mine, which was planned as part of "Duck Hook", under the operation name "Pocket Money" and to carry it out within three days.

On May 8, penetrated to point 9:00 local time six A-7 Corsair II fighter planes and three attack aircraft of type A-6 Intruder from the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea (CV-43) into the air space of the port of Hai Phong and threw 36 Mark -52 and Mark-55 mines in the harbor basin . The guided missile cruisers USS Chicago (CA-136) and USS Long Beach (CGN-9) and the guided missile destroyer USS Berkeley (DDG-15) and F-4 Phantoms protected the combat bombers against attacks by North Vietnamese interceptors. The reason for the precise timing of the attacks became apparent when Nixon made a televised address at the same time and explained the escalation of the fighting to the US population:

"The only way to stop the killing is to take the weapons of war out of the hands of the international outlaws of North Vietnam."

"The only way to end the killing is to take the weapons of war out of the hands of the international bandits in North Vietnam."

- Richard Nixon

The sea mines were activated five days after their release to ensure that all ships could leave the port undamaged beforehand. In the three days that followed, carrier-supported aircraft dropped a further 11,000 mines in North Vietnamese secondary ports, blocking all maritime trade.

Both before and during Operation Pocket Money, Nixon and Kissinger were concerned about a possible Soviet and / or Chinese response to the escalation. Hours before Nixon's address and the announcement of the port mines, Kissinger sent a letter to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin , outlining the US plan and at the same time expressing Nixon's determination to see it through to the end. The next day, Nixon shook the hand of Soviet Foreign Trade Minister Nikolai Patolichev in the White House. Although both the Soviet and Chinese governments publicly condemned the US operations, both were unwilling to strain the "unfolding" relationship with the United States and only evasively responded to their socialist partner in Hanoi for support and supplies .

Operation linebacker

Military targets

Operation Linebacker had four strategic goals:

1. Cut off the North Vietnamese from supplies by destroying the railroad bridges and rolling stock in and around Hanoi and northeast on the Chinese border.
2. The bombing of supply warehouses and marshalling yards.
3. The destruction of storage and transshipment facilities.
4. The destruction (or at least damage to) the North Vietnamese air defenses.

Since almost 85% of North Vietnamese imports, which were previously delivered by sea, were prevented by the mining of the ports (Operation Pocket Money), the US government and the Pentagon wanted to cut the last connection between North Vietnam and its socialist neighboring state and allies. The People's Republic of China delivered an average of 22,000 t of goods per month via two railway lines and eight main roads to North Vietnam.

execution

Vought A-7 E bomb the Hải Dương Bridge on May 10, 1972.

Operation Linebacker began on May 10 with extensive bombing of North Vietnam by tactical combat bombers of the 7th Air Force and Task Force 77. The target was the marshalling yard at Yen Vien and the Paul Doumer railway bridge in the north outskirts of Hanoi. A total of 414 missions were flown on the first day, 120 of them by the US Air Force and 294 by the US Navy, which resulted in the heaviest dogfights during the entire Vietnam War. Eleven North Vietnamese MiGs (four MiG-21 and seven MiG-17 ) and two US Air Force F-4 Phantom were shot down. Anti-aircraft fire and over 100 surface-to-air missiles destroyed two other US Navy aircraft.

By the end of May, US air forces had destroyed 13 bridges along the railway line from Hanoi to the Chinese border. Four more were destroyed between the capital and Hải Phòng , including the famous "Dragon's-jaw" bridge that crosses the Sông Mã river near the provincial capital Thanh Hóa.

The attacks were then directed against petroleum and crude oil depots, transport infrastructure and airfields. The aerial warfare had a direct impact on infantry fighting in South Vietnam. Artillery bombardment was halved between May 9 and June 1. This decline was less due to an immediate shortage of artillery shells than to an intent to save ammunition. US intelligence analysts estimated the enemy’s supplies to be sufficient to sustain the fighting through the fall.

The intensely waged aerial warfare was also reflected in a significant increase in the number of combat and supply flights carried out in Southeast Asia . From 4,237 flights (including the Army of the Republic of Vietnam ) that took place in the previous month of the invasion, the number rose to 27,745 (of which 20,506 by the US Air Force) to support ARVN forces from the beginning of April to the end of July. Boeing B-52 bombers flew an additional 1,000 sorties during this period.

The north felt the pressure, admitting in official PAVN historiography that "between May and June only 30% of the supplies that were scheduled actually reached the front lines". The linebacker mission marked the first extensive use of precision-guided ammunition , including opto-electronic and laser-guided bombs. In addition to main roads and railways, the air defense systems of North Vietnam were also systematically attacked.

Shooting ratio

The North Vietnamese Air Force had 200 interceptors and fought stubbornly against US air strikes. Navy pilots, many of whom were trained at the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School ("Top Gun") and flew in a protective loose-deuce formation, achieved a kill rate of 6: 1 between May and June, which is why the North Vietnamese then rarely attacked with interceptors.

The United States Air Force , which was confronted with the North Vietnamese MiG-21, MiG-17 and Shenyang J-6 (the Chinese version of the MiG-19 ), however, only achieved a kill ratio of 1: 1 and lost between June 24 and On July 5, seven of a total of 24 aircraft in direct aerial combat without a single kill on the opposite side.

The Air Force pilots flew in an outdated tactical formation called Fluid Four , in which four aircraft in two formations form a unit and only the leading aircraft carries out the fire, so that the wingman remains vulnerable. Further reasons for the equal launch ratio were the inadequate aerial combat training against different types of combat aircraft, a deficient early warning system and an ECM pod arrangement that forced a strict formation flight. With the introduction of real-time warning systems in August, increasing combat experience of the crews and the decline in North Vietnamese interceptor capacities, the launch ratio turned to 4: 1.

Operation Lion's Den

Although Operation Linebacker was mainly airborne, naval forces were also deployed to direct ship artillery fire against enemy positions along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and other logistically important areas and to support their own ground forces. One of these ventures was Operation Lion's Den, also known as the Battle of Haiphong Harbor. On August 27, 1972, Vice Admiral James L. Holloway III undertook . A night attack with a naval force against North Vietnamese units protecting the port of H miti Phong. The formation consisted of the heavy cruiser USS Newport News (CA-148) , the light guided missile cruiser USS Providence (CLG-6) and the destroyers USS Robinson (DDG-12) and USS Rowan (DD-782) .

After the bombing, the unit was threatened by four torpedo boats built in the Soviet Union . With the support of two aircraft from the USS Coral Sea (CV-43) , three of the four torpedo boats were sunk. It was one of the few naval battles during the war.

Paris peace talks

The stalled offensive in South Vietnam and the destruction caused by the air war in North Vietnam brought the North Vietnamese government back to the negotiating table at the beginning of August. The negotiations resulted in new concessions from Hanoi and a promise to end the deadlock that had blocked previous negotiations since they began in 1968. The North Vietnamese demand that the South Vietnamese president be removed from office and replaced by a coalition government in which the National Liberation Front should also participate has been dropped. The diplomatic stalemate was broken and Nixon ordered the stop of all bombing north of the 22nd parallel on October 23.

Historian Earl Tilford described Operation Linebacker as "a turning point in air warfare ... it was the first modern air operation in which precision guided munitions changed the way air forces were used." He added that Linebacker succeeded where the operation was successful Rolling Thunder failed for three reasons:

1. President Nixon acted decisively and gave the armed forces great latitude in targeting.
2. The US Air Force was deployed vigorously and appropriately.
3. The great differences in the technologies used made Linebacker the first air bomb attack in the "New Era" of air warfare.

North Vietnamese Air Force losses

The North Vietnamese Air Force (VPAF) recorded the following losses as a result of direct aerial combat between April 5 and October 23, 1972:

date	Armed forces	MiG-21	MiG-19	MiG-17	Total
April 5th - May 9th	USAF	4th	1		5
	USN	2		2	4th
May 10th - October 23rd	USAF	30th	7th		37
	USN	3	2	11	16
	USMC	1			1
VPAF total		40	10	13	63

literature

• Dale Andrade: Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, America's Last Vietnam Battle . Hippocrene Books, 1994, ISBN 0-7818-0286-5 , pp. 600 (English).
• Michael Casey: Flags into Battle . Time Life Education, 1988, ISBN 0-939526-22-0 , pp. 192 (English).
• Lou Drendel: Air War Over Southeast Asia: A Pictorial Record Vol. 3, 1971-1975 . Squadron / Signal Publications, 1984, ISBN 0-89747-148-2 , pp. 80 (English).
• David Fulghum: South Vietnam on Trail: Mid-1970-1972 . Time Life Education, 1984, ISBN 0-939526-10-7 , pp. 192 (English).
• Stanley Karnow: Vietnam: A History . Penguin Books, New York 1983, ISBN 0-670-84218-4 , pp. 768 (English).
• Marshall L. Michel III: Clashes: Air Combat Over North Vietnam, 1965-1972 . US Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2007, ISBN 978-1-59114-519-6 , pp. 340 (English).
• Clark Dougan, David Fulghum, Samuel Lipsmanm, Stephen Weiss: The False Peace: 1972-74 . Boston Publishing Company, Boston 1985, ISBN 0-939526-15-8 , pp. 191 (English).

Web links

Commons : Operation Linebacker I / II  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Bibliography: Operations Linebacker and Linebacker II
• Operations Linebacker I. In: GlobalSecurity.org . Retrieved November 17, 2013 . 
• Naval Aviation Chronology 1970-1980. In: Naval Historical & Heritage Center. June 30, 1997, accessed November 17, 2013 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fulghum, Maitland, pp. 141-142.
2. ^ Tilford, p. 234.
3. ↑ Fulghum and Maitland, p. 170.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d} Fulghum and Maitland, p. 142.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Tilford, p. 228.
6. ^ Tilford, p. 232.
7. ↑ Michael Casey, Clark Dougan, Samuel Lipsman, Jack Sweetman, Stephen Weiss and others: Flags into Battle . Boston Publishing Company, Boston, 1987, p. 182.
8. ↑ Lavalle, p. 12.
9. ^ Tilford, pp. 223-224.
10. ↑ John Morocco: Rain of Fire: Air War, 1968-1975 . Time Life Education, 1985, ISBN 0-939526-14-X , p. 170.
11. ↑ Lavalle, pp. 19, 23-25. Morocco, pp. 108-109.
12. ^ Tilford, p. 224.
13. ^ Wayne Thomson: To Hanoi and Back . Washington DC, Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000, ISBN 1-4102-2471-6 , p. 225.
14. ^ Stanley Karnow: Vietnam . New York, Viking, 1983, p. 643.
15. ↑ Casey, Dougan, Lipsman, p. 39
16. ^ Military Institute of Vietnam: Victory in Vietnam . Lawrence KS, University of Kansas Press, 2002, ISBN 0-7006-1175-4 , p. 299.
17. ↑ Fulghum and Maitland, p. 179.
18. ↑ Fulghum and Maitland, p. 168.
19. ^ Dale Andrade: Trial by Fire . New York, Hippocrene Books, 1995, p. 52.
20. ↑ Dave Richard Plamer: Summons of the Trumpet . New York, Ballentine, 1978, p. 317.
21. ↑ ^{a b} Tilford, p. 233.
22. ↑ ^{a b} Morocco, p. 130.
23. ↑ Fulghum, Maitland, p. 144.
24. ↑ ^{a b} Morocco, p. 131.
25. ^ Andrade, p. 518.
26. ↑ Fulghum and Maitland, pp. 170-171.
27. ↑ Morocco, p. 144.
28. ^ Marshall L. Michel III: Clashes: Air Combat Over North Vietnam, 1965-1972 . US Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1997, ISBN 1-59114-519-8 , pp. 244 .
29. ↑ Michel, p. 288.
30. ^ Marshall L. Michel, p. 284.
31. ↑ James L. Holloway III. : Aircraft carriers at war: a personal retrospective of Korea, Vietnam, and the Soviet confrontation . US Naval Institute Press, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59114-391-8 , pp. 308 .
32. ^ Frank R. Futrell: Aces and Aerial Victories: The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia, 1965-1973 . Air University, 2011, ISBN 978-1-78039-134-2 , pp. 95-102 .
33. ↑ Lou Drendel: And Kill Migs: Air to Air Combat from Vietnam to the Gulf War . Squadron / Signal Publications, 1997, ISBN 0-89747-381-7 , pp. 104 .