The. [51], The interdiction effort during Commando Hunt VI (15 May through 31 October 1971) was thrown off by Lam Son 719 during April and May. Others never made it past the development phase. The entire system was elaborately camouflaged from aerial observation and was constantly being maintained, expanded, and improved.

The goal of the Commando Hunt campaigns was not to halt infiltration, but to make the North Vietnamese pay too heavy a price for their effort. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. [30], The Air Force's computing of communist personnel losses, according to Air Force historian Bernard Nalty was "based on so many assumptions that the end product represented an exercise in metaphysics rather than mathematics.
During the year the North Vietnamese transported or stored 60,000 tons of supplies with a net loss rate of 2.07 percent. [7], And so matters stood until the massive PAVN/NLF Tet Offensive of early 1968.

The new effort would also be supported by aerial defoliation missions (Operation Ranch Hand) and the cloud-seeding weather modification effort known as Operation Popeye (see Ho Chi Minh Trail). Commando Lava. Construction began on the ISC on 6 July 1967 and was completed within three months.[15]. The U.S. was going to field its latest technology in its attempt to prevent the North Vietnamese from toppling the South Vietnamese government. The interdiction campaign against the enemy logistics corridor was massively expanded due to the increased number of U.S. aircraft (approximately 500 planes) made available by the closure of Rolling Thunder. The story begins following the 1954 Geneva Accords, which divided Vietnam into two states.

[55] Commando Hunt VI, launched during the wet season, was hampered by heavy rain and the arrival of two typhoons which threw off both the PAVN logistical effort and U.S. attempts to interdict it. And for the Pentagon, stopping this flow of supplies was critical to blunting a growing anti-U.S. insurgency. They also retook Attopeu, Saravane, and Ban Thateng, cementing their hold on the strategic Bolovens Plateau of south central Laos. Sign up for a daily War is Boring email update here. By 1970 the North Vietnamese were making intense use of streams and rivers to supplement their logistical route, especially in the rainy season, when the water levels rose and the roadways became impassable mires. "Between 1967 and 1972, the US Air Force carried out Operation Popeye, the first use of weather as an instrument of war.Almost 3,000 flights were sent into the skies above the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where planes seeded clouds with silver iodide particles, causing storms and extending the monsoon season. [44] The Seventh Air Force headquarters in Saigon, chagrined by the enormity of the figures, recomputed them and lowered the estimate to 11,000 destroyed and 8,000 damaged.

Productivity epitomized what the war had become: an exercise in management effectiveness. [33] The depth of penetration by these reconnaissance efforts was hampered by the same man who had the last word in the bombing effort, Ambassador William H. Sullivan in Vientiane. seem important. [2] The former operation would continue in northeastern Laos while Operation Steel Tiger was initiated in the southern panhandle. And there were already problems with the system. It’s a safe bet to say most people outgrew their fascination with playing in mud sometime in elementary school. During the offensive, 80 percent of all U.S. aerial sorties were directed to support it. [36] This increased number of aircraft losses forced the Air Force to decree that flak suppression missions would accompany the bombers on missions over the trail. At the rate of attrition claimed in December, however, the PAVN transportation network should have been destroyed in only a month and a half. "[38] The primitive logistical needs of the North Vietnamese (at least until the final phase of the conflict) allowed them to slip under the radar of their more technologically sophisticated enemy.

This list may not reflect recent changes (). Targeting air strikes against bicycles or people under the same conditions was basically impossible.

Mud was one of the many issues that the famed Red Ball Express had contended with as its trucks sped across Europe during World War II. [27] The end of Rolling Thunder, it seemed, had freed up not only U.S. aircraft, but also allowed more PAVN anti-aircraft units to move south to defend the trail. [56] As a result of this all-out effort, U.S. intelligence analysts claimed 10,689 North Vietnamese trucks were destroyed and credited AC-130E Spectres alone with 7,335 of these kills. The immediate result of 11 November bombing halt was that the average daily sortie rate over southern Laos rose to 620 per day before the new campaign had even begun. [16] This system was utilized to direct one-quarter of all strike missions conducted by U.S. aircraft during the conflict. [29], The real problem for U.S. planners was a lack of sufficient intelligence on the numbers of infiltrators, the amount of supplies being transported, the number of trucks operating, the specific locations of targets in a rapidly changing environment, and the infrastructure of the system. It was with such perversity in mind that the Pentagon began Project Popeye in 1966, an attempt to artificially extend the monsoon season in Southeast Asia. But seeing trucks under triple-canopy jungle was difficult, to say the least. Mission, Guide to Country Recognition and Relations, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume ec aliquet. Research Operation Popeye and Operation Commando Lava, and write an short description of each. However, the same message also noted, emphasis added: “We cannot determine at [the Seventh Air Force] level whether the concept itself is really a dead issue.”. [44] The buildup of PAVN anti-aircraft defenses continued to increase. They were to have two objectives: First, to reduce the enemy's logistical flow by "substantially increasing the time needed to move supplies from North Vietnam to the south;" second, "to destroy trucks and supply caches along the roads, pathways, and streams and in the truck parks and storage areas along the Trail."[11]. This failure had three sources. On 17 June 1967 the title of the program was altered to Illinois City and on 15 July to Dyemarker, the electronic barrier portion of which was designated Muscle Shoals. See also the preceding Category:Battles and operations of the Vietnam War in 1969 and the succeeding Category:Battles and operations of the Vietnam War in 1971. This aspect of the PAVN effort had been virtually ignored since the initiation of the Commando Hunt in 1968. In some areas, the trail was built up to semi-improved highways crawling with Soviet and Chinese-supplied trucks. Perhaps even fewer would consider it a likely weapon of war. Commando Hunt II (1 May through 31 October 1969), however, was thrown off track by phenomena that the Air Force could do absolutely nothing about. In June 1968 it was renamed for the last time, becoming Operation Igloo White.

Pages in category "Battles and operations of the Vietnam War in 1972" The following 20 pages are in this category, out of 20 total.

Subject: Operation Commando Lava. Yet, an even lesser estimate of trucks destroyed by the Defense Intelligence Agency only resulted in their computer model reaching zero (where the enemy was supposed to be out of trucks) no fewer than 14 times during the same time period. Some people now go so far as to call the operation the "Watergate of weather warfare."

Weather modification was a technology once embraced by the US military as a tool to help both wartime and peacetime missions.

By 1968 PAVN was relying less on manual labor and increasingly utilizing modern construction equipment.

which Souvanna should be consulted, suggesting that from a During daylight, the missions would be performed by propeller-driven and jet fighter-bombers and B-52s.