Introduction
Operation Rolling Thunder was an aerial bombing campaign, during the Vietnam War, conducted by the United States Air Force, United States Navy, and the Republic of Vietnam Air Force, from March 2, 1965 to November 2, 1968.
Its purpose was to demonstrate America’s air supremacy in an effort to demoralize North Vietnam's Communist leaders (Ho Chi Minh) and to reduce their ability to carry out attacks against South Vietnam, supported by the United States. The four main objectives of this operation were to destroy North Vietnam’s industrial foundation, transportation systems, and air defenses, stop the flow of troops and supplies, to boost the morale of the South Vietnamese and to sway North Vietnam’s support of communist insurgency in South Vietnam.
The attainments of these objectives were unattainable due to the constraints placed on commanders from the White House and the clash between political and military advisors. Other contributing factors were Cold War requirements, lack of properly trained aircrews for these missions, a clash between political and military advisors, and the communist support of North Vietnam from the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.
Operation Rolling Thunder was the largest air/ground battle waged during the Cold War. During this strategic bombing campaign, about 643,000 tons of bombs were dropped , nearly 900 U.S. aircraft were lost, and these raids cost the U.S. about $900 million, while North Vietnam’s estimated damages were only $300 million. President Johnson ceased Operation Rolling Thunder on October 31, 1968, under increasing domestic political pressure.1
History
Prior to the Vietnam War, the United States had witnessed the break-up of the World War II alliance...
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...r College, 2003.
Fey, Peter, "The Effects of Leadership on Carrier Air Wing Sixteen’s Loss Rates During Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965-1968," MMAS diss., U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2006.
Global Security website. “Operation Rolling Thunder.” Accessed January 23, 2014. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/rolling_thunder.htm.
The History Channel website. “Johnson approves Operation Rolling Thunder.” Accessed January 23, 2014. http://www.history.com/this-day-in- history/johnson-approves-operation-rolling-thunder.
The History Channel website. “Operation Rolling Thunder.” Accessed
January 24, 2014. http://www.history.com/topics/operation-rolling-thunder.
The History Channel website. “President Johnson announces bombing halt.” Accessed January 23, 2014. http://www.history.com/this-day-in history/president-johnson-announces-bombing-halt.
Introduction Operation Anaconda was the first major joint combat operation against the war on terror that the US was committed to winning. This operation would test our military’s readiness for joint operations against a hardened and willing adversary. The primary mission was to kill/capture Taliban/Al Qaeda forces occupying towns and villages in the vicinity of Shahi Khot in order to gain control of the valley.1 The US needed the towns, villages, mountains, and more importantly, the intricate and hard to access caves cleared of enemy fighters. Units participating in the operation included elements of the 101st Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division, Special Operations Forces (SOF), and Coalition forces from seven nations including Afghanistan.2 With so many different nations fighting along with our own branches of military, it would test our ability to conduct joint operations on multiple levels. History On September 11, 2001, Osama Bin Laden decided to “wake the sleeping giant.”
Ignorance and Air Power: The Failure of U. S. Leadership to Properly Utilize Air Power in Vietnam
Vietnam was really just a pawn in the much larger game of the Cold War. The main political objective behind the Unites States’ involvement in the Vietnam War was to set forth it’s policy of containment prevent the “Domino E...
The United States was not capable of winning the War because they realized too late that the real war in Vietnam was not a military one but a political one. Beginning with Eisenhower, They were fully aware that the only way South Vietnam would win is with the support of the United States troops. Kennedy restricted the U.
January 31, 1968, NVA and VC launched a series of attacks on major cities and military
E. Indicated that primary mission of the troops was to train the North Vietnamese forces to fight Russia. This could not be the correct answer because "He also reported progress in the "Vietnamistation" effort to increase the combat capability of South Vietnam's armed forces so they could assume more responsibility for the
During the Vietnam War on January 30th, 1968, the communist Vietnam troops in the North, with assistance from the Viet Cong, commenced a series of attacks against the forces in the south and the US, known as the famous “Tet Offensive.” The name “Tet Offensive” is derived from the most important holiday on the Vietnamese calendar. It is a celebration of the lunar New Year. General Vo Nguyen Giap, along with the forces in the north, decided to attack on this day because it is supposed to be a “truce period” between the north and south. On this day, the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) was at its lowest level of alertness. (Dunn, 2005) The offensive consisted of three phases. The first phase took place on January 31st and lasted until March 28th. During this phase, the North Vietnamese forces wanted to draw the allied forces out of heavily populated cities and lowlands and then launch attacks on those cities. (Staff, 2014) This was a major surprise. The second phase, also known as “mini-tet”, took place on May 5th and lasted through June 15th. This phase consisted of massive attacks on villages and cities aiming to hit 119 targets. (Staff, 2014) This phase was a complete failure. The last and final phase of the offensive ranged from August 17th to September 23rd. This attack consisted of more attacks on villages and cities and was handled only by the North Vietnamese soldiers, without the help of Viet Cong, ending in another failure. (Staff, 2014) The Tet Offensive was a highly publicized attack with the daily media coverage it received. It was also regarded to as one of the turning points of the Vietnam War. After the failed attacks of the North forces, Viet Cong was ruined as a military force. (Dunn, 2005)
Twelve North Carolina residents have been taken into custody for allegedly attempting to transport drugs into the state. The arrests were the culmination of "Operation Thunderstruck," an investigation conducted by federal, state and local law enforcement officers.
Robert S. McNamara, appointed by John F. Kennedy to the position of U.S. Secretary of Defense in 1961, said about the Vietnam War, “It is important to recognize it’s a South Vietnamese war. It will be won or lost depending upon what they do. We can advise and help, but they are responsible for the final results, and it remains to be seen how they will continue to conduct that war,'; (McNamara 72). Despite these guidelines for assisting in the war, the U.S. would end up doing much more than just advising. The Vietnam War was supposed to be a demonstration of how willing the U.S. was to battle communism, but ended up a personal vendetta against the North Vietnamese as the U.S. escalated its commitment in Vietnam infinitely greater than it had ever intended. After World War II, France returned to Vietnam to reclaim their Indochinese colonies after the Ho Chi Minh had declared Vietnamese independence in 1945 (Goldstein 3). The U.S. had just ended a war started by German conquest in Europe, and now was being asked to help France conquer the colonies it lost control of during the war. The Vietnam Nationalists, the same ones who had supported the U.S. in the war against the Japanese not more than a year previous, sought only to peacefully gain their independence from France (Chant 25). In January of 1950, the Viet Minh gained recognition by the governments of the USSR and China, who supplied weapons and places to train (Chant 25). Because the two Communist superpowers recognized the Viet Minh, the Vietnam war became to the U.S. a struggle between capitalism and communism, especially since the Viet Minh were openly communist themselves. By aiding the French, the U.S. thought they were helping their free-trade ally France fight communism, the Communist Party was very strong in France (Goldstein 3). The U.S. feared that Vietnam would fall to communism, and set-off the “domino effect'; for other communist satellites in Indochina (McNamara 76). With weapons and training from Russia and China, the Viet Minh forced France to request help from the U.S. Fearing the spread of communism under Ho Chi Minh’s regime, the U.S. was glad to offer France assistance, but even after the French humiliation at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the U.S. continued their involvement in Vietnam (Encarta “Vietnam War';). The Vietnam situation became a...
“The Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign began on March 2, 1965, partly in response to a Viet Cong attack on a U.S. air base at Pleiku. The Johnson administration cited a number of reasons for shifting U.S. strategy to include systematic aerial assaults on North Vietnam. For example, administration officials believed that heavy and sustained bombing might encourage North Vietnamese leaders to accept the non-Communist government in South Vietnam. The administration also wanted to reduce North Vietnam’s ability to produce and transport supplies to aid the Viet Cong insurgency.”(History.com,
While the Vietnam battles began in the 1950’s, America did not become involved until 1965, under the command of President Lyndon Johnson. Right away the decision was met with mixed reactions. World War II had ended about 20 years prior to the deployment of U.S. troops in Vietnam, and many were not exactly excited to jump into another war. Right away protest groups formed across the nation, and many people began to let ...
The U.S. attempted to apply conventional warfare strategy to the communist insurgency in South Vietnam. The result of this strategy was that U.S. forces were victorious in almost every military battle, but could not translate tactical achievement into operational and strategic success. However, during the course of the war, the U.S. discovered three elements of strategy that, if melded into a cohesive whole, could have achieved American objectives for a reasonable cost. First, the U.S. should have fully resourced and implemented a counterinsurgency strategy of pacification, as the primary U.S. military effort in Vietnam. Second, a robust network of South Vietnamese paramilitary forces, integrated with U.S. pacification, would have been the vital link to winning South Vietnamese popular support. Third, the synchronization of pacification with air mobility and air power operations would have effectively incorporated U.S. conventional firepower with the counterinsurgency effort. Next, the claim that U.S. military forces could not have been organized or resourced to implement an effective counterinsurgency will be refuted. Finally, a bridge forward explores whether the U.S. learned from Vietnam how to identify and fight a complex insurgency.
The Vietnam War was the first major war American’s had suffered defeat. The Vietnam war was a war of confusion, competition and biasness. The outcome of the war was far greater than an upset American nation, but a severe breakdown of the Vietnamese culture, economy, environment and government. It also had a tremendous impact on American society even up to present day. It was unclear from the beginning of the war if the American’s should even be involved. It was a war between Northern and Southern Vietnam but the U.S saw it as an indirect way to challenge the USSR’s sphere of influence in Southern Asia and to prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism. The Vietnam War completely changed the way the United States approached military action and helped establish the role of the United States within the new world order.
Due to the prevalence of anti-aircraft missiles in the North, B-52s only attacked targets in South Vietnam during Rolling Thunder. Even here, their role was limited. The B-52 fell under Strategic Air Command (SAC) and was part of the nuclear deterrence triad. Every B-52 in the Southeast Asian Theater was one less bomber performing nuclear deterrence. This harmed American credibility when it came to nuclear capabilities and increased the reluctance of SAC to give their aircraft to an outside theater commander. Furthermore, in the event of a strategic crisis, it would take far too long to transfer these aircraft back into SAC command, further reducing the impact B-52s made on Rolling Thunder. To offset the lack of strategic bombers, small, single-engine aircraft had to pick up the majority of the heavy lifting. At the peak of Rolling Thunder, 200 Air Force fighters stationed across Thailand and throughout South Vietnam attack the North along with Navy fighter wings from two aircraft carriers in the South China Sea. A further 400 Air Force fighters bombed targets in South Vietnam. In total, more than five times as many bombs hit targets in the South than in the North. More bombs were dropped during Rolling Thunder than the campaigns against Japan and Germany in World War II. By 1968, the Air Force flew 12,000 sorties in a month. When Rolling Thunder came to a disappointing end in October 1968, the
After years of fighting, the North Vietnam army had taken more and more land from the south. After command of the American president Lyndon Johnson the US send their own troops to Vietnam, and then in early in August 1964, a US Navy destroyer were attacked by Vietnamese P-4 torpedo boats, after it had been on patrol, gathering information on North Vietnamese and Chinese military activities.