And the window for aiming had shrunk as the aircrafts’ speed increased. Most jet dive bombers planned to release the weapons at 500 knots true airspeed, or as close to it as they could get, so as to minimize their exposure to enemy weapons, which fired a greater volume of shells than the antiaircraft artillery (AAA) of World War II. Due to the speed of the aircraft, the angle of approach to the target had to be shallower. Gone was the 70-degree dive of the venerable SBD Dauntless of Battle of Midway fame; now a 40- to 50-degree dive was about all that could be attempted if the aircraft would be able to pull out of the dive without ripping the wings off before it went below thirty-five hundred feet, the approximate ceiling that small-arms fire could reach. In a 70-degree dive, retarded by dive brakes, the piston-engine Dauntless released its single weapon at about 250 knots—about two thousand feet above the target—and pulled out at two hundred feet over the ocean. Now, in a 40-degree dive, with a six-thousand-foot release altitude, Vietnam-era jet pilots found that the slant range to the target at weapons’ release was ninety-three hundred feet, which is one-and-a-half nautical miles.
Another major problem was the fusing of the bombs. The mechanical nose fuse was a tried-and-true design from the 1930s. Upon the release of the weapon from its bomb rack, a copper safety wire affixed to the rack was withdrawn from a propeller in the nose of the fuse, freeing it to turn in the wind. After a preset number of seconds, usually about six, the firing train in the fuse was properly lined up and the weapon would detonate when it struck something. The fuse could be set to give a few milliseconds delay to allow the bomb to penetrate if the target material would allow penetration. A solid concrete bridge pier reinforced with steel was not going to be penetrated by a thousand-pound bomb, assuming the delivery pilot was an ice-water-for-blood pro who could score a perfect hit. If the bomb didn’t bounce off, it was going to detonate on the surface and take off a few chips of concrete.
Both the Navy and Air Force were attempting to move beyond the mechanical nose fuse. Electric fuses seemed to hold much promise, yet during the mid-1960s they were a work in progress. Several aircraft were destroyed by their own weapons when the electrical fuse on one of the bombs malfunctioned and detonated the weapon at the end of the six-second arming time or even before if the bombs bumped against one another. Mechanical nose fuses were still in widespread use for free-fall bombs until the very end of the Vietnam War.*
Hanoi knew that American aircraft could penetrate its airspace almost at will. The Communists’ goal was to make the effort as costly as possible. Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues did everything in their power to get ready. North Vietnam’s first class of fighter pilot candidates was sent to China in 1960 to learn to fly the MiG-15. In 1962 another group finished training in the MiG-17 in Russia. In 1964 the Soviets provided three dozen MiG-17 jet fighters to equip North Vietnam’s first fighter unit, the 921st Fighter Regiment, which was roughly equivalent to an American Air Force wing. The airplanes were a gift: apparently the Soviets could also read the writing on the wall and thought the North Vietnamese might just give the Americans a bloody nose. The second unit, the 923rd Fighter Regiment, equipped with MiG-17s, became operational in 1965.8
By any measure the North Vietnamese fighter pilots were novices, and they would be up against American pilots who were well experienced, often combat veterans, and masters of their machines. Many Americans arrived in Southeast Asia with a thousand or more hours of flight time. However, except in the US Navy’s F-8 Crusader community, dogfighting skills had been institutionally ignored since the Korean conflict.
Conversely, the Vietnamese pilot candidates received only about two hundred hours of flight training in Russia, which was made even more difficult by the language barrier. The first generation of North Vietnamese pilots tended to come from the ranks of the 1950s Viet Minh who had fought the French. The Vietnamese People’s Air Force’s (VPAF) first ace, Nguyen Van Bay, completed pilot training at the age of twenty-nine. It was said, “He went from the bicycle to the airplane with no stop in between.” Without US aviators’ education requirements, some applicants began flight training at eighteen or nineteen, winning their wings as soon as four years later.
First flown in 1950, the MiG-17 (NATO code name Fresco) was a subsonic swept-wing fighter-interceptor with an afterburning engine pushing it up to seven hundred miles per hour. Like the MiG-15, the 17 was a bare-bones, short-range defensive fighter. It carried a limited fuel supply, could not be refueled in the air, and, as originally designed, had no radar. In 1951 the Soviets obtained a captured American F-86 Sabre from Korea and copied the optical gunsight and gun-ranging radar. They installed the clones in the MiG-17, which became operational in 1952 yet never served in Korea.
The 17 was smooth where it needed to be smooth—mainly on the leading edges—and less refined elsewhere. Its boundary-layer fences atop the wing were a concession to expedience over engineering elegance, physically keeping a wing’s airflow from flowing outward and stalling along its swept span. It lacked refinement by Western standards, but it was cheap, easy to maintain, easy to service, and got the job done. Workmanship was just adequate, in keeping with the Soviet emphasis on quantity—after all, Lenin had famously noted, “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
The MiG-17 had a fatal design defect that would have been corrected had it been manufactured in the United States or Western Europe. Like the MiG-15, if more than half the fuel was used, an under-pressure condition could develop in the fuel tanks that could lead to tank implosions, crushing the main fuselage of the aircraft in midair. Apparently never corrected, the design defect led to roughly 30 percent of the 17’s accidents, and most of the implosions killed the pilot. The airplane was a flying death trap.9
The Vietnamese pilots must have known about the problem and flew the plane anyway. No doubt some of them died when their winged steeds imploded. Their patriotism and courage inspires awe, although it is awe tempered with a large dash of cold reality. North Vietnam was an absolute dictatorship locked in total war. Fighter pilots lived and ate better than the draftees sent south to battle the Americans on the ground or the AAA crews surrounding hard targets like the Thanh Hoa Bridge. Their chances of surviving combat and accidents were probably marginally better than the common grunt. Still, there were few cowards in MiG-17 cockpits.
Hanoi’s air defense system was dictated by its fighters’ capabilities and constructed on the Soviet model. Due to their limited fuel supply, MiGs rarely launched until an American raid was inbound. Radar controllers on the ground directed interceptors by radio to a favorable position against incoming Yankee air pirates while climbing for altitude, even telling MiG pilots when to arm their weapons. Most engagements were slashing attacks, with the Vietnamese making high-speed passes against US formations, preferably from a height advantage. If things degenerated into a dogfight—the type of air combat the Americans had declared obsolete—most MiG pilots were poorly trained in cut-and-thrust maneuvering against an opponent, though the MiG-17’s light wing loading—barely half that of an F-4 Phantom—was a tactical advantage.
Despite his 360-degree view from his canopy, the MiG-17 pilot coped with poor visibility. His ejection seat was nonadjustable, and the canopy fit close to the pilot’s head, partly hemming him in. Therefore, he wore a tight-fitting leather helmet and goggles of World War II vintage rather than the bulkier reinforced-plastic helmets of most of the world’s fighter pilots. The large lead-computing gunsight and thick windscreen glass also partially obscured the pilot’s view forward.
What’s more, at 450 knots (515 mph) the MiG’s unboosted controls stiffened up, becoming extremely difficult to move at higher airspeeds. The wise MiG pilot also tried to avoid the uncontrolled nose “tip-up” that occurred as the plane flirted with Mach 1. Furthermore, it could enter an uncoordinated “Dutch roll” at 375 knots that spoiled maneuverability. To offset the “energy” of their US opponents’ tactics, MiG-17 pilots sought an “angles” fight: come in as fast as possible, prefe
rably in a slight dive, shoot at one plane, and dive on out of the fight.
The MiG-17 had deadly fangs: a 37-millimeter cannon with forty rounds and two 23-millimeters that could fire eighty rounds each. That was enough ammo for five seconds of shooting. A typical two-second burst delivered seventy pounds of metal downrange—a prodigious quantity, enough to shatter any airplane in the American inventory.10
By April 1965 the North Vietnamese fielded a dozen antiaircraft artillery regiments and fourteen independent battalions with about one thousand guns of all calibers. Twenty-two early-warning radars and four fire-control radars supported them.
That same month Hanoi’s electronics capabilities expanded as the Americans detected Russian-made SA-2 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), with one SAM site growing to about a dozen by the end of the year.11
At the time of the bombing pause at the end of 1965 American aircrews reported flak on only 8 percent of their missions “up north.” Two months later they discovered that the Vietnamese had used the interval to boost their AAA capability threefold—with more increases to come.12
In 1967 US intelligence reckoned the Communist ammunition consumption in North Vietnam at twenty-five thousand tons per month. When the bombing ended in late 1968 the air-defense network had blossomed to more than eight thousand guns, four hundred radar stations, and forty SAM sites.13
Amid all this, the Thanh Hoa Bridge became the most heavily defended target in North Vietnam, which is to say, at that time in human history, the most heavily defended target on earth. In fact, more than a target, it became a symbol. American engineer-historian Gary Wayne Foster explained, “Destruction of the bridge became an intense obsession of American military planners. The Vietnamese, obsessing no less, fought to preserve the bridge, which for them had become the supreme symbol of their resistance to American air power. It’s not without plausibility then that the destruction of this sacred symbol by the Americans may have been more important than the destruction of the structure itself.”14
For much of the war, primary responsibility for defending the Thanh Hoa Bridge fell to the 228th Air Defense Artillery Regiment. In 1960 it had turned in its 90-millimeter heavy guns for smaller, faster-firing 57-millimeter weapons. Re-equipped by the end of June, the 228th deployed forty guns and five SON-9A radars, plus generators, spare parts, and ammunition.15
In May 1965, after the initial US attacks on the bridge, the 228th deployed to Thanh Hoa, relieving the 234th Regiment. The move was accomplished quickly, with the 228th established by the dawn of May 8. The regimental commander Nguyen Dang Tang and political commissar Tran Chau Kinh deployed 23-, 37-, and 57-millimeter guns around the town and the bridge.
At first the newcomers moved into the 234th’s positions, but the disposition was judged inadequate. Some crews set to work building roads and leveling hills to improve visibility and fields of fire, allowing better integration of the 228th’s five batteries. The third battery even built a floating firing position in a stretch of sunken paddy fields.
Meanwhile the 228th was augmented by the provincial defense force’s Third AAA Battalion, with three 37-millimeter batteries under Comrade Cao Xieu. He sited his guns atop the Dragon’s Eye and Jade Mountain Karsts, affording a relatively clear field of fire.
Reportedly, Nguyen Can Coi, commanding North Vietnam’s air defenses, personally supervised the installation of AAA weapons atop the Dragon’s Jaw. Disassembled guns were hauled up the steep slopes of Rong Mountain on the west bank and Ngoc Hill on the east, while other weapons were placed along likely aerial approaches. Putting guns on both ends of the bridge gave the gunners up-the-throat shots at any American plane diving on the bridge. It also was a very dangerous place to be, as, inevitably, bombs were going to be falling close to or on the guns.16
It is too bad that Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert S. McNamara couldn’t have been present that day to watch Nguyen Can Coi site the guns. The men manning these weapons were likely to die, probably when the next American strike rolled in on the bridge. Nguyen Can Coi knew it, the gunners knew it, and anyone watching couldn’t help but understand it. Here was visual, visceral proof that North Vietnam was going to be a damned tough nut to crack.
Gun crews and support teams worked around the clock, typically in twenty-four-hour shifts, whether in drenching rain or in the cloying Annam Province humidity and heat. Crews changed at midnight so they would be unlikely to be caught in transit by US aircraft. Similarly, small powered craft delivered ammunition to the river banks, sometimes fighting the current twice a night from distribution points downstream. Thus, the Dragon’s Jaw area was nearly always in flux, with gun crews going on and off duty, ammunition and supplies being delivered, cooking fires being tended under cover, and people trying to snatch a little sleep.17
The most common AAA weapon in North Vietnam was probably the Soviet-designed S-60 57-millimeter antiaircraft gun, which radical American actress Jane Fonda introduced to the American public by posing for the cameras on one in 1972. Of Korean War origin, the S-60 was produced in China as the Type 59. It was a five-ton towed weapon with a crew of seven. It was fed by four-round clips weighing nearly sixty-three pounds each. The mount could swivel 360 degrees, with 90 degrees of vertical elevation, an option seldom employed for obvious reasons. Rate of fire was continuous—typically seventy rounds per minute—as long as ammo clips were inserted in the feed tray.
The 228th also employed the ZU-23, a twin-barreled 23-millimeter automatic weapon. Usually mounted on a trailer, it was served by six men. The ZU was fed linked ammo from fifty-round boxes on either side. The two barrels could spit out a combined two thousand rounds per minute, but disciplined gunners usually maintained a rate of about four hundred rounds a minute of aimed fire. Maximum range against aircraft was rated at a mile and a quarter; on fast crossing targets the Soviets calculated a .023 percent hit probability. However, multiple weapons firing in the same cube of airspace offset the low single-mount success rate.18
Two other antiaircraft guns in Vietnam’s inventory were pre–World War II Soviet designs. The 37-millimeter automatic defense gun, M1939, was also produced in China as the Type 55. The weapon had a crew of seven or eight. Fed by five-round clips, the gun was rated effective to about fifty-five hundred feet.
Another 1939 design was the 85mm KS-12, firing a cartridge weighing 20.25 pounds. It shot a far larger projectile than the lighter weapons and had a greater reach. The 85-millimeter slant range was nearly twenty-five thousand feet, although the typical engagement range was up to eighteen thousand feet. Each shell contained 1.4 pounds of TNT that could inflict fatal damage on a jet with a proximity-fused air burst. Served by seven men, it sat on a wheeled carriage like the other AAA weapons.19
For optimum coverage of a given area, most North Vietnamese antiaircraft installations were laid out in geometric patterns, typically triangular or pentagonal shapes. This disposition had the advantage of creating overlapping fields of fire from multiple weapons, increasing hit probability beyond that of a single weapon.20 In 1965 all these weapons, with the possible exception of a few 85-millimeter guns, were optically aimed.
The Dragon was ready for the storm.
Suppressing Vietnamese antiaircraft fire became an occupational specialty for tactical airmen. Bonnie Dick A-4 pilot Lieutenant Steve Gray said, “Flak suppression was the most hazardous mission we flew. Once you began your attack on the gun site, the gun director knew immediately what you were up to and shifted the fire of his battery toward you. It became a ‘you or them’ situation. The easiest shot for the gunner was up-the-throat, firing directly at the diving airplane with no deflection or lead required. It was very common to see antiaircraft shells passing through the 100 mil ring of the gunsight [100 mils subtended to 100 lateral feet at 1,000 feet range]. But if they were firing at you they weren’t shooting at the bombers and you were accomplishing your mission.”21
Attacking an AAA site reduced modern war to its most basic element. The attack pilot was trying to k
ill the gunners, and they were trying to kill him. It was raw, visceral violence—to the death.
And it would last more than seven years.
* Thirteen months later Stockdale would be shot down and became one of the senior prisoners of war in Hanoi. For more than seven years he lived in dread that his captors would stumble on the fact that he had witnessed the nonevent on August 4 that Lyndon Johnson used as justification to escalate America’s involvement in Vietnam, but his secret remained unknown.
* Known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Johnson signed it into law three days later.
* The Vietnam experience and the frustration of attempting to take down the Dragon’s Jaw Bridge and the Paul Doumer Bridge in Hanoi eventually convinced American military leadership that guided weapons were needed. We will explore the early use of guided weapons later in this book.
CHAPTER 3
THE FIRST HAMMER BLOW
In November 1964 Lyndon Johnson had been reelected to his first full term as president. At the time his victory was the fourth-largest presidential landslide in American history. Johnson’s first priority was his domestic political agenda, the Great Society Program. With his aides and advisers, he also tried to determine what to do with this war in Southeast Asia that he had wanted a big piece of. The American politicians certainly didn’t appreciate the advantage that an absolute dictatorship bestowed upon the North Vietnamese leadership. What they did appreciate, though, was that North Vietnam and the People’s Republic of China shared a border, and if the war wasn’t handled right, they feared that China might send an army to prevent a military defeat of its Communist ally, as it did in October 1950 in Korea.
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