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I N EARLY APRIL 1997, the Air Force rolled Did USAF out the F-22 stealth fighter. This highly so phis ti cated and very expen sive aircraft car ries the promise of contin ued Ameri Technology can air domi nance into the next cen tury. The de ci sion to use it for that purpose commits the Air Force, and the country, to a specific tech nol ogy. Is this wise? Fail in If his tory is any guide, the Ameri can rec ord with mili tary avia tion tech nol ogy is mixed at best. Contrary to the convent ional wisdom, Vietnam? Ameri can airmen have not enjoyed over- whelmi ng technol ogic al supe ri or ity in their conf licts. During World War I, US airmen flew European-designed, and, in most cases, European- built aircraft. In the early stages of World War II, Americans were shocked to Three Case Studies* learn that the Japanese Zero was better than the best US fight ers in serv ice. And to ward the end of that conflict, the airmen again found them selves at a consid er able disadv ant age KENNETH P. WERRELL when they had to battle the more advanced jet- powered Me 262. Five years later in Korea, Ameri can airmen yet again engaged a supe rior fly ing ma chine, the So viet MiG- 15. What was the situation in the Vietnam War? There are those who consider the Vietnam War as proof that technol ogy has been over- used or misused. Others view technol ogy as the Sirens of Greek legend, luring America into the Southeast Asian war and onto the rocks of defeat. Critics write of blind techno logi cal fanati cism, hubris, and overcon fi dence as the United States at tempted to fight a re mote, anti sep tic war. Leaving the rhetoric aside, how well did Air Force technol ogy perform during the war? Viet nam was not what the Air Force envi sioned as its next conflict. Thinking in terms of a massive nuclear exchange, the airmen planned, equipped, and trained for nuclear war. In fairness, this was the direc tion from above, and it did give the United States a for mi da ble offens ive force and effec tive deter- rent (Strateg ic Air Command) against Com mu nist aggres sion. However, this empha sis *This article is part of a longer study of Air Force technology from Vietnam through the Gulf War. A shorter version of the article was delivered at the annual meeting of the Society of Military History on 11 April 1997. 87 Report Documentation Page Form Approved OMB No. 0704-0188 Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. 1. REPORT DATE 3. DATES COVERED 1998 2. REPORT TYPE 00-00-1998 to 00-00-1998 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER Did USAF Technology Fail in Vietnam? Three Case Studies 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION Air and Space Power Journal,155 N. Twining Street,Maxwell REPORT NUMBER AFB,AL,36112-6026 9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 10. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S ACRONYM(S) 11. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S REPORT NUMBER(S) 12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT Approved for public release; distribution unlimited 13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 14. ABSTRACT 15. SUBJECT TERMS 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF 18. NUMBER 19a. NAME OF ABSTRACT OF PAGES RESPONSIBLE PERSON a. REPORT b. ABSTRACT c. THIS PAGE Same as 13 unclassified unclassified unclassified Report (SAR) Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98) Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18 88 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1998 not only put the other services at a disadv an bomb bay that could accom mo date a nuclear tage, it also crip pled other Air Force mis sions. weapon and extens ive avion ics to lighten the Cons eq uently, the Air Force story in Vietnam workl oad of the pi lot fly ing at high speed and is how an air force designed for one kind of at low al ti tudes. This would al low Tac ti cal Air war performed in a drastic ally differ ent one. Comm and to partici pate in nuclear warfare, Clearly the US Air Force had problems in which was the primary empha sis of the the Vietnam War, and some were with Ameri can military during this period. The F- technol ogy. This paper focuses on three 105 could carry eight thousand pounds inter exa mples of Air Force technol ogy in the Viet nally and another four thousand pounds ex nam War. These vary in type, demons trate tern ally and turned out to be the largest and both success and failure, and thus are repre heavi est single-seat American fighter up to sen ta tive. They are the F- 105, fixed- wing gun- that time. It replaced the F-100D as Tactic al ships, and precision-guided muni tions Air Command’s princi pal aircraft. (It had (PGM).1 twice the bomb load and 50 percent more speed than the F-100 Super Sabre.) It also mounted a rapid-firing 20 mm Gatling gun. The F-105 To be very clear, however, the F-105 was pri mar ily de signed as a bomber, and its air- to- air The Repub lic F-105 Thunder chief in many fighter capa bil ity was secon dary. ways symbol izes Air Force perform ance in Duri ng its first flight on 22 Octo ber 1955, Viet nam. It was an aircraft that looked good it ex ceeded the speed of sound. When the air- from any angle. It was fast and stable, a ma- craft was modified into the B version, it fea chine that pilots called “honest.” It could tured such inno va tions as a “coke bottle” fu carry a heavy bomb load a long distance at a se lage, “clover leaf” speed brakes on the high speed. In short, it was a fine air craft, a pi- air craft’s tail, and the all-flying tail.3 The first lot’s plane, well designed for the single pur squadr on was equipped with the Thunder- pose of fighting a nuclear war.2 chief in 1959.4 Just as the Korean War erupted in June Al though desig nated as a fighter (F-105), 1950, the Air Force asked Repub lic Aviation its size and weight, not to mention its bomb to conceive a succes sor to its F-84F. What bay, brought this desig na tion into dispute. emerged was an aircraft designed around a Early on it was saddled with such uncom pli- Republic’s “Ultra Hog.” Although designated as a fighter (the F-105), its size and weight, not to mention its bomb bay, brought this designation into dispute. Early on it was saddled with such uncomplimentary nicknames as “Lead Sled,” “Ultra Hog,” and “Thud.” DID USAF TECHNOLOGY FAIL IN VIETNAM? 89 men tary nicknames as “Lead Sled,” “Ultra tough ness. The Thun der chief was de signed to Hog,” and “Thud.” Some write that it earned fight a nuclear war in which the deliv ery of a poor repu ta tion mainly due to the poor re li one nuclear weapon at low alti tude and high abil ity of the avion ics and the pilot’s unfa speed was all that was re quired. Lit tle thought milia ri ty with the fighter. The aircraft’s low was given to a campaign consist ing of hun in-c ommission rate and high cost of mainte dreds of missions extend ing over years. nance were both disturbi ng and frustrat ing. There fore, surviv abil ity was not a major de- The air craft and its sys tems were com plex and sign consid era tion; rugged ness, redun dant new to the Air Force, and spare parts were sys tems, ar mor, and the like were not pri or ity short. More dramatic and more import ant to items. In fact, some surviv abil ity fac tors were its reputa tion were crashes. An examin at ion traded off to enhance other perform ance. of the records of other fighters of the century Two such instances proved critical. First, the ser ies, how ever, in di cates that at least early in fighter’s two sets of hydrau lic lines were run its career (up to 53,000 flying hours), the close together, appar ently to ease manufac Thun der chief’s acci dent record was only ture and mainte nance, so that a hit on one bested by the F- 106.5 Re gard less, it was the Air could easily take out the other. A loss of hy For ce’s pri mary strike air craft dur ing the dec drau lic pressure caused the stabi lizer to lock ade of the 1960s and what the Air Force had in the full “up” posi tion, pushing the nose when the Vietnam War began. It flew three- down. Second, the inter nal and bomb-bay quarters of the Air For ce’s strike mis sions dur fuel tanks were not self-sealing. Such was the ing Rolling Thunder, the American strate gic com bat norm since 1940, for good reason, as bombi ng campaign against North Vietnam one 1950 study found that 80 percent of be tween 1965 and 1968.6 Ameri can, British, and German aircraft losses The F-105 did not fare well in combat. The in World War II were directly caused by fire, Thund erc hief served as a fighter-bomber but most from damaged fuel systems. At the very was limited by its avion ics designed for nu- least, even a small caliber hit could cause a clear, not conven tional, missions. Ironically, leak. This helps explain why the F-105 was so the bomb bay was used to carry a fuel tank, vul ner able to fire and explo sion, three times not bombs. At low level it was the fastest air- as likely as the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phan craft of the war, but was at a disad van tage in tom to be lost to fire or explo sion.9 air-t o-a ir combat because of its lack of ma As early as Decem ber 1965, the F-105 was neu ver abil ity.7 More than half (397) of the be ing unfa vora bly compared with the F-4, as 753 F- 105Ds and Fs built were lost in the war. it was believed that it was 1.5 to 2.5 times as Over all, the F- 105 had the high est loss rate of vul ner able as the Phantom. One study indi any US aircraft oper at ing in Southeast Asia cated that when hit by hostile fire, the F-105 and over North Vietnam.8 Why such heavy had a 15 percent higher rate of loss than the losses? The politi cal restric tions certainly F-4. This led to a recom men da tion that the played a role, allow ing the North Viet nam ese Thun der chief be shifted from action over to build up and ad just their de fenses. An other North Viet nam to the less le thal skies of South fac tor was that the tactics that had been de Viet nam, and it spurred a number of studies vel oped for a short nuclear war proved costly to assess the vulner abil ity of the aircraft and and inap pro pri ate in a long convent ional air search for remedies. One con clu sion was that camp aign fought against extens ive ground- if the F-4 and F-105 were fairly compared (us based air defenses. The intro duc tion of ing similar time peri ods, similar missions, surface- to- air missiles (SAM) made matters and similar risks), their loss rates were about even worse for the airmen. A third factor was the same.10 the aircraft itself. The Thunder chief was modified to deal The F- 105 was nei ther as rug ged nor as sur with some of these problems. By mid-1965, viv able as its World War II predeces sor, the the flight con trol sys tem had been changed so P-47, which was rightly celebrated for its that if the hydrau lic system was hit, the pilot 90 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1998 “Puff.” Top, dragon fire from the sky; right, Puff’s teeth—a close-up of the three 7.62 mm miniguns;above, an AC-47 over South Vietnam. Fortunately, Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay ordered the C-47 gunship concept to be tested in Vietnam over TAC’s objections. DID USAF TECHNOLOGY FAIL IN VIETNAM? 91 could mechani cally lock the horizon tal The idea reached Capt John Simmons at stabilizer at an opti mum setting. He could Wright- Patterson AFB, Ohio, through an in di then use an elec tric tog gle switch to con trol rect route.13 After overcom ing numer ous re- roll and pitch with the wing flaps along with differ en tial engine power to fly the plane. This could at least get a pilot out of In contrast to the F-105, the the imme di ate area before he was forced to fixed-wing gunship was a great eject from the stricken aircraft. A rocket developmental and operational ejec tion seat was fitted into the aircraft to success. en hance pilot surviv abil ity. Self-sealing tanks and bomb-bay fire extin guisher modi fi ca tions were also added.11 It is hard to put a positive spin on the F- 105’s service in Vietnam. One might say buffs, he pushed through a modest test pro- dip lo mati cally that its record could be gram in mid-1963 that demon strated that a called “mixed,” but that really doesn’t say pi lot could track a target while in a pylon any thing. To cut to the heart of the issue, turn. The breakthrough came in August 1964 the F-105 could not overcome the limita when a C-131 armed with a 7.62 mm Gatling tions of its basic design, the pecu liar condi gun achieved better than expected accu racy tions of the war, the role in which it found in firing tests over the Gulf of Mexico. The it self, or Ameri can tac tics. At best, it proved next month, three Gatling guns were to be a medio cre performer in diffi cult con mounted aboard a C-47 and also success fully di tions. Similar to the military, it served tested. Capt Ronald Terry forcefully articu hon ora bly and capa bly in a losing cause. lated a concept of C-47s delive ri ng accur ate What more could be expected? The last F- and massive firepower to hamlets under at- 105D unit returned to the US in late 1970, tack. Things moved ahead rather rapidly, for to be replaced by the F-4 in the fighter- on 2 Novem ber 1964 Terry helped brief the bomber role. con cept to the Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis Le May, who or dered that the C-47 be tested in Viet nam. Gunships There was oppo si tion to the concept. Gen Wal ter Sweeney, commander of Tacti cal Air In contrast to the F-105, the fixed-wing Com mand, had two seemingly contrary ob gun ship was a great devel op men tal and op jec tions: could the aircraft survive, and if so, era tional success. A few dedicated, inno va would it under mine the Air Force’s posi tion tive indi vidu als brought forth a new con in the battle with the Army over armed heli cept quickly and cheaply that fit the war cop ters? In addi tion, he did not see how the that was be ing fought in Viet nam. The ba sic guns hip would work in other conflicts, spe gun ship concept is quite simple: an aircraft cifi cally one in Europe. Therefore, success in fly ing in a level turn around a point on the Viet nam might saddle the command with a ground (as if tethered to a pylon, hence number of aircraft that would prove useless called a “pylon turn”) can deliver fairly and vulner able where it really counted, in accurate firepower from guns firing per- Europe. Certainly, the idea of using obsol ete pen dic ular to the line of flight.12 This con trans ports to support besieged hamlets at cept was first proposed in 1926 and demon night, at low speeds, and from low altit udes strated the next year. A number of other did not appeal to the airmen, who thought air men later ad vanced the idea, but the Army pri mar ily in terms of newer aircraft flying Air Forces/US Air Force did not pick up on it ever higher and faster. Never the less, the tests un til the early 1960s. went forward. 92 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1998 Terry and his team arrived in South Viet cent of the total sorties against moving tar- nam in De cem ber 1964. The gun ship quickly gets, yet claimed over 29 percent of the de dem on strated that it not only worked but was stroyed and damaged trucks. Little wonder valu able. On its first night mission on 23–24 why the Air Force wanted more. Conc ern about the gunship’s vulner abil ity pushed the Air Force towards heavier arma Gen Creighton Abrams told the ment to in crease stand- off range. (Larger guns Seventh Air Force commander, Gen would also do more damage to targets.) In mid- 1969, a group that included Major Terry John Vogt, that the three weapons sug gested that two 40 mm18 and two 20 mm that had been unqualified successes guns become the standard armam ent. They were the tube-launched, optically also recom mended better sensors (such as tracked, wire command (TOW) low- light- level tele vi sion and im proved in fra missile; the AC-130; and the red), a digital computer to replace the analog guided bomb. one, and a laser desig na tor. A program dubbed “Sur prise Pack age” that in cor po rated these ideas, got the go-ahead in Septem ber 1969. After a month of stateside test flights, the aircraft arrived in Thailand on 5 Decem De cem ber, it helped repel a Vietcong attack ber for combat tests lasting through 18 Janu on an outpost.14 The gunship concept would ary. The evaluat ors judged the improved be used in two very differ ent roles. The first model twice as effec tive as the exist ing C- was to provide heavy firepower to ground 130s.19 forces engaged in combat in South Vietnam. The last effort during the war to boost the The other was to inter dict enemy logis tics in AC- 130’s killing power was to mount a 105 Laos. The aircraft’s success contin ued, but mm how it zer.20 While to the outsider this ap bet ter gunships were coming on-line. On 1 pears to be quite a feat, it actu ally was ac com De cem ber 1969, US Air Force AC-47s flew plished very smoothly. The gun saw combat their last mission.15 dur ing the 1971–72 dry sea son cam paign and In Novem ber 1966, the C-130 was picked in Linebacker I, where it proved to be very ef as a follow-on aircraft. The four-engined tur fec tive, ac count ing for 55 per cent of the tanks bo prop had much greater fly ing per form ance de stroyed or damaged. than the ancient “Gooney Bird” and carried The third airframe used as a gunship was much heavier firepower, four 7.62 mm and the C- 119, an other ob so lete trans port like the four 20 mm Gatling guns compared to the C-47, how ever not as es teemed. Nev er the less, AC- 47’s three 7.62 mm guns. Nicknamed it rein forced the gunship effort in late 1968 “Spect re,” it also mounted an array of ad and became the most numer ous of the Viet vanced sensors.16 nam War gunships. The AC-119G was in- In Septem ber 1967, Captain Terry re- tended to take up the AC-47’s mission in turned to Vietnam to test the AC-130. The South Vietnam: defend hamlets, provide fire evaluat ions concluded that the AC-130 was sup port for ground troops, and fly close air “a three-fold improvem ent over its predeces sup port and escort convoys.21 While it served sor, the AC-47.”17 The AC-130 was deemed well, it was really lit tle im prove ment over the the most cost- effective, close- support, and in AC- 47. ter dic tion weapon in the USAF inven tory. The Air Force thought better of the AC- Four AC-130s were sent into combat in 119K. The K model had increased engine Laos before the end of 1968 and proved to be power (two jet en gines sup ple mented the two some of the best weapons in the inter dic tion props), heavier arma ment (two 20 mm guns cam paign. During the period January 1968 in addit ion to the G’s four 7.62 mm guns), an through April 1969, they flew less than 4 per- im proved fire control system, and forward DID USAF TECHNOLOGY FAIL IN VIETNAM? 93 looki ng infra red radar (FLIR). Both AC-119 top American offi cer in the theater, Gen mod els did good work and suffered few Creigh ton Abrams, told the Sev enth Air Force losses. The AC-119Gs proved worthy succes com mander, Gen John Vogt, that the three sors of the AC- 47 for op era tions in South Viet weap ons that had been unqualif ied successes nam, while the AC-119Ks were able to com were the tube-launched, opti cally tracked, ple ment the AC-130s in the inter dic tion wire command (TOW) missile; the AC-130; camp aign in Laos. In the overall scheme, the and the guided bomb.22 AC- 119s were a midrange model between the “Model T” AC-47 and the “Cadil lac” AC- Precision-Guided Munitions 130E. The last challenge to the USAF in the Viet PGMs were another success story. Ameri nam War came in 1972. By then the Commu can airmen entered the Vietnam conflict nists had improved the Ho Chi Minh Trail armed pri mar ily with free- fall bombs (“dumb into an extens ive road net and greatly up - bombs”) that were no differ ent from those graded its defenses. The North Vietname se used in World War I. Despite experi ments upped the ante by deploy ing SAMs, both the with guided bombs in World War II and Ko large SA-2s and shoulder- fired SA- 7s. Dam age rea, the Air Force had only two Navy air-to- to the gun ships in creased while truck kills de ground missiles in 1965. The Bullpup , a clined. Even es cort ing fight ers could not pro- rocket- powered, radio-control guided, 250- vide the gunships with the permis sive air en pound bomb, was used from the outset of vi ron ment they required. The increased Roll ing Thun der. Its small war head, how ever, at tri tion, as well as the 1972 North Vietnam was totally inadeq uate against North Viet ese inva sion, forced the Air Force to shift its nam ese bridges.23 The Navy’s Wall eye proved em pha sis. bet ter. (It was an unpow ered, 829-pound The main mis sion of Ameri can air power in bomb guided by an automatic track ing tele vi 1972 was to thwart the North Vietnam ese in sion guidance, giving it a “launch and leave” va sion. Cer tainly, the gun ships played an im cap ab ili ty.) The Air Force be gan Wall eye com por tant role in that success ful endeavor. The bat tests in August 1967 that achieved excel- An optically guided bomb. However, due to operating restrictions, cost, and the appearance of laser-guided bombs, these comprised only a small fraction (6 percent) of the total number of PGMs employed in Vietnam. 94 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1998 lent results in good visibil ity against targets cause more of the lighter bombs could be car that gave a strong contrast and were lightly ried on each sortie. Better accur acy permitt ed de fended.24Later Wall eye op era tions in more smaller payloads to be more effect ive.30 de mand ing con di tions were less suc cess ful. It Mean while the Air Force was seek ing to im con tin ued to be used, but due to its op er at ing prove the weapon. Pave Knife was the code re stric tions, cost, and the appear ance of name for a sys tem that con sisted of a la ser des laser- guided bombs (LGB), comprised only a ign ati ng pod carried beneath the strike air- small frac tion (6 per cent) of the to tal number craft, making it both bomber and design at or. of PGMs employed in Vietnam.25 The guided Fewer air craft could now do the same job, and bomb of choice turned out to be based on a were less vulner able.31 new technolo gy: lasers. This was the situation when the Commu The use of lasers in guidance applic at ions nist Easter offens ive of 1972 exploded. PGMs was first discussed in 1958 and was later nour proved to be ex cel lent weap ons in two di verse ished by the Army as antit ank seekers. But the roles in the 1972 campaign: precise bombing Vietn am War skewed the Army in other direc of the North Vietnam homeland and the re- tions as it rec og nized that Viet nam was not go pulse of the North Vietnam ese army in the ing to be a tank war. So the prom is ing ef fort was field. passed on to the Air Force.26 Laser-guided Guided weapons were impor tant in the at- bombs were far enough along by mid-1967 to tacks on North Vietnam for two major rea beg in combat tests, during which the 750- sons. First, laser weapons allowed fewer air- pound bombs achieved an avera ge error of 64 craft to do greater damage, not only putting feet, and the two-thousand-p ound bombs 32 fewer men and machines at risk, but getting feet. Over half were scored direct hits.27 The the job done the first time. In view of the ef tests continu ed. In 1969, 61 percent of 1,601 fec tive North Vietname se defenses, this was Mk 84 laser bombs released scored direct hits; criti cal. Sec ond, they achieved ac cu ra cies that the 85 per cent that were guided had an av er age per mit ted employ ment in close proxim ity to err or of 9.6 feet. As this was less than the ci vil ians, dikes, and the like. Two exam ples bomb’s le thal ra dius, bomb ing re sults were im made this dramati cally clear. press ive.28 North Vietnam ese bridges were prime tar- Neve rt hel ess, the laser-guided bombs had gets in the effort to cut off supplies from the their limitat ions. Smoke, haze, and clouds fight ing in the South. Symbolic of this long, could nullify the weapon. One aircraft had to frus trat ing, and deadly duel between Ameri loit er in a predicta ble (and thus vulnera ble) can airmen and North Vietnam ese defend ers flight pattern (a circle) while the bomb fell to through out the war was the Thanh Hoa (“The earth. There were some problems of relia bili ty: Dragon’s Jaw”) Bridge.32 Prior to Line backer I, in the initial tests, nine of the total 66 bombs it had withstood 871 Air Force and Navy sor suf fered malfunc tions. The seeker heads ties and cost 11 air craft.33 On 13 May 1972, 14 proved vulner able to damage if flown bomb ers dropped both laser-guided and through a rainstorm. Because of the system’s dumb bombs that scored several hits, knock un du lat ing flight path, the bomb lost energy ing one of the main spans off its abutment and had less stand-off range than did the and closing the bridge to rail traffic for the Wall eye.29 rest of the campaign.34 The Air Force pushed the laser-guided Ano ther examp le of the confid ence that the bombs. The laser kit could be fairly easily las er weapons gave the American airmen was adapted to other bombs, and it was. By 1971, the attack on the power-generating plant at the Air Force was using five-hundred-, one- Lang Chi Reserv oir. Its proximi ty to a major thou sand-, two-thousand-, and three- dam put this key target off limits to the airmen thousand- pound bombs. But the smallest of with con ven tional bombs. In June 1972, the Air these became the standard, not because of Force used LGBs to knock out the gen er at ing fa cost (it was only margin ally cheaper), but be- cil ity with out caus ing any dam age to the dam.35 DID USAF TECHNOLOGY FAIL IN VIETNAM? 95 The USAF pushed the laser-guided bombs. The laser kit could be fairly easily adapted to other bombs, and it was. By 1971, five-hundred-, one-thousand-, two-thousand-, and three-thousand-pound bombs were being used. Above: Two Mk 82 five-hundred-pound bombs with laser kits on an F-4C. Below: A three-thousand-pound LGB. The guided bombs also proved valuable in kill ers: while the LGBs were involved in only fight ing the con ven tional war in the South. Air- 10 percent of the anti tank effort, they were power was really the only weapon that could cred ited with 22 percent of the tank kills. La blunt two new and major Commun ist equip ser bombs also could take out bridges and ment ad van tages in the as sault—tanks and 130 thus seri ously impede the advanci ng tanks.36 mm artil lery. Airpower was about all that The advan tage of the guided bombs is could get at these guns that outranged any- starkly revealed when compared with the F- thing in the South Vietnam ese army. Laser- 105’ s work in the same ar eas (Route Pack ages guided bombs were also very effec tive tank VIA and VIB). The F-105s achieved a circu lar