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Posted on 03/15/2005 8:39:30 PM PST by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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The thing that broke the back of the NVA at Khe Sanh, said General Westmoreland, was 'basically the fire of the B-52s.'  General William C. Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, chose the code name "Operation Niagara" for the coordination of available firepower at Khe Sanh. According to Westmoreland, the name Niagara invoked an appropriate image of cascading shells and bombs. Niagara would be composed of two elements. Niagara I was the comprehensive intelligence-gathering effort to pinpoint the available targets, and Niagara II was the coordinated shelling and bombing of these targets with all available air and artillery assets. The effectiveness of the firepower available to the Marines at Khe Sanh was heavily dependent on target selection--a responsibility of the intelligence section (S-2) of the 26th Marine Regiment Headquarters Company. S-2 knew the siege strategy employed by the NVA at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and Con Thien in 1967, and it could predict the enemy's actions at Khe Sanh. Various sources were utilized to keep track of enemy activity around the Khe Sanh plateau. Sources outside the immediate battlefield included intelligence reports from MACV in Saigon, III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF) headquarters in Da Nang, as well as the headquarters of the 3rd Marine Division at Phu Bai.  Intelligence was generated locally in many ways. Hundreds of acoustic and seismic sensors were seeded around the combat base. This comprehensive sensor system cost approximately $1 billion and was credited with reducing Marine deaths during the fighting by 50 percent. By Marine estimates, the sensor system provided 40 percent of the raw intelligence at Khe Sanh. Ground and aerial observers supplied visual evidence of enemy activity, as did photoreconnaissance. Analysis of incoming rocket, mortar and artillery craters determined the likely source of the attacks. Shell/flash reports, infrared imagery and analysis of intercepted enemy communications were also used to identify potential enemy targets. Marine reconnaissance patrols, Army Special Forces, CIA personnel, and the MACV-SOG all provided input to the 26th Marines S-2. The CIA Joint Technical Advisory Detachment and SOG obtained their information from casual encounters with villagers; from regular paid agents, including Rhade and Bru Montagnards; and from locals who wanted to be agents of the U.S. intelligence community around Khe Sanh. Likely or confirmed targets were then pummeled by the available firepower, while the base Fire Support Coordinating Center (FSCC) coordinated the array of supporting arms.  After making the trip down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos, the NVA established various forward logistic bases within a few thousand meters of the combat base. At night the Communists dug shallow trenches from their supply points toward the U.S. positions. American intelligence noticed this trenching system around February 23, 1968. Once the system had been constructed close to the base, secondary trench lines branched off and paralleled the Marine perimeter. These close-in, secondary trenches were dug for the purpose of launching ground attacks against the base. Initial FSCC fire tactics were to saturate infiltration routes into the area around the combat base with artillery fire and airstrikes. This slowed down NVA trenching efforts but could not stop them completely. From a logistic standpoint, it was impossible to sufficiently saturate the trenching systems with massed artillery fire, so the FSCC altered its tactics. The NVA was permitted to dig trenches close to the base--then it was easier to pinpoint them.  The sensor system quickly proved its worth. During the night of February 3-4, sensors detected up to 2,000 NVA soldiers in the vicinity of Marine hill outposts northwest of the combat base. Defensive artillery fires were ordered against them, and sensors reported hearing men screaming in panic and the sounds of troops fleeing their assembly areas. The NVA units were completely destroyed in their assembly areas and the intended attack was effectively broken up. This is one of the earliest examples in warfare of a ground attack entirely thwarted by using remote sensor data. With crater analysis, it was possible to confirm the location of enemy batteries, assist in counterbattery fires and detect new types of enemy weapons--new calibers or new munitions. The flight direction of a projectile could be determined with reasonable accuracy from its crater, ricochet furrow or, in the case of dud rounds, soil tunnel. The particular characteristics of the soil at Khe Sanh often yielded valuable information through crater analysis. A stick placed in the soil tunnel made by a dud round would point in the direction of origin, and the angle of the stick would indicate the angle of fall. By measuring this angle and using the firing tables of enemy weapons, counterfire personnel could compute the range of the enemy weapon. Shelled areas were inspected as soon as possible after a shelling.  "Khe Sanh CAS" During the siege at Khe Sanh, Marine aviators from various squadrons scraped the tree tops at high speed to provide Close Air Support to their fellow Marines on the ground. 400 knots at 30 feet. Air support doesn't get much closer. Staff Sergeant Bossiz Harris, the acting gunnery sergeant of the mortar battery, 1st Battalion, 13th Marines, conducted crater analysis during incoming fire, which allowed the battalion's Fire Direction Center (FDC) to direct prompt return fire. Rapid and accurate counterbattery fire could force the enemy artillerymen to seek cover and could destroy NVA guns and gun crews. To minimize the reaction time of the Marine and Army artillerymen at Khe Sanh, Colonel Lownds, the base commander, periodically entered the regimental FSCC bunker, indicated a spot on the wall map and directed the senior artillery officer to hit the marked spot. The coordinates were sent to the FDC, computed and sent to the appropriate gun crew, which adjusted its tubes. This aiming process usually took less than 40 seconds before a round was on its way. During the battle at Khe Sanh, the 1st Battalion, 13th Marine, guns fired 158,891 mixed artillery rounds in direct support of the 26th Marines.
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It's probably just me, but I've never figured out how McNamara's and Westy's tactics made any sense.
BTW, happy over the hump day to Sam, Snip and all in the Foxhole.
Evening Victoria.
Hi Ya Soldier. ;-)
Yep :-)
Howdy Sam. :-)
The main problem was getting the enemy in the open where they could be killed. The world learned you can't stand up to the American military and win.
That $1 billion amounted to 1/6000th of the $6 trillion LBJ wasted on his so-called War On Poverty.
In the hood this WOP would be known as Money Fo Nuthin.
The image of Niagara is apt--if LBJ had been replaced by a Patton-Halsey hybrid which would have gone through the NVA like crap through a goose until Vietnamese became a language spoken only in hell.
Of course war was much tougher than stealing ballot boxes and Johnson chickened out:
President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered severe restrictions on aerial and naval attacks against North Vietnam, declared the readiness of the United States to begin peace discussions to end the war and declined to seek re-election to the presidency.
In addition to his criminal sanitization of target lists, LBJ refused the Joint Chiefs' request to bomb Hanoi and mine Haiphong November 1965 as chronicled by their Marine aide in "The Day It Became The Longest War" in May 1996 Proceedings.
So the enemy had a secure supply line, sanctuary in contiguous countries, and the protection of a U.S. president who explained his treason by saying, "I'm trying to teach Ho Chi Minh a lesson without starting WWIII. I'm like the applicant for the schoolteacher position in a small town who answers the school board's question about whether the earth is flat or round by saying, 'I can teach it both ways.'"
ADSID III
electronic seismic sensor, one of several types dropped by U.S. aircraft along enemy roads and pathways in SEA. It was essentially a radio transmitter that picked up ground vibrations made by enemy trucks and troop movements and transmitted these signals to a friendly intelligence center through an airplane flying overhead. By keeping a record of these transmissions, U.S. personnel were able to determine the rate of enemy activity in any particular area and order an air strike when it became sufficiently promising. Siesmic sensors were designed to stick in the ground when dropped from an aircraft.
Another type of detection device was the acoustic sensor which transmitted the actual sound, not ground vibrations, made by enemy trucks and personnel. It was designed to hang from a tree by its parachute after the drop.
The sensor program, known as Igloo White, went into operation along the Ho Cho Minh Trail in December 1967.
A covert operation known as Manchurian Candidate was launched Christmas Eve 1968 when President Nixon dispatched John Kill-Em-All* Kerry to Cambodia in an aluminum canoe with an electric trolling motor to troll for votes. As shown on Red Koppel's Nightline in 2004 a large number of retired Communist warriors remembered Kill-Em-All* and were only too happy to do video testimonials to his nuanced positions below the gunwales of that craft, dodging the fierce poison-tipped darts of the C'mere, Rouge.
*Kill-Em-All is a registered trademark of Valin Associates, LLC.
"Anti-terrorism" or gun control? I'm the NRA and I eschew back alleys--as assiduously as traitor-rapist42 eschewed our constitution, e.g., the Second Amendment--while allowing his prime donor Wang Jun of Poly to bring 2,000 AK-47s to our nation's underprivileged street gangs.
Besides, Rush Limbaugh did the OKCBomb deal.
Scott, you should have read the memo, dude:
That was the French plan for Dien Bien Phu. I am not convinced after all that I have read that the NVA was seriously interested in Khe Sanh. I suspect that it was a great "Red Herring" operation intended to draw the Americans away from other areas that the NVA/VC were interested in.
My $.02 YMMV
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
That $1 billion amounted to 1/6000th of the $6 trillion LBJ wasted on his so-called War On Poverty.
War on poverty was a joke, it was confiscation of money from the producers and redistribution to the non-producers. We're still paying the price for that today.
Alternate Title: SAM removing old fence posts.
LOL!
It's probably just me, but I've never figured out how McNamara's and Westy's tactics made any sense.
Just a thought here. Maybe they didn't!
As far as ever be able to figure it out we never really did have a plan to win the danm thing.
LOL!!!
Actually it's a registered trademark of
the
American
Society
of
Steve's
Indeed. Great picture.
McNamara was a sleeze. Having said that I feel better. Happy hump day back atcha!
Good evening Victoria.
You bet.
LOL. You are clever!
Thanks, Samwise. Bill is a quiet fellow, never upstaging anyone. Always willing to help anyone who needs it. One of the sober type Marines. Family man.
Thanks, SAM. Bill is a quiet, hard working, decent guy, loyal to his family. Our age. Knows his duty.
Thanks, snippy.
You would like Bill. He doesn't talk much, though, not outgoing. Manly? You bet.
God knows his name. HE hears your prayer, made out of love.
The odds of the enemy reading this post are small, and a decision to act, if this enemy is reading, smaller yet. Especially because I left the bas____ not one hint.
If you are out there, drop dead.
BTTT!!!!!!
BTTT!
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