While many of the points about the changes in the Strategic landscape being considerable in the 8 year gap between 1964 and 1972, it ignores the fact that Johnson's political expectations in 1964 were unrealistic and unworkable to begin with.
Well, that could explain Nikon’s “normalizing relations with the PRC”, a mistake we are all paying for today. I only know for sure about Johnson because of his post-presidential comments.
And our allies had ships going in too. A memoir made a comment about the flags on ships when they had to evade Migs by flying through "restricted" air space.
After we had made all our preparations, apparently somebody in the State Department started kicking up his heels against this, because we might inadvertently mine a Soviet ship. Actually, mining is perfectly legal in warfare, and you put up notices, and if someone goes into these mined waters, it’s his fault. There were also some ships bringing in supplies that I was led to believe were either or both Canadian- and British-owned, if you traced their ownership, and the U.S. State Department didn’t want to offend them. At any rate, the project was canceled. Our morale went straight down-
"Tell me you are ignorant about the Vietnam War without telling me."
Whelp, you've managed to tell us all that -YOU- are quite ignorant of the Vietnam War by actually telling us!
"DoD and the White House were FAR more responsible for the screwup in Vietnam than anyone else."
Usually a stopped clock is right twice a day, but here you've only made it half way to that estimable bar. "the White House" ...Lyndon Johnson...was the one primarily at fault, starting with selling the fictitious second attack on the Turner Joy as the impetus for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.
To be fair.... Adm. Sharp, and the intel community in the Pentagon, made the wrong calls about that attack's authenticity.
Dad recalled how everyone on the carriers were confused about that night. Paraphrasing him, "Jim [Stockdale] said he didn't see anything, but nobody up the chain wanted to hear it..."
It was Johnson who doubled down, and rode with the fable into infamy...
But lets face it, by 1964, hostilities had already started, so a further escalation was inevitable. True or not, the second Tonkin Gulf incident made for a perfect reason.
...As was appreciated at the time, 85 percent of North Vietnam’s military imports came by sea, primarily through Haiphong—a prime candidate for mining....
"China/Soviet Union were flooding plenty of supplies into North Vietnam by land"
China, yes. Soviet Union, no, You go it sorta half right here.
First off, the NVN resented the Chinese, which hindered the amount and influence of Chinese aid ...
...Although appreciating Beijing’s enthusiasm to aid North Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam [DRV] resented Beijing’s political and ideological objective of promoting Maoism and anti-Soviet revisionism in North Vietnam. In response, the DRV government asserted independent decision-making and bureaucratic control over the management of foreign economic and technical aid, which in turn collided with the Chinese assertion of superiority and insistence on their control over all China-aided projects...
And besides that, the railroad system linking North Vietnam to China ...one of the few industrial targets worth bombing in the first place early on...was placed off limits until 1972.
Since I know you haven't opened this important historical resource yet...do it now and you will learn something. Don't be afraid.
"How did all those bombings of the HCM Trail/Laos/Cambodia do?"
Not worth a damn, because the logistics were too well dispersed.
Why? Because we intentionally didn't eliminate the port of Haiphong where the vast majority of war supplies going down the trail were brought into Vietnam in the first place.
"Learn to read a map, cadet."
Dude, if you're gonna troll, do it with a modicum of intelligence.
Map of the Ho Chi Minh trail... Where did it connect to China or Russia?
My Chief Engineer on the USS Tattnall (DDG 19) had been the Gunnery Assistant on the Richard S. Edwards. He was in the director when the planes flew over and started dropping the mines and he realized what was happening. I can't remember if the CO had been briefed but the rest of the crew only knew of the gunfire mission but not why.
As for the electronics, if you examine the superstructure of the modified cruisers, OKLAHOMA CITY and LITTLEROCK were essentially razeed down to the main deck aft of 6"/47 A Turret. Compare to GALVESTON (CG-3), which retained 2 6"/47 and 3 5"/38 mounts. This was to provide space for a Fleet Commander. Reading about the ship at okieboat.com, it was a complex weapons system as well that was added on.
Got anyone who knows how to plan a field and how to rig the hardware?
A bunch of cruisers and destroyers with round barrel guns - 5 inch and above, not six-pounders (57mm)?
Finally do we have senior military and civilian "leadership" capable of making rational military decisions with appropriate consideration of intended and unintended consequences?
My scorecard say "none of the above" are in our toolbox these days.
Good thing "diversity is our strength" when we need it.
When I was a newly minted Weapons Officer coming out of DESTECH in 1967, I lusted after orders to a WESTPAC can who would do this stuff. Alas, Newport and the Med was my fate.
Just getting to this...I'll add some minor amplification as I was a young MN3 during this event...the Mk 36 "mines" were actually Destructor (DST) Mk 36 (converted Mk 82 Bombs) and used magnetic-seismic influence to detect passing ships when planted in water. They were land capable as well. To aid with post-op mine clearance, the Mk 52 Mod 2 mines (magnetic only) were modified by Minemen to self-destruct instead of simply going dead to ensure our AMCM and EOD clearance efforts had no concerns about finding a mine case and concerns that it may be alive. This was not the first use of mines against the North. There was extensive mining (with DSTs) in the Delta and elsewhere prior to this operation, some events may even remain classified. Prior to Operation Pocket Money, DST's had only a very sensitive magnet detection capability. They were quickly upgraded to include seismic after a series of sun-spots set them off.
Coast Guard cutters also did a lot of NGFS during Vietnam. 5" from the large cutters and 81mm mortar fire from the 82 foot cutters and of course .50 caliber up close and personal.
"It was on this point that the Johnson administration made one of the more egregious errors of Rolling Thunder. It selected the hortatory admonishment to minimize civilian casualties as the campaign standard, rather than the law of war prohibition of excessive collateral civilian casualties. Although other reasons were cited on occasion, the buffer zones around Hanoi and Haiphong were placed there primarily to reduce to an absolute minimum civilian casualties among the enemy population."
I linked alot of stuff...In case you missed this history of the OSD, it dissects how this room of Really Smart Guys slipped down the slope into the mess of Vietnam...
As an aside, have you noticed how folks in the NatSec world use the phrase, 'He's a really smart guy...' as an almost obligatory initial descriptor when they refer to someone?
It goes like, "Worked with so and so on this thing... He's a really smart guy..."
I am familiar with multi volume series. I spent the last few years at OSD and went through those volumes during downtimes.
I remember a wall in the Pentagon which displayed pictures of all the presidents who served in the Navy Bush, Sr. Nixon. JFK. Carter. FDR as a civilian. And of course LCDR LBJ.
I think the display was near John Kirby’s office at CHINFO.
Why wasn’t a blockade placed around North Vietnam as early as 1964 or 1965? What is the point of sea power if it is not used?
Johnson and McNamara...
If they had done in '65 what Nixon did in '72, the woefully unprepared North Vietnam would have folded like a cheap suit.
This is a USAF perspective, but it tells the tale...
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA215903.pdf
(should've added this...)
https://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Defeat-U-S-Grant-Sharp/dp/0891416722
The current Pol-Mil crowd thinks the same way.
McNamara thought running the DOD was no different than running Ford.
LBJ thought he could bully Ho Chi Minh like he could bully Hubert Humphrey.
This piece posits a rationale that a mining campaign in 1964 would not have worked...
https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/Expeditions-with-MCUP-digital-journal/Reconsidering-Offensive-Mine-Warfare/
While many of the points about the changes in the Strategic landscape being considerable in the 8 year gap between 1964 and 1972, it ignores the fact that Johnson's political expectations in 1964 were unrealistic and unworkable to begin with.
Russian ships were coming into North Vietnam on a regular basis, and Johnson was afraid of starting WW3. So no blockade.
And Nixon wasn’t?
Well, that could explain Nikon’s “normalizing relations with the PRC”, a mistake we are all paying for today. I only know for sure about Johnson because of his post-presidential comments.
Kissinger.
Poor Dr. K. got slammed hard for recommending negotiations with Russia.
And our allies had ships going in too. A memoir made a comment about the flags on ships when they had to evade Migs by flying through "restricted" air space.
Dad was on one of the carriers in 64-65 deployed to West Pac, so he was part of this early aborted effort....
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1990/september/oral-history-mines-haiphong-delayed-execution
After we had made all our preparations, apparently somebody in the State Department started kicking up his heels against this, because we might inadvertently mine a Soviet ship. Actually, mining is perfectly legal in warfare, and you put up notices, and if someone goes into these mined waters, it’s his fault. There were also some ships bringing in supplies that I was led to believe were either or both Canadian- and British-owned, if you traced their ownership, and the U.S. State Department didn’t want to offend them. At any rate, the project was canceled. Our morale went straight down-
The State Department. Of course.
Defund Georgetown....
Isn't it the role of the State Department to make things worse?
Well, they are certainly champions at that!
FYI, foul language is acceptable here when used in the appropriate context.
For example? After insulting our host, it's fair to say the best part of the dog that beat the others over the fence to your mother ran down her leg.
Waiting to hear about your grand accomplishments and achievements.
OOHRAH!
"Tell me you are ignorant about the Vietnam War without telling me."
Whelp, you've managed to tell us all that -YOU- are quite ignorant of the Vietnam War by actually telling us!
"DoD and the White House were FAR more responsible for the screwup in Vietnam than anyone else."
Usually a stopped clock is right twice a day, but here you've only made it half way to that estimable bar. "the White House" ...Lyndon Johnson...was the one primarily at fault, starting with selling the fictitious second attack on the Turner Joy as the impetus for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.
To be fair.... Adm. Sharp, and the intel community in the Pentagon, made the wrong calls about that attack's authenticity.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2008/february/truth-about-tonkin
Dad recalled how everyone on the carriers were confused about that night. Paraphrasing him, "Jim [Stockdale] said he didn't see anything, but nobody up the chain wanted to hear it..."
It was Johnson who doubled down, and rode with the fable into infamy...
But lets face it, by 1964, hostilities had already started, so a further escalation was inevitable. True or not, the second Tonkin Gulf incident made for a perfect reason.
https://youtu.be/I2BHkuZWWLA?si=GeDzTiEHUPJ0TAS-&t=80
Also, you ignore the role of the State Department in hobbling the effort from the very beginning
https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/secretaryofdefense/OSDSeries_Vol6.pdf?ver=2014-05-28-134006-577
"And a sea blockade accomplishes little. China/Soviet Union were flooding plenty of supplies into North Vietnam by land.
This is wrong. Simply wrong, and there is a vast amount of evidence to prove you wrong.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA524103.pdf
...As was appreciated at the time, 85 percent of North Vietnam’s military imports came by sea, primarily through Haiphong—a prime candidate for mining....
"China/Soviet Union were flooding plenty of supplies into North Vietnam by land"
China, yes. Soviet Union, no, You go it sorta half right here.
First off, the NVN resented the Chinese, which hindered the amount and influence of Chinese aid ...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311665979_The_Politics_of_China's_Aid_to_North_Vietnam_during_the_Anti-American_Resistance_1965-69
...Although appreciating Beijing’s enthusiasm to aid North Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam [DRV] resented Beijing’s political and ideological objective of promoting Maoism and anti-Soviet revisionism in North Vietnam. In response, the DRV government asserted independent decision-making and bureaucratic control over the management of foreign economic and technical aid, which in turn collided with the Chinese assertion of superiority and insistence on their control over all China-aided projects...
And besides that, the railroad system linking North Vietnam to China ...one of the few industrial targets worth bombing in the first place early on...was placed off limits until 1972.
Since I know you haven't opened this important historical resource yet...do it now and you will learn something. Don't be afraid.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA524103.pdf
"How did all those bombings of the HCM Trail/Laos/Cambodia do?"
Not worth a damn, because the logistics were too well dispersed.
Why? Because we intentionally didn't eliminate the port of Haiphong where the vast majority of war supplies going down the trail were brought into Vietnam in the first place.
"Learn to read a map, cadet."
Dude, if you're gonna troll, do it with a modicum of intelligence.
Map of the Ho Chi Minh trail... Where did it connect to China or Russia?
https://useruploads.socratic.org/RHYzNyBoSK6oVGLpwhcI_815387_orig.jpg
More here:
https://nautilus.org/essentially-annihilated/essentially-annihilated-targeting-ho-chi-minh-trail/
Footage of the first gents to strike the Mu Gia Pass Feb. 1965...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjqrDiwoW7s
(edit, the above date was in May...this one was in Feb...could well be the the launch of the Mu Gia strike...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72NSGVpl8j0&t=68s
Airedales can ponder how far left of centerline alot of the traps in the film were...
Well...I guess you'll just have to share your wisdom elsewhere.
My Chief Engineer on the USS Tattnall (DDG 19) had been the Gunnery Assistant on the Richard S. Edwards. He was in the director when the planes flew over and started dropping the mines and he realized what was happening. I can't remember if the CO had been briefed but the rest of the crew only knew of the gunfire mission but not why.
Sal! Great FBF post! Steady as she goes!
Learn something new every day.
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2018/11/12/1972-solar-storm-triggered-vietnam-war-mystery
A 1972 solar storm triggered a Vietnam War mystery
Detailed mining plan, circa 1968...
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/rrzrcf-itprv/07.pdf
Merely announcing a blockade can be enough to discourage ships from entering a port.
You can run a blockade with ships as well as mines.
Any tramp approaching Haiphong should have received a shot across the bow.
ok, most of my mine questions have been answered. How about a ship refit question or two.
a CL like CL-91 starts with
12 six inch
12 five inch
about 48 mixed 40mm and 20mm
becomes CL5 with
3 six inch
2 five inch
1 Twin rail Talos
losses a bunch of surface firepower and grows the crew by 15%
1. WTF?
2. Why did they have to gut the guns?
3. what was the new crew doing since they weren't shooting?
Electronics and a massive missile.
Talos was a 32 foot long missile, weighing 3 1/2 tons. Much larger than a modern Standard ERAM, at 21 feet long and just over 1 1/2 tons.
The cruiser hulls were the only ships that could carry that size of missile, nearly the size and weight of a F-86 Sabre.
As for the electronics, if you examine the superstructure of the modified cruisers, OKLAHOMA CITY and LITTLEROCK were essentially razeed down to the main deck aft of 6"/47 A Turret. Compare to GALVESTON (CG-3), which retained 2 6"/47 and 3 5"/38 mounts. This was to provide space for a Fleet Commander. Reading about the ship at okieboat.com, it was a complex weapons system as well that was added on.
Much like the Chicago. Everything above the main deck was re done. A touchy ride
in a beam sea.
Nothing like berthing under the forward launcher of a Talos ship. Kept thngs interesting in the gulf.
Ships of a navy well led. Well supported. Well loved. Before a “gold anchor”. God speed.
Amazing.
Could we do this today?
Got anything to haul mines?
Got mines?
Got anyone who knows how to plan a field and how to rig the hardware?
A bunch of cruisers and destroyers with round barrel guns - 5 inch and above, not six-pounders (57mm)?
Finally do we have senior military and civilian "leadership" capable of making rational military decisions with appropriate consideration of intended and unintended consequences?
My scorecard say "none of the above" are in our toolbox these days.
Good thing "diversity is our strength" when we need it.
Got mines? yes. Got delivery platforms? Yes. Ability to plan? Questionable.
When I was a newly minted Weapons Officer coming out of DESTECH in 1967, I lusted after orders to a WESTPAC can who would do this stuff. Alas, Newport and the Med was my fate.
I had to endure the rigors of Newport and Gaeta, too.
I liked Newport and the Med, but that was not where the war was.
You could have always started one.
Just getting to this...I'll add some minor amplification as I was a young MN3 during this event...the Mk 36 "mines" were actually Destructor (DST) Mk 36 (converted Mk 82 Bombs) and used magnetic-seismic influence to detect passing ships when planted in water. They were land capable as well. To aid with post-op mine clearance, the Mk 52 Mod 2 mines (magnetic only) were modified by Minemen to self-destruct instead of simply going dead to ensure our AMCM and EOD clearance efforts had no concerns about finding a mine case and concerns that it may be alive. This was not the first use of mines against the North. There was extensive mining (with DSTs) in the Delta and elsewhere prior to this operation, some events may even remain classified. Prior to Operation Pocket Money, DST's had only a very sensitive magnet detection capability. They were quickly upgraded to include seismic after a series of sun-spots set them off.
Coast Guard cutters also did a lot of NGFS during Vietnam. 5" from the large cutters and 81mm mortar fire from the 82 foot cutters and of course .50 caliber up close and personal.
Rummaging about, found this must read...
https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/nat-sec/Vietnam/Rolling-Thunder-and-the-Law-of-War.html#:~:text=Rolling%20Thunder%20was%20one%20of,those%20sent%20forth%20to%20battle
"It was on this point that the Johnson administration made one of the more egregious errors of Rolling Thunder. It selected the hortatory admonishment to minimize civilian casualties as the campaign standard, rather than the law of war prohibition of excessive collateral civilian casualties. Although other reasons were cited on occasion, the buffer zones around Hanoi and Haiphong were placed there primarily to reduce to an absolute minimum civilian casualties among the enemy population."
Who wants to tell Adm Kirby?
LBJ was given a Silver Star for flying around in an airplane and he thought he was a military genius.
McNamara thought that wars could be fought and won with statistical analysis.
I linked alot of stuff...In case you missed this history of the OSD, it dissects how this room of Really Smart Guys slipped down the slope into the mess of Vietnam...
https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/secretaryofdefense/OSDSeries_Vol6.pdf?ver=2014-05-28-134006-577
In the pic here, notice that LBJ is sporting his Silver Star lapel ribbon...
https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/8da6760/2147483647/resize/1160x%3E/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fs3-origin-images.politico.com%2F2015%2F03%2F06%2F150306_johnson_vietnam_getty.jpg
As an aside, have you noticed how folks in the NatSec world use the phrase, 'He's a really smart guy...' as an almost obligatory initial descriptor when they refer to someone?
It goes like, "Worked with so and so on this thing... He's a really smart guy..."
Whole lotta circular backslapping in the bubble.
I am familiar with multi volume series. I spent the last few years at OSD and went through those volumes during downtimes.
I remember a wall in the Pentagon which displayed pictures of all the presidents who served in the Navy Bush, Sr. Nixon. JFK. Carter. FDR as a civilian. And of course LCDR LBJ.
I think the display was near John Kirby’s office at CHINFO.
Kirby is a, "Really Smart Guy...." by DC standards....
He is - by DC standards where smart is defined by your position not accomplishments.
Admiral. State Department spokesman. CNN commentator. WH spokesman.
So, what if he is inarticulate and incoherent?
Kirby is no Pierre Salinger.