Analyzes the three major American bombing campaigns, against North Vietnam, and explains why they proved less effective than expected.

The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam

History

Clodfelter, Mark

Americas

Free Press

Dr. Mark “Clod” Clodfelter is an internationally recognized scholar and valued faculty member at the National Defense University. His case study analysis of how B-52 crewmembers in Vietnam dealt with friction—uncertainty, chance, danger, and stress—relies in large measure on responses received from those members via a survey that he created, and thus his account makes a substantial contribution to the historical record of the air wars over Vietnam. Equally significant, his work reveals that political and military leaders alike directly affect the amount of friction faced by those on “the pointy tip of the spear,” and thus those leaders must tailor their decision-making accordingly. This resource could be invaluable to future air operations and with service education or military science coursework to address elements of friction that may enable surprise conditions during future wartime efforts. Additionally, military leaders, strategists, and analysts, training professors, and active duty military personnel may have operational interest in the historical accounts during the Vietnam War as represented within this text. Related products: Vietnam War resources collection is avaialble here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/battles-wars/vietnam-war Defense &amp; National Security collection is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/security-defense-law-enforcement/defense-national-security Other products produced by the United States Army, National Defense University (NDU) can be found here:https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/1078

Fifty Shades of Friction: Combat Climate, B-52 Crews, and the Vietnam War: Combat Climate, B-52 Crews, and the Vietnam War

Military

National Defense University (NDU)

Beneficial Bombing: The Progressive Foundations of American Air Power, 1917-1945 (Studies in War, Society, and the Military)

The Progressive Era, marked by a desire for economic, political, and social reform, ended for most Americans with the ugly reality and devastation of World War I. Yet for Army Air Service officers, the carnage and waste witnessed on the western front only served to spark a new progressive movement—to reform war by relying on destructive technology as the instrument of change. In Beneficial Bombing Mark Clodfelter describes how American airmen, horrified by World War I’s trench warfare, turned to the progressive ideas of efficiency and economy in an effort to reform war itself, with the heavy bomber as their solution to limiting the bloodshed. They were convinced that the airplane, used as a bombing platform, offered the means to make wars less lethal than conflicts waged by armies or navies. Clodfelter examines the progressive idealism that led to the creation of the U.S. Air Force and its doctrine that the finite destruction of precision bombing would end wars more quickly and with less suffering for each belligerent. What is more, his work shows how these progressive ideas emerged intact after World War II to become the foundation of modern U.S. Air Force doctrine. Drawing on a wealth of archival material, including critical documents unavailable to previous researchers, Clodfelter presents the most complete analysis ever of the doctrinal development underpinning current U.S. Air Force notions about strategic bombing.

University Of Nebraska Press

Tracing the use of air power in World War II and the Korean War, Mark Clodfelter explains how U. S. Air Force doctrine evolved through the American experience in these conventional wars only to be thwarted in the context of a limited guerrilla struggle in Vietnam. Although a faith in bombing's sheer destructive power led air commanders to believe that extensive air assaults could win the war at any time, the Vietnam experience instead showed how even intense aerial attacks may not achieve military or political objectives in a limited war. Based on findings from previously classified documents in presidential libraries and air force archives as well as on interviews with civilian and military decision makers, The Limits of Air Power argues that reliance on air campaigns as a primary instrument of warfare could not have produced lasting victory in Vietnam. This Bison Books edition includes a new chapter that provides a framework for evaluating air power effectiveness in future conflicts.

Bison Books

River Rats: Red River Valley Fighter Pilots of Vietnam

Turner

Entering the Air Force's Active-duty force in 1955, the eight-engine B-52 "Stratofortress," dubbed "BUFF" by its crewmembers,8 was an aerial behemoth with a wingspan almost twothirds the length of a football field and designed to deliver nuclear bombs. The bomber displayed America's aerial might at the height of the Cold War, with crews alternating between flying airborne alert missions with nuclear ordnance and serving "ground alert" with nuclear-laden bombers capable of takeoff 15 minutes after notification. The airborne alert missions, which had begun in 1960, ended in January 1968, but ground alerts endured throughout the Vietnam War. The B-52 force remained a key component of America's nuclear triad, which also consisted of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear missile-carrying submarines.A crew of six operated the bomber: a pilot (the aircraft commander) and copilot, both responsible for flying the aircraft and conducting in-flight refueling as needed; a radar-navigator, responsible for bombing and generally the most experienced navigator onboard; a navigator, responsible for guiding the aircraft throughout its mission; an electronic warfare officer, also a navigator and responsible for defending the aircraft from surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) by jamming the signals they received from ground-operated sites; and an enlisted gunner, responsible for defending the aircraft from fighter attack with four .50-caliber radar-guided machine guns located in the tail of the aircraft. In all models of the B-52, the pilot occupied the left seat in the cockpit, while the copilot sat in the right seat, and the electronic warfare officer, dubbed "EWO" or "EW" on most crews, sat facing rearward behind the pilot and copilot. The navigator and radar-navigator sat in a cramped, windowless compartment underneath the cockpit nicknamed the "black hole" and connected to the cockpit above by a ladder. In the F and D model B52s, employed most frequently in the Vietnam War, the gunner sat 150 feet behind the cockpit in the rear of the aircraft underneath its enormous tail in a small, windowed enclosure; in the G model aircraft, which began flying in war in 1972, the gunner sat facing rearward next to the EWO. An intercom system enabled all members of the crew to talk to one another, and when they communicated, they usually identified themselves by their crew position: "pilot," "copilot," "radar," "nav," "EWO," and "guns." The EWO taped those conversations for postmission debriefs. During lulls in the flights--a mission from Guam to South Vietnam and back took over 12 hours--the EWO or another crewman might play music over the system.

Fifty Shades of Friction: Combat Climate, B-52 Crews, and the Vietnam War

National Defense University Press

Independently published

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Clodfelter, Mark. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Clodfelter, Mark

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Clodfelter, Mark. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam

Fifty Shades of Friction: Combat Climate, B-52 Crews, and the Vietnam War: Combat Climate, B-52 Crews, and the Vietnam War

Beneficial Bombing: The Progressive Foundations of American Air Power, 1917-1945 (Studies in War, Society, and the Military)

The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam

Beneficial Bombing: The Progressive Foundations of American Air Power, 1917-1945 (Studies in War, Society, and the Military)

River Rats: Red River Valley Fighter Pilots of Vietnam

Fifty Shades of Friction: Combat Climate, B-52 Crews, and the Vietnam War