The “scarcity of missiles” against B-52s

PANO – Did Vietnam have enough missiles to fight against the US aircraft in the Linebacker II Operation? Lieutenant General Luong Huu Sat, former Vietnam People’s Army’s Director of Armament, shared his memories about ensuring the supply of missiles for combat units.

Vietnam’s air defence missiles were mostly provided by the Soviet Union and it took some time to assemble them before they were ready to be used.

Before the 18^th of December 1972, VPA’s missile units were supplied to full capacity and had a few on reserve. Moreover, to meet the missile demands of the combat units in Hanoi and Hai Phong, two missile assembly lines were mobilized.

From December 18^th and 19^th, 1972, the two assembly lines were enhanced with more skilled, enthusiastic and responsible staff who worked extra shifts to ensure the missile supply.

The plans to assemble and ensure the missile supply were carefully prepared, including backup plans, but after just the two first nights fighting, there were signs of a “fever for missiles”.

The motto “Reserving missiles for B-52s” became the order for air defence missile units as the Air Force and Air Defence Command planned to use the missiles to bring B-52s down. As a result, the anti-aircraft artillery and gun units, the air force and militia had to take responsibility to fight off hundreds of attacks from US tactical aircraft.

However, the missile units still lacked missiles, using every missile they had each night. Thus, the motto “All for missile production” was launched.

The whole service tried to find the optimum solutions to assemble the missiles in the shortest time and repair the missiles. The assembly lines worked at their highest capacity and productivity was doubled. However, the demand for missiles became even higher. Supplying missiles for launching pads was like finding meals for poor families. As soon as a missile was assembled completely, it was moved onto a TZK truck immediately to be transported to the launching pad.

In the light of bomb and ammunition explosions, the just-assembled missiles were transported and placed on the launching pads. Some missiles were launched only minutes after being assembled. The cycle of the missile had never been as short and glorious as that.

In the night of December 19^th, B-52s attacked 87 times and the following night brought 93 attacks. Everyone thought that the night after that there would be even more, when the capacity of the assembly lines was limited. The challenges and fierceness were expected to increase. Fortunately, that expectation was wrong. On the December 21^st night, B-52s only attacked 24 times, including at Bach Mai hospital, An Duong residential area, Giap Bat station, and Van Dien.

From December 22^nd, B-52s mostly “stayed away” from Hanoi. The next night they bombarded Dong Mo, Lang Son and their targets the night after that were Thai Nguyen and Kep. As a result, VPA’s units had time to prepare their missiles, entrench their battlefields and withdraw lessons. On December 26^th, VPA’s launching pads were fully loaded again. The “fever” was over and missile soldiers did not have to worry about missile supply anymore and had time to prepare to fight against B-52s.

Thus, in the “Hanoi – Dien Bien Phu in the Air” Campaign against the US Linebacker II Operation, the scarcity of missiles to fight B-52s was an issue in the first several days of the campaign. However, it does not mean that the VPA could not manage to overcome the situation. In fact, missiles were still available to fight against B-52s.