Internal Beta 4

[ccc]

China could be neutral in the beginning, but join the war later, like they did in Korea.
I remember PLA indeed shotdowned some USN a/c in that era.

[WOLF-257]

There were the "Steel Tiger" interdiction missions to hit the Ho Chi Mihn trail in Cambodia,most of these were flown by Marine squadrons and a lot were flown at night and a few into Loas that nobody will talk about.

There were also the Navy SEAD flights into Hanoi and the surrounding area I think they were called "Iron Hand"

I'm flying Beta2 and I was wondering about helo operations.I don't recall seeing any helos at all but then again I may not have been in the right place.

[ccc]

ya, no chopper ops in beta2. i think.
I remember Jerry et al discussed designing chopper ops on old CS board.
we'd like to see lots chopper ops there, Snake Man?

BTW, AFAIK, China had ever sent some volunteer Army into NV? like what they do in Korea..so..will china join the war by some trigger events?

[172ndhamm]

I vote include China in the Red list.

CDR.John Nichols (ret.) records the loss of a VF-96 F-4B to Chicom Mig17's south of Hainan island on April 9, 1964. The USN claimed a Mig kill. (On Yankee Station, isbn 0-553-27216-0) I'm also sure Jack Broughton, (Thud Ridge; Going Downton) wrote about losing a squadron-mate who inexplicatly motored north over the Chicom border, never to be seen again.
Johnson and MacNamera repeatedly used "the fear that China might enter the war" as a bogeyman to justify their micromanaging of the targeting lists in the air war. In fact, I've read that it has now come to light that Mao had so f****d up China's military with the cultural revolution, that they couldn't have entered the war in any meaningful way.

[Snake Man]

Vietnam Theater Beta 4 update

I'm now putting together the installshield package, already did one preview package and it seems to work just ok. Maps including JSTARS work ok, campaign runs ok, Flags show up pretty good, countrynames show up almost ok etc.

Now its just testing to make sure every updated byte of new data gets into the release package, so we dont need to put out some updates few days later.

It could not look better than this, the public release is very (very) near now

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[colonel tomb]

Feel kinda guilty shooting my big mouth off here since I didn't help but since you asked about the history--

American aircraft could expect AAA and perhaps an occasional SAM over Cambodia; MiGs , doubtful.
Cambodia was a battleground between Vietnamese and American forces. The government was to weak to stop it.
Many Americans died in and over Cambodia, more than Washington wants to admit. They even tried to keep the war there a secret until a Pentagon official copied thousands of files and went to the media.
Cambodia was not a safe place for any Americans during the Vietnam war, especially in the countryside bombed by B-52's into a moonscape. But the government was bought by America so in the capital they were usually safe until "Reds" took over in 1975--by which time the USA had split. The Khmer Rouge("Red People")came to power on the hatred for America of the bombed peasants. One tactic used was B-52 bombing of dykes to destroy crops and villages which sometimes provided support for Vietnamese and Cambodian communist forces. But thousands of everyday people drowned for it. The peasant army moved into the cities and took their revenge on everyone from government officials to cab drivers; they would examine their hands to see if they'd worked; also if they knew how to read, even for wearing glasses, meant death. The cities were emptied quickly. How? Loudspeakers blared air raid sirens warning of B-52s. Once on the "killing field" farms, it was a new chapter in the history of mass killing.

The CIA at least and the USAF unofficially had airbases(often only airstrips)in Laos. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Squadron/Signal book about the Vietnamese People's Air Force records several raids against these bases by An-2's and Il-28's.
American aircraft and personnel regularly met destruction in Laos. The losses I seem to recall were mostly from AAA though accounts of SAMs and MiGs can be found.

Historically, Vietnam has another name with the people of the area: "South China."
China was also not a safe place for Americans to be before Nixon made a deal with Mao and Zhou En lai in 1972. They probably had at least as many "advisors" as the other socialist bloc countries combined in "South China." The American ROE forbade aircraft to cross the Red River bordering the PRC, remembering China's entering Korea after America attacked across the Yalu River border there. And like MacArthur, many US generals wanted to use nukes in Vietnam and against any Chinese intervention. There was always a real possibility of a war with China in Vietnam on the scale of the Korean war.
A bit off topic, but this history is very much alive in the minds of Chinese today when the US or Japan come into conflict over for example Taiwan or the "Spratly" Islands.
I too saw the account of the Hainan island shootdown made by the Chinese.

[This message has been edited by colonel tomb (edited February 14, 2001).]

[ccc]

release in hours?

Hey Man, its time to start a new thread for beta4!

[Oliver]

quote:Originally posted by 172ndhamm:
Some more weapons info:
March 66, first AGM-45a's introduced. 2.5 mile range.

Ouch!

quote:
They were quickly replaced by the AGM-45B. It had an 8 mile range

He, small wonder )

quote:
May 68, first AGM-78's Standard ARM's introduced. they were better then the agm-45 shrikes, I think they had a bigger warhead?

I think that the main difference was that
the AGM-45 only tracks CW radar emissions IIRC. All other ARMs (SideARM, AGM-78, AGM-88, ALARM) could also track pulse doppler radar. I may be wrong on that however, I don't have my books with me ATM

Oliver

PS: I've got a cool picture of an AC-130 gunship doing an attack run on a vietnamese town. At night, with a whole lotta tracers showing. Might be something for your pie screen. If you're interested, mail me and then I'll scan it for you. See you!

[Snake Man]

I'm going to release Vietnam Theater BETA 4 in about 4 hours if I get busy... if there is more time, its going to be little later tonight.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

[Widowmaker]

Good luck

would it be possible to release an old type of install too.... (non f4patch,manual copying)

I dont mind geting my campaign srcewed up
and take your time....

(if it saves time L2,campaign and Te_new.tac,instant.cam will do)

Widowmaker