From:	Graht Graht@**********.worldnet.att.net
Subject:	Value and so on....
Date:	Sat, 17 Jul 1999 19:40:07 -0500

Paul J. Adam wrote:
/In article <4.2.0.58.19990716082051.0098d810@*****.engin.umich.edu>,
/Sommers <sommers@*****.edu> writes
/>But how often does that work? The US had all of the high-end military gear
/>in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese didn't have a lot of gear at all.
/
/I am acquainted with a number of pilots who would strongly disagree with
/that statement.

Wasn't a pilot, but I'm fairly familiar with the history of the war in Vietnam.

The NV had plenty of gear. The soviet union was more than happy to provide
them with weapons to "field test". Also, the high-end gear the US had
wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

At the beginning of the Vietnam war the majority of US Jet pilots were
flying planes that had no machine gun(s) and very unreliable AA missiles.
The vietnamese were flying jets that had machine guns and didn't have
missiles. Guess what happened... the US pilots were shot down on a
regular basis.

The pilots started screaming and Phantoms were provided with a *strap-on*
machine gun. However, it was rushed to the field so quickly that the
designers missed the fact that it would chuck spent shells into the jet
intakes. AA missiles continued to be unreliable.

It wasn't until the end of the Vietnam war that Phantoms and other jets had
built in guns and pilots had missiles that had a better than 50% success
rating.

Technology isn't worth jack if it fails or is used without foresight.

It was a harsh lesson that the US armed forces learned from. A: simple is
better. B: don't put all your eggs in one basket.

-Graht
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