"Night Sorties in Vietnam war questions." Topic

What would be the normal military reaction by the north Vietnamese forces to a US night sortie? I am thinking about a scenario with an F111 raid. Where the Varks escorted? Did the VPAF allow their Migs to fly at night? Where SAM effective at night? What about AAA?

cheers
JB

I recall sitting in the CO's jeep, eating c-rats, talking skip to B-52 bombers around midnight. We could look up and see tiny lights slowly making their way across the starlight sky. My base was some 40 kliks north of the airfield.
I don't think they had escorts as there weren't any zigzagging lights and the pilots talked about going into some "heavy poop" (actually they used the other popular word).
We assumed that meant missiles as thry were too high for AAA and Migs could easily be mistaken for just any old aircraft and also shot at by missles.

Weren't the Varks still essentially the TFX during Vietnam? As I recall, the initial deployment was late war and it did not go all that well.

At least over Laos, the gunships (AC-119 & AC-130) could work the Trail unsupported and generally unmolested by most AAA until very late in the war. The NVAF was fairly close so I assume there were fast movers available as top cover/reaction if needed.

By the Linebacker Operations 72-73 the Varks were fully operational and carried out hundreds of missions.

I suspect they may have had at least a few pilots and aircraft rated for night attacks.

The North Koreans certainly did in the Korean War, so I imagine the VPAF, and/or their "allies" certainly did.

Most likely though, night operations by their fighter aircraft probably would have been fairly rare.

Flak, unless radar controlled, would certainly be limited by the lack of visibility vs. attackers.

There would not have been much, if any degradation vs. the SAMS though, since those were radar controlled, other than perhaps the inability to salvo missiles and use optical control/detonation of those, if their radar systems were jammed.

I hope that helps.

I can't recall reading much, if anything about attacks by Migs on US aircraft against night sorties, during the Vietnam War, but it's been a while, so there might have been some engagements.