Nam, Laos News

[Bill Greenwood]

A news story yesterday says that during the Vietnam War more bombs were dropped on Laos than on all of both Germany and Italy in WWII.
Is that really true?
Not too many details from what the part I heard, but my recall is that Laos wasn't that major a target or part of the war? Its been decades so maybe Im not aware of it, but seems unusual. And mentions a $90 million program to clean up unexpoded ordinance which it says has killed about 20,000 people over the years. Wish this program could have been done years ago if it is much needed. I didnt hear what brings this to the forefront now, whether some sort of trade agreement or similar.
I dont know much about ordinance, but am surprised that there seems to be so much that does not explode when dropped.If so it could be hazardous work for the removal teams?

[gbrasch]

Read the book, "The Ravens".

[Floatsflyer]

Believe it all Bill. Laos was a major battle target of the entire Johnson/Nixon Southeast Asia debacle. And Cambodia too!

42 years later these countries and Vietnam are major tourist attractions and destinations by all ages especially millennials. 2 years ago my 26 year old daughter spent 6 weeks there.

[gbrasch]

Ditto to "Floats". Also, I recently met a tour guide who does tours all over the world, he has been to 83 different countries. He said his most popular is Viet Nam. Most of the population there were born after the war and have no memory of it.....

[Mike M]

... surprised that there seems to be so much that does not explode when dropped.If so it could be hazardous work for the removal teams?

I helped do some practice range cleanup once upon a time. We slingloaded unexploded and safetied ordnance to piles for disposal. Well, that was the brief. Imagine our surprise at quitting time on day one when the ordies "lit the fuze" on the pile. Whoopie, sure dispersed that old explosive residue! We were much more careful sett'n stuff down on day two. :)

[gearisgreen]

Read the book:

A Skyraider's Story About America's Secret War Over Laos "Once everything is set up, I roll in. Control stick hard left into a sharp left turn and let the nose drop quickly but smoothly to 40 degrees down. Down. My heart is pumping hard. I’m in a sharp dive. I have to do it right and fast. Line up the target in the sight. It’s getting bigger as I get closer to the ground. Airspeed is increasing! Quick! Right there! Pickle at 8,000 feet, only 2,000 feet from roll-in altitude. Not much time. NOW! Pull out! Pull hard, but don’t over G! All the remaining ordnance is trying to pull the airplane toward the ground. Smoothly pull to four Gs. Watch the artificial horizon. It’s the only visual reference I can count on."


FIREFLY is the story of one man’s journey in a world at war, and a day-to-day description of the fighting force that was flying A-1 Skyraiders in combat. Firefly contains actual transcriptions of dialogue of pilots locating a target and making a strike in northern Laos during the Vietnam War.

FIREFLY
A Skyraider's Story About America's Secret War Over Laos
by Richard E. Diller
$25.00 / Perfectbound
ISBN: 9781457519697
312 pages

[Mayhemxpc]

This is an interesting subject for research. I found it relatively easy to find total tonnage dropped on Germany in WW2: The USAAF official history says 1,360,000 TNT equivalent tons on Germany proper and 2,700,000 tons on Europe. The bombing campaign lasted for a little more than two years for the US and a little more than 5 years for the UK efforts. (I did not find numbers for Russian efforts. Minor compared to the western allies, but they did contribute.) The German magazine Der Spiegel reports that 2000 tons of UXO are recovered from Germany each year and it may take another 20 years to get them all. (France still plows up ordnance from WW1.)

Laos is different. Numbers I found range from 1.6 million to 2.5 million tons. Part of the discrepancy is comparing apples to oranges. A 2000 lb bomb is not necessarily 1 ton of TNT equivalent. Another problem is not finding an official history, and the sources I found all have reason to overestimate the numbers. (I did find an official history fro 1965-1968, and that alone was staggering.) Nonetheless even the low figure is a lot of bombs and Germany is a lot bigger than Laos. Most of the bombs in Germany were dropped on cities. Most of the bombs in Laos on the countryside. The bombing of Germany, as I wrote, lasted 3 to five years, weather permitting. Weather is often a severe constraint for daylight VFR bombing in Germany. In Laos, we bombed in the day, at night, visually and by radar for nine years. Therefore we had a LOT more opportunity to bomb a place we did not admit we were fighting in.

UXO disposal is a hazardous business. There are some excellent companies that do "Humanitarian Demining." They are worth every penny they are paid.

[Gary737]

Good points guys.

When I first heard Obama claim this, I said 'no way'. But to think deeper about it, the little A-4 Skyhawk/Scooter would normally carry far more bombs than B-17s/24s regularly did in Europe. Add in bigger jets like F-4s, A-7s, F-105s not to mention the possible 80,000 pound bomb load that one B-52 could deliver.

And the really big difference was the number of years over SE Asia. Yeah, I can easily see it now.

[Byron J. Covey]

A news story yesterday says that during the Vietnam War more bombs were dropped on Laos than on all of both Germany and Italy in WWII.
Is that really true?
Not too many details from what the part I heard, but my recall is that Laos wasn't that major a target or part of the war? Its been decades so maybe Im not aware of it, but seems unusual. And mentions a $90 million program to clean up unexpoded ordinance which it says has killed about 20,000 people over the years. Wish this program could have been done years ago if it is much needed. I didnt hear what brings this to the forefront now, whether some sort of trade agreement or similar.
I dont know much about ordinance, but am surprised that there seems to be so much that does not explode when dropped.If so it could be hazardous work for the removal teams?
One issue in Laos is the huge number of individual unexploded cluster bombs.


BJC

[Low Pass]

Believe it all Bill. Laos was a major battle target of the entire Johnson/Nixon Southeast Asia debacle. And Cambodia too!

42 years later these countries and Vietnam are major tourist attractions and destinations by all ages especially millennials. 2 years ago my 26 year old daughter spent 6 weeks there.Ironic that arguably many parts of Southeast Asia are more capitalistic and free than the United States. Further, after being bombed into submission - and being rebuilt by the US - Germany and Japan are some of the freest and most prosperous countries on the planet. I would also like to visit that region one of these days.

[Floatsflyer]

Ironic that arguably many parts of Southeast Asia are more capitalistic and free than the United States. Further, after being bombed into submission - and being rebuilt by the US - Germany and Japan are some of the freest and most prosperous countries on the planet.

Historically you are correct of course but sssshhhhhhh...don't let Trump hear or see this kind of thinking. He'll get the notion that America should attack itself, ya know, to, ahhh, make it great again.

[roger-wilco-66]

Number, numbers.

I always wondered where that number of tons of explosives dropped on Laos comes from and how it is made up. Is that a number that was officially released by the USAF? Does this number consider only the volume that was dropped by the USAF? It could be considerably higher because the Royal Lao Air Force and the Thai Air Force were also very active, expecially in the north of Laos.

Cheers,
Mark