eburger68

Folks: I should have mentioned this earlier, but there is an excellent book on the Easter Offensive, Linebacker I and Linebacker II that was published in 2007: Stephen Randolph. Powerful and Brutal Weapons: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Easter Offensive. http://www.amazon.com/Powerful-Brutal-Weapons-Kissinger-Offensive/dp/0674024915/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383702437&sr=1-1 The book draws on a number of relatively new sources sources including recently declassified U.S. documents and North Vietnamese sources that were previously unavailable. The author provides a fascinating window into how Hanoi and Washington strategized, planned, and fought during that last crucial year of active U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Eric Howes

Dave: No U.S. bombing campaign ever completely disrupted the NV ability to bring in supplies from other countries. Even the Navy's success in shutting down Haiphong and other ports through Operation Pocket Money didn't completely stop it. The NV and Chinese simply turned the border city of Lang Son into a land port and began trucking it in. Also, in 1972-73 the North Vietnamese were nearing completion of an oil pipeline that U.S. analysts knew would be very difficult to shut down for any great length of time. Now, mining Haiphong and other ports did put a major crimp in the NVA's ability to keep their more mechanized army properly supplied and was a major factor in causing the NVA offensive in South Vietnam to stall in June 1972. But even during the height of Linebacker I with Haiphong, Hong Gai, and Cam Pha shut down and U.S. aircraft regularly pounding the NV transportation network, the NV were able to keep their army sufficiently supplied to hold their lines and force Nixon and Thieu to sign a peace agreement that allowed NVA units to remain in place in the South. Not even Linebacker II gave Nixon sufficient leverage to dislodge them, and that left South Vietnam with a knife to its throat following the signing of the peace agreement in January 1973. Eric Howes

Typhoid: I'm afraid I have to disagree with your analysis, because it tries to salvage some kind of "victory" from a situation that could have had no other ending. It also imagines that there was some kind of "victory" that was then followed by a later act of "betrayal." I often encounter this kind of claim from folks -- esp. Americans -- who want to preserve some final sense of victory in a war that that U.S. cannot credibly claim to have won. It usually takes the form of "we actually won the war, but xyz," where xyz is some act of betrayal by the usual suspects (lefties, politicians, gutless careerists in the officer corps), some sure-fire strategy that the U.S. failed to pursue, etc., etc. You wrote: Win precisely what militarily? The war? A particular battle? And what kind of demonstration of military victory is this that immediately results in the U.S. completing its departure from Vietnam in less than a month's time, a result that was not only Hanoi's major objective but was an event that was all but inevitable -- even if the North Vietnamese had sat back and done nothing further? It's difficult to claim victory when the outcome of that "victory" is what your opponent had been waiting for all along. So what objective of any great significance was accomplished with that bombing campaign? It lent Nixon a bit of political face-saving cover to complete a withdrawal that was all but finished by the time Linebacker II started. It also gave Nixon the juice he needed to cajole (and coerce) Thieu into signing on to a peace agreement that Thieu himself knew was next to worthless as a guarantee of South Vietnam's survival. Again, it's hard to see how any of that can be claimed as a victory. Put another way, it's a mistake to view Linebacker II and what followed as a victory followed by an act of betrayal. Rather, it is important to recognize that Linebacker II was itself part of a larger move by the United States to walk away from the Vietnam War on terms that satisfied the immediate political needs of the Nixon Administration, even if that meant leaving its South Vietnamese ally saddled with an empty shell of a peace agreement that set the stage for the events of March and April 1975. The betrayal didn't occur after Linebacker II -- it had been in the cards long before. Eric Howes

Folks: I must confess that I've never understood why some folks consider Linebacker II to be such a smashing success. Yes, in a narrow, limited way it was a success in getting the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating tables in Paris. But it's important to remember what North Vietnam was actually being asked to do. In fact, they were only being asked to return to the negotiating table and make a few cosmetic changes to a peace agreement that they had already signed onto. Those cosmetic changes did not fundamentally alter the peace agreement or address the very real shortcomings in the original agreement that had caused President Thieu of South Vietnam to balk at signing the agreement that was reached in late October, 1972. (Yes, it was our own ally who pulled the plug on the original deal, not the North Vietnamese.) The North Vietnamese were not being asked to surrender. They were not even being asked to withdraw all troops from South Vietnam. The troops that had invaded South Vietnam as part of the Eastertide Offensive launched in March 1972 were allowed to remain in place (a fact that made Thieu furious). So many aspects of the agreement were vague or without any serious hope of being implemented that each side to the deal could effectively interpret sections of it in self-serving ways. The agreement was really little more than a political/legal framework that allowed the United States to complete its withdrawal from South Vietnam while saving some degree of face. You could also think of as a kind of armistice with some additional provisions for encouraging the Hanoi and Saigon governments to continue working towards a final negotiated settlement. And the North Vietnamese knew it. By December, 1972, the U.S. was down to around 50,000 personnel in South Vietnam, almost all in advisory or maintenance roles of one sort or another. The U.S. Congress was already in the process of passing legislation to cut off funding for continued military operations in Southeast Asia (Nixon won the 1972 Presidential election but his coattails were very short). Nixon knew it, too. There's actually a good argument to made that the real objective of Linebacker II was not so much to force the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table but to persuade the South Vietnamese -- President Thieu in particular -- that the United States could be trusted to apply serious military muscle against the North Vietnamese to ensure good behavior once the United States completed its withdrawal. Linebacker II, in other words, was Nixon's means for demonstrating to Thieu the support he could expect should the North Vietnamese renege on the deal and threaten South Vietnam again. Nixon also let it be known that if Thieu continued to be intransigent, the U.S. just might cut its own deal with Hanoi and leave Saigon to fend for itself. Once Thieu signed on, the final peace agreement could be worked out in Paris and the deal signed with Le Duc Tho in late January. But, of course, Nixon would never be in a position to deliver on his promise to Thieu. By early February 1973 the Watergate scandal (which began at the height of Linebacker I back in June 1972) was already starting to consume Nixon's Presidency. By August 1974 he was gone. And we all know what ensued in the months between August 1974 and April 1975. So, yes, in some limited sense Linebacker II was a success. But it's important to understand its objectives and the context in which those limited objectives were realized. The best thing I ever heard about Linebacker II was from some wag who bitterly commented, "With Linebacker II we essentially bombed the North Vietnamese into accepting our withdrawal from South Vietnam." Those who are interested in the diplomatic back story of the negotiations that brought an end to our involvement in South Vietnam could do worse than check out Larry Berman's "No, Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam." http://www.amazon.com/No-Peace-Honor-Kissinger-Betrayal/dp/0743223497 Eric Howes

tiopilotos: If they're not appearing in the game at all, then the only explanation I have is some error during installation. In every test I've ever run with NF5 they appear, and no other player of NF5 has reported a problem with the Hawk SAMs (other than their surprise that Hawk batteries shoot at them after being overrrun by advancing Soviet ground forces). Eric Howes

tiopilotos: I assume by "not show up" you're referring to them not showing up on the map. That's a quirk of the game. Custom-placed Blue SAMs -- like the HAWK batteries -- will not show up on the map or RWR. Eric Howes

slick cowboy: The missing .BMP is named BGL400.BMP. To fix, simply make a copy of BGL1000.BMP and name it BGL400.BMP. It should reside in the same folder as the other BGL1000 files. Eric Howes

Folks: If you look the SF2NA Carriers pack released earlier this year, you'll find SF2NA-ready INIs for this ship. In fact, based on file size, it appears to be the same model (or very nearly the same). If the author has indeed made changes to the model in this update, it would be nice to know what those are. The OUT file included here is the same as with the previous release (and the one found in the SF2NA carriers pack). Alas, there is no ReadMe here, so one can only guess. Eric Howes

Niels: Those aircraft are set up for AI use only. Eric Howes

porschefan: There's no problem there. If you sneak a peek at the target area while you're a ways off, you will see only the oil barrel. The game will not populate the target area with all the usual objects until your aircraft gets close to the target. As I said, what you're seeing is normal. Please do not attempt to implement any fix or you could actually break something. Eric Howes

Kraszus: Yes, it does appear that I somehow botched the implementation of MiGBuster's DIANE mod. A corrected set of files for the A-6A and A-6B is attached to the post here: http://combatace.com/topic/46246-sf2v-wov-air-ground-expansion-packs/page-26?do=findComment&comment=639435 Eric Howes

Folks: Yes, another minor fix for the Sept. 2013 update. Looks like I botched the implementation of MiGBuster's DIANE mod for the A-6A/B cockpits. Not sure how I managed to do that, but in any case a fix is attached to this post. To install, simply unpack and drop the A-6A and A-6B folders into the \Objects\Aircraft directory in your Mods Folder, allowing Windows to overwrite exisiting files. As with the previous fix, this one will be rolled up into a refreshed Sept. 2013 installer sometime in the next few days. Eric Howes a-6_cockpits_upd.zip

Folks: Attached the the post listed below is a corrected set of Rolling Thunder variant campaign files, including those for the "American War." http://combatace.com/topic/46246-sf2v-wov-air-ground-expansion-packs/page-26?do=findComment&comment=639301 As noted earlier, I think the underlying bug affects only the selection of some Red squadrons in the "American War," but I've updated all the Rolling Thunder campaigns just in case. Eric Howes

Folks: Another minor bug has merged. This one affects the selection of player aircraft and squadrons in Red campaigns. So far as I can tell, only the MiG squadrons in the Red-side "American War" campaign are affected (that's the Red version of Rolling Thunder). I've made corrections to all Rolling Thunder variant campaigns, though, as a hedge. Attached to this post is a ZIP containing updated versions of all Rolling Thunder campaigns. Simply unzip and drop the enclosed folders into the \Campaigns folder of your Mods Folder, allowing Windows to overwrite existing files. Please keep in mind that these updated files require the Sept. 2013 Update for the SF2V Expansion Pack. Eric Howes rt-campaigns_upd.zip

jeanba: Well, it appears something has changed in TK's campaign engine code. Those 1-921st Sao Do squadrons were working at one point. Now the campaign engine is confusing them with each other -- probably because they share the same UnitName, even though they have non-overlapping Start/End dates and are distinctly and correctly numbered. This is ThirdWire's data, btw. I'll have to do a bit more testing and make some quickie corrections to allow the campaign engine to distinguish those squadrons. I'll post a corrected set of campaigns here later this evening. FWIW, my guess is that this "bug" affecting only the Red side campaigns, which has players selecting player flyable aircraft. In this case, the campaign engine is not selecting the appropriate squadron. I doubt this has any effect on the standard blue side campaigns. Eric Howes

Folks: The Sept. 2013 Update package has been updated. It now includes the previously missing F-4 sound files (same as posted above). Eric Howes

Folks: The Sept. 2013 Update package has been updated. It now includes the previously missing F-4 sound files (same as posted above). Eric Howes

Stingray77: I'm sorry, but I am no longer providing workarounds or substitutes. The minimum requirements have changed. They are SF2V plus SF2 & SF2E. If you don't want to get those SF2 modules, then my advice would be not to install the Sept. 2013 update. Eric Howes

hrc: All you need to do is grab these three files from the default VietnamSEA terrain, which is found in the second Expansion Pack download package, and drop them in \VietnamSEA and \SouthVietnam, overwriting the clear .TGAs that are currently in there: paddy.tga paddy_new.tga jungle.tga Eric Howes

strongmc: Remove the following two files from \Flight (in your Mods folder): - MAPENEMYICON.TGA - HUDDATA.INI Eric Howes

Rocket74: Ah, I misunderstood your original post. So, it was only an engine sound problem. I thought the game mission was not loading properly. My mistake, So, it turns out that I forgot to include the new F-4 engine sounds in the update package. (sigh) They are attached to this post: http://combatace.com/topic/46246-sf2v-wov-air-ground-expansion-packs/page-26?do=findComment&comment=638874 Simply unpack the RAR file and drop the WAV files in the \Sounds dir of your Mods folder. I will upload a corrected version of the update package in a day or so. Eric Howes

Folks: So, it turns out that I forgot to include the new F-4 engine sounds in the update package. (sigh) They are attached to this post. Simply unpack the RAR file and drop the WAV files in the \Sounds dir of your Mods folder. I will upload a corrected version of the update package in a day or so. Eric Howes F-4_Sounds.rar

Rocket74: OK, as I said, I just tried the sole USMC F-4B squadron in that campaign, and it worked just fine. If a game mission starts like you describe, that usually indicates a serious problem with the aircraft -- either it's missing a cockpit or the game can't find the LOD files for the aircraft, etc. So, I would check out that aircraft in a single mission. Does the F-4B exist on the aircraft selection menu? Can you fly it with a USMC squadron/texture set? Also, ThirdWire never released a March 2013 patch. There was a March 2012 patch, a May 2013 patch, and a July 2013 patch, which is the latest. Eric Howes

Rocket74: The first problem is the fact that you chose to fly a USMC F-4C. No such thing exists. There are USMC F-4Bs and USAF F-4Cs, but no USMC F-4Cs. I just checked the sole USMC F-4B that's flyable in the RT-A campaign -- it worked just fine. I also checked the two USAF F-4C squadrons available in the campaign -- both worked just fine. So, I would recommend double-checking the service, aircraft, and squadron you selected. Also, in addition to knowing the above (service, aircraft, squadron), it would be helpful to know what patch level you're on. Eric Howes