Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: arie@midway.uchicago.edu (ariel  berschadsky)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Questionable value of air superiority
Message-ID: <1990Sep2.060917.2997@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 2 Sep 90 06:09:17 GMT
References: <1990Aug28.042628.28858@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: University of Chicago
Lines: 17
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: arie@midway.uchicago.edu (ariel  berschadsky)
In article <1990Aug28.042628.28858@cbnews.att.com> HARPER%ccvax.ucd.ie@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU writes:
>
>Most of the recent postings concerning the deployment of US air forces in
>the gulf explicitly suggest that air superiority is tactically equivalent
>to military victory.  There is no precedent for this claim among the wars
>of the last fifty years.  The land war in Vietnam demonstrated that if a
>nation was willing to endure tremendous casualties caused by air warfare
>and continually bolster the land army that a winnable war could be fought.

I would like to point out that Vietnam is covered with tropical jungle and
makes it relatively easy for guerrilla groups and even small armies to 
"fade away."  It is almost impossible to hide major troop movements in
open desert, and therefore such movements are more easily detectible, and
stoppable, from the air.