buffnut453
Captain
The USAF bombed extensive areas of jungle during Vietnam
Do you think the Canberra, even triple the number, could have handled a carpet-bombing job better than the king of the carpet-bombers?
No I don't but then again I could never see the point of the activity you describe. What exactly did all that carpet bombing of jungle achieve in terms of progressing the military objectives of the campaign? Did it stop the NVA or Viet Cong operating? Did it stop the resupply route along the Ho Chi Minh Trails (and, yes, I used the plural deliberately)? Did it in any way reduce the warmaking capacity of the adversary? I believe the answer to all 3 questions is a resounding "NO". However, it did achieve some things. It annoyed the hell out of thousands of locals and probably greatly assisted NVA and VC recruitment. It expended thousands of bombs blowing up highly aggressive trees and paddy fields, and it explosed expensive large strategic aircraft and their crews to unnecessary threat (although, to be fair, the Buffs did not penetrate as far north as the tactical fighters - how's that for a contradiction of WWII strategic bombing theory...the small guys operating at longer range than the big multi-engine (and self-protected!) strategic bomber).
Sorry of this comes across as overly harsh but I really do fail to see what the carpet bombing of jungle achieved. The most effective bombing during the conflict was the increased employment of LGBs during LINEBACKER which achieved more success against North Vietnamese lines of communication with 155K tons of bombs than was achieved in all of ROLLING THUNDER and four-times the expenditure of munitions.