I'll comment on this, even thought it was in response to FlyBoyJ...
I'm mostly just interested in the historical facts...
The U.S. was involved in Korea because of the French and British failure to re-establish authority over former colonies at the conclusion of WWII. It was such a bad situation, that they actually remobilized the Japanese in several precincts, as the Japanese already had established infrastructure.
That's weird, but interesting
It was actually Japanese troops that saw the first part of armed conflict as the situation in Korea deteriorated and then the situation escalated into the Korean war.
Wow
Enter French Indo-China (aka Vietnam). It was Ho Chi-Minh, who was trained as a guerilla fighter against the Japanese, that turned on the French as they tried to recover control over their former Colony, that ignited the Vietnam War.
Didn't he come to the US at some point?
In both cases, the U.S. was drug into the conflicts because of ties to Allies and the U.N. but because of politics (and perpetual U.N. passive mediations), was limited in the amount of force needed to suppress the enemy.
Basically we were drawn in over alliances to other nations.
Case in Point: the USS New Jersey was recalled after hammering the eff out of North Korean positions, because the North Koreans complained to the U.N. and it was determined that the Jersey was "unfair & unconventional" and demanded that she had to be withdrawn.
How was it unfair and how was it unconventional?
In both cases, the U.S. should NOT have been there, it wasn't our problem and it wasn't our fight, but obligations to Allies and the U.N. was the black hole that sucked us in.
Some people subscribe to the attitude that right lies in force...
While Japanese AA was not as concerted as German AA, it was still very capable.
They had several layout patterns for their installations and these would include a blend of types: 75mm, 105mm, 120mm and 155mm.
I would assume one or two hits from any of those would be fatal?
That were able to easily reach altitudes of 26 to 30,000 feet and there were many reports from B-17 and B-29 crews that verified that Japanese AA was reaching their altitudes of 32,000 feet and even witnessed bursts as high as 36,000 feet.
I didn't know that
I should add that the AA batteries were also protected by a perimeter of 7mm and 13mm MGs as well as 20mm and 25mm pom-pom to protect the batteries from low altitude attack.
So basically light stuff on the outside to the big stuff in the middle?
Shinpachi gave the account and it's been a long time since the discussion, but in summary, there was a lone patrol on the morning of the Nagasaki mission. The pilot (Shinpachi has his name and Sentai info) spotted the B-29 and thought it to be an American recon mission (there was actually several B-29s per Atomic mission) and disregarded it. However, he was at altitude and in a position where he could have intercepted the unescorted B-29s as they turned towards Nagasaki.
But as luck would have it...
I didn't know we had multiple planes for atomic missions: I did know we had the bomber and a plane in trail and offset to the side...
Any USN aircraft that had the prefix "S" was intended for Scouting duties as one of their primary missions.
I always thought scouting was predominantly artillery direction...
Curtiss SOC-3 for example, shows it's primary mission is Scouting.
I never understood the SO designation as they were overlapping, but if scouting is non-photographic reconnaissance, and O was artillery direction it makes perfect sense.
The Douglas SBD was a Scouting Bomber and while it was designed as a Dive-Bomber, it's designed purpose was an armed Scout.
It was designed as a dive-bomber first (Northrop's BT, which was then modified into the BT-2, then the SBD)
In those, the scouts were the eyes of the fleet, no matter who had radar and who did not.
Did the Japanese have scouts of this sort?
Dave - French and British can be accused of this or that, but Korea was not within either countrie's sphere of influence, let alone a former colony of those countries. Korea was a place where Russian/Soviet, Chinese and Japanese influences over-lapped, many times the Koreans drawing a short straw in the process.
So you have a sort of Venn diagram where the PRC and USSR cris-crossed each other?
The big worry in Korea, especially after the Chinese jumped in, was that the Soviet Union would get directly involved and escalate a regional conflict into World War lll.
As they were both communist powers.
We had abruptly demobilized after War ll, and had neither the preparation nor the stomach for another big one.
What was the motivation for the demobilization? I'm pretty sure I know the answer (so draftees can go home to their families, and we could throttle down military costs)
In Vietnam, Kennedy, Johnson, and especially McNamara started out helping a (not very worthy) ally stem what they thought was a minor insurgency, and just couldn't comprehend the facts on the ground and the level of commitment of the Vietnamese people to unification.
Why did they not comprehend?
They clung to the illusion that by manipulating military actions and diplomatic initiatives they could discourage the North from their unification campaign.
Why?
The Dauntless was spec-ed and designed at a time when there weren't a lot of long range patrol options available to the fleet. PBY-class aircraft were just coming into being, and battleships and cruisers each had a couple of seaplanes, but a carrier's flock of scout bombers were the backbone of the fleet's search capabilities.
Okay, I get it now...
I think the USN had always thought of its aircraft as multi-mission platforms
There's logic to that
possibly more so than the USAAC
I think it was just in different ways
The USN merged level-bombing and torpedo bombing from the outset it seems into one aircraft type (TBs), by the late 1930's they'd decided to merge the dive-bomber and scout role together into the scout-bomber (SB), though they'd tried merging scout's and fighters into scout-fighters (SF), as well as increasing the capability of fighters to carry dive-bomber loads (F11C to BFC/BF2C) before just reclassifying them as regular fighters again (the exception was that Cruisers, Battlecruisers, and Battleships, had the Scout and Observation roles merged into Scout/Observation or SO).
As time went on the level-bomber component of the dive-bomber mission was seen as largely useless, the torpedo role persisted for a little bit longer, but the torpedo-bomber planes found themselves being used as ASW, AEW, and COD's (level bombing did see effectiveness in land-based campaigns), the dive-bombers eventually were joined together with the torpedo-bomber role (there was some toying with a torpedo-bomber scout or TS), and starting in 1946 dive-bombers, dive-bomber/torpedo-bombers, torpedo-bombers, and anti-submarine warfare aircraft were stuffed into the attack-mission.
Eventually the multi-role torpedo bomber planes were developed into specialized COD's and AEW's as time went on.
The USN did have a shot at scout-fighters, in the Grumman SF, and one wonders how that would have played out had the navy continued that into the monoplane world.
Did they require two man crews?
The advice, allegedly, was more along the lines of 'first change the government of South Vietnam into something that the people might support'.
I did not know that, but that does make sense (in this author's opinion, it seems preferable to avoid sticking one's nose where it doesn't belong unless absolutely necessary because of the cost in human life, and generates enmity that all too often results in blow-back) to change the regime into something the public would accept rather than the ham-handed job we did.
Regime change was a traditional British strategy as a cheaper way to achieve goals and with less casualties.
Correct, though if I recall they had problems with the Malayans...
Then harry and isolate the Vietcong on the ground so that they have to concentrate upon survival not attack. Fire power is not a substitute for an infantry/intelligence/police war.
True