McNamara, defense chief during Vietnam War, dies

[Thanas]

He acted out of a sense of duty and loyalty, as misguided as those may have been..

Bullshit. What sense of duty and loyalty leads you to conclude that America is better off without ABM protection of it's cities?

Show me an ABM system that works from that time and I'll get back to you. Oh wait, those systems didn't exist or were huge sinkholes for money.

[MKSheppard]

Show me an ABM system that works from that time and I'll get back to you. Oh wait, those systems didn't exist or were huge sinkholes for money.

First U.S. Army intercept with the NIKE-ZEUS system.

[Starglider]

He acted out of a sense of duty and loyalty, as misguided as those may have been.

I doubt it. Raw, naked arrogance shines out of the man's every publicised action (along with incompetence). He absolutely refused to listen to advisers who actually knew what they were talking about, while being taken in by several others who knew how to manipulate him. He believed his moves were carefully calculated when they were in fact based on bullshit and blatant self-serving rationalisations.

As he aged, he did the best he could to make up for those mistakes in the best ways that he could and he admitted his failings and apologized for the mistakes

I don't think he apologised for more than a small fraction of his mistakes; only the ones where it was impossible for even him to deny the truth, e.g. 'Vietnam went badly for America'. Even there he seems to have shunted a considerable amount of blame onto others.

[MKSheppard]

I doubt it. Raw, naked arrogance shines out of the man's every publicised action (along with incompetence). He absolutely refused to listen to advisers who actually knew what they were talking about, while being taken in by several others who knew how to manipulate him. He believed his moves were carefully calculated when they were in fact based on bullshit and blatant self-serving rationalisations.

Let's not get into the B-70A and F-12B programs.

Strange claimed that a F-111/AWACS air defense system would be more capable and efficient than a F-12B/AWACS air defense system.

The F-12B as you might remember was the air defense version of the Blackbird.

The next passage is taken from a Memo he wrote to Johnson on September 22, 1966 titled "Recommended FY68-72 Strategic Offensive and Defensive Forces":

With strategic warning we estimate that 32 UE F-12s or 48 UE stretched F-111As could achieve the same number kills before weapons release as the current force which has a 10 year cost of $3.0 billion. The 10 year systems cost for the 32 UE F-12 force have increased from the previously estimated $1.9 billion to $2.9 billion. Estimates for the F-111 force remain at $1.5 billion. The F-111 force therefore appears substantially more efficient than the F-12s against the currently projected threat. Supplementary calculations indicate that it is comparable in efficiency to the F-12 force against possible future threats.

The 48 UE F-111 force would operate from 4 main bases, 8 dispersal bases and 30 recovery/recycle bases. Sixteen combat support aircraft, that would be flushed with the interceptors, would carry missiles, ground support equipment, spares, and personnel to support the F-111 turn-around at the recycle bases. With 42 AWACS aircraft to provide airborne control, we could reduce the present ground environment, retaining only enough radars and BUIC centers for peacetime control.

The investment costs for this force include $676 million for the F-111 and $790 million for AWACS. Since the modernized force would ultimately have operating costs about $250 million per year lower than the present posture, the additional investment costs would be recouped by FY78.

Given the advantage of the F-111 interceptors--an aircraft already in long term production--and in the absence of a decision to deploy Nike-X, the decision to modernize our air defense structure can be deferred for one year.

The F-12 development program will be reoriented in FY 67 and FY 68 to include further design studies for the F-111 interceptor, cost studies, and adaptation of the Navy AWG-9 fire control system for ADC use, using the YF-12 as a test bed. The AWACS development program which supports both tactical and CONUS defense missions, will be continued as a high priority effort.

Congress of course, didn't buy his bullshit and funded 93 F-12Bs, but Strange impounded the funds and refused to release them.

[Thanas]

Show me an ABM system that works from that time and I'll get back to you. Oh wait, those systems didn't exist or were huge sinkholes for money.

First U.S. Army intercept with the NIKE-ZEUS system.

Wasn't that the one that was incapable of stopping a first strike?

[Starglider]

Let's not get into the B-70A and F-12B programs.

It's not just his government service. The details of the Edsel development and launch are pretty hilarious; McNamara was in charge and essentially fucked everything up in the name of 'cost containment' (which rarely actually worked) and just sheer petty changing things to suit his personal taste. When the project was a massive failure he bitched and whined and tried to shift the blame to others and claimed that he was a victim of unforseable circumstances. It was a pattern that would be repeated constantly for the rest of his life.

[MKSheppard]

Wasn't that the one that was incapable of stopping a first strike?

The early ones built in like 1958 or so could only intercept ballistic targets up to 150,000 feet. The planned improvements for the 1960 production ones had vectored nosetips allowing intercepts up to 500,000 (!) feet.

In another summation of ZEUS; it says that the battery picks up the target at 1,600 nautical miles, fires at 1,000 nautical miles, and interception occurs at 300 nautical miles from the battery.

While the early Nike-ZEUS sites could only track and engage one or two targets at a time, due to their mechanically scanned radars and early computers; the Soviet missile threat in that period was minisicule; meaning that even a thin ZEUS defensive screen horribly complicates Soviet Targeteering.

As the Soviet Missile threat grows during the late 1960s; the early ZEUS sites can be upgraded with the new phased array radars developed for ZEUS-EX; enabling multi-target track and engagement capability.

[MKSheppard]

And for those of us who love the US Navy.....

The Eisenhower Administration's last budget, it's proposed FY62 budget had money for seven DLGNs.

When McNamara entered office, he cancelled all seven DLGNS. But the House added the USS Truxtun, DLGN-35 against his wishes to the budget in May 1961.

In April 1963, the "First Navy" study was given to McNamara. It concluded that "nuclear propulsion does permit a significant increase in the beneficial military results for a given expenditure," and that CVA-67 and all other future major warships should be nuclear powered.

Of course, Strange took that report and shoved it into his desk and ordered another study to be done.

The "Second Navy" study arrived on his desk in September 1963 and was quite detailed and focused on the lifecycle cost differential between oil and nuclear powered task forces. It concluded that there was only a 3% cost differential in favor of the oil burning task force; but the advantages of a nuclear task force were so great as to outweigh the slightly increased cost.

Advantages? Well...in the words of the Navy in 1964:

"a nuclear CVAN-67 is designed to carry ammunition, aircraft fuel, and propulsion fuel for conventional escorts sufficient to deliver at least 60% more airstrikes than a conventional CVA-67 before replenishing."

So what does Strange do?

Why of course he rejects it totally, gins up some supporting data of his own from OSD, and asserts:

"I am absolutely certain of one thing, that the six conventional task forces are superior to five nuclear task forces."

He then continued to reject any further analysis of the CVA(N)-67 issue by the Navy and ordered it to be constructed as a oil-burner in a memo to SecNav Korth on October 9, 1963.

You may be curious as to what data he ginned up with the help of OSD and his cronies.

Well, for the scenario of a high speed run across the Atlantic the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (Mr. Harold Brown) assumed that the conventionally powered carrier had 100% availability and absolutely perfect positioning of underway replenishment ships, keeping the oil-burning CV only 4 hours astern of the CVN after five days.

Alas, Admiral Hayward, who actually did do high speed runs on both a CVN and CV, reported that during his transit of the Atlantic on a CV; that the sea was so rough that underway replenishment wasn't possible, nor could he bring his escorts alongside for refuelling from the carrier. This led to the carrier burning aviation fuel in it's boilers to make it's destination.

.....

Oh by the way, you'll love his absolute gem of an idea to save money....Amusingly enough, this crazy idea didn't originate at all within the Navy -- read, with ZERO input from the navy -- but was forwarded to SecNav from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Systems Analysis).

Strange suggested that the traditional 1-1 relationship between carriers and air wings be changed, and submitted a plan where there would be 15 carriers, but only 12 air wings. He actually went on the record as stating that "significantly more useable combat power" could be obtained under this screwball idea.

What do we do with the extra carriers? Don't worry, he explains it below:

Carriers would normally deploy with less than the maximum complement of aircraft and additional aircraft would be flown to the carriers as needed. In effect, we would be treating the aircraft carrier as a forward floating air base, deploying the aircraft as the situation requires.

Naturally, the Navy thought the "Forward floating airbase" idea was bullshit and didn't take much note of it.

[MKSheppard]

And for the US Army:

The Army had a Small Nuclear Power Plant (SNPP) Progra designed to produce small nuclear reactors to power the DEW Line and McMurdo Station in Antartica.

One of the reasons it died was Vietnam's escalating costs forced a lot of "bonus" programs to be cut to fund the war; in much the same way a lot of good programs died to pay for Iraq.

But a major cause was outright fraud by McNamara's OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense).

Seems that in like 1960 or so, OSD decided to no longer factor in the cost of shipping the fuel for a conventional power generation system to remote locations in deciding the cost/benefit ratio of SNPPs vs Fossil fuel plants.

As you might imagine, this of course made SNPPs look very uneconomical compared to their fossil fuelled counterparts....which was precisely the point.

[Uraniun235]

There's a narrative emerging here which I hadn't picked up on before... did McNamara have something against nuclear power? What was driving/inspiring these Strange preconceptions?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

He got into lots of fights with Rickover as well over the nuclear submarine program. Rickover used his Congress allies to roughshod in his programs, against his wishes too. Given that the nuclear submarine program turned out pretty well in the end, Rickover was right to do so.

[MKSheppard]

He got into lots of fights with Rickover as well over the nuclear submarine program. Rickover used his Congress allies to roughshod in his programs, against his wishes too. Given that the nuclear submarine program turned out pretty well in the end, Rickover was right to do so.

As a side note to the CVA(N)-67 issue, while McNamara when he first arrived as SecDef, leaned towards a stunted 29-boat program for POLARIS, he eventually backed the full Eisenhower-era 41-For-Freedom Program.

Why?

This comment by him on nuclear power for CVAN-67 helps explain.

the substitution of a nuclear-powered carrier for the conventional would not strengthen us vis-a-vis to the Soviets [sic], I say this because with the total force we have available we are in our opinion, completely protected against Soviet military and political pressure and we don't need additional force.....

....

The aircraft carrier is not going to help us counter the Soviet submarine fleet. It is the Soviet submarine fleet that we have to be concerned with, not the Soviet surface fleet or not the Soviet forces that an aircraft carrier would attack.....

Basically, he viewed POLARIS as a better way of giving the Navy a Strategic role. In his mind, 41 SSBNs with hundreds of missiles were of greater strategic power than fifteen or so carriers, even if each carrier had a thousand tons of nuclear ordnance in their holds....they still suffered from the same problem that manned bombers did -- they would either fly into defenses that the ballistic missile bypassed, or would arrive hours and hours too late, and would just "bounce the rubble" left over from ICBM and SLBM attacks.

[Elfdart]

It's kind of funny how people piss all over McNamara for Vietnam, when his successors made the war that much worse. Still, he's a perfect example of the banality of evil.

On the other hand, he did put wankers like Curtis LeMay and Maxwell Taylor in their place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. LeMay wanted to attack Cuba during the Crisis, which would have likely caused one or more American cities to be leveled by an atomic counterattack. Luckily, that deranged moron was put out to pasture a few years later, along with his nukesturbation fantasies. So McNamara might have been an asshole for Vietnam, but he did prevent even bigger assholes from starting a Third World War which would have killed off tens (possibly hundreds) of millions of people.

[MKSheppard]

It's kind of funny how people piss all over McNamara for Vietnam, when his successors made the war that much worse.

Excuse me, but his successors implemented the policies that McNamara turned down, like destroying the North's transportation infrastructure and mining Hanoi/Haiphong Harbors; to prevent arms shipments; which led to the North finally agreeing to the peace treaty.

On the other hand, he did put wankers like Curtis LeMay and Maxwell Taylor in their place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. LeMay wanted to attack Cuba during the Crisis, which would have likely caused one or more American cities to be leveled by an atomic counterattack.

Actually no, this is how it goes.

1.) SAC/TAC blow the Soviet missile sites off the face of the earth.

2.) US Invades Cuba, ousts Castro.

3.) Kruschev gets overthrown -- because the US has just called his bluff; and the US has 1,500 bombers capable of blowing the Soviet Union into dust sitting on the pad and dispersed; while the Soviets have jack and squat. Attacking the US means the nuclear obliteration of the Motherland; and the Soviets know it.

[Gandalf]

Actually no, this is how it goes.

1.) SAC/TAC blow the Soviet missile sites off the face of the earth.

2.) US Invades Cuba, ousts Castro.

3.) Kruschev gets overthrown -- because the US has just called his bluff; and the US has 1,500 bombers capable of blowing the Soviet Union into dust sitting on the pad and dispersed; while the Soviets have jack and squat. Attacking the US means the nuclear obliteration of the Motherland; and the Soviets know it.

Is this like how you knew the outcome or the 2003 Iraq War?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Is this like how you knew the outcome or the 2003 Iraq War?

The Soviets had no credible deterrent until the 70s.

[Elfdart]

It's kind of funny how people piss all over McNamara for Vietnam, when his successors made the war that much worse.

Excuse me, but his successors implemented the policies that McNamara turned down, like destroying the North's transportation infrastructure and mining Hanoi/Haiphong Harbors; to prevent arms shipments; which led to the North finally agreeing to the peace treaty.

No asshole, his successors dragged the war out for another five years before finally agreeing to the exact same terms the North Vietnamese had on the table in 1968. Oh, and they expanded the war into Cambodia -another "success".

On the other hand, he did put wankers like Curtis LeMay and Maxwell Taylor in their place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. LeMay wanted to attack Cuba during the Crisis, which would have likely caused one or more American cities to be leveled by an atomic counterattack.

Actually no, this is how it goes.

You left out your own fap-fap-fap....

1.) SAC/TAC blow the Soviet missile sites off the face of the earth.

Right, and in your one-handed fantasies the Russians don't fight back. Too bad the real world doesn't play itself out like a video game in god mode.

2.) US Invades Cuba, ousts Castro.

And the fapping continues as several major cities in the US and Europe are vaporized.

3.) Kruschev gets overthrown -- because the US has just called his bluff; and the US has 1,500 bombers capable of blowing the Soviet Union into dust sitting on the pad and dispersed; while the Soviets have jack and squat. Attacking the US means the nuclear obliteration of the Motherland; and the Soviets know it.

Sorry fucktard, the Russians would have already launched their counterattacks on the assumption that attacks on their military bases were the first stage of an all-out war, in which case they have nothing to lose. Your entire jackoff dream is based on the assumption that (a) the Russians would have just twiddled their thumbs while their country is under attack and (b) the American attacks on Russia will be 100% successful and the Russians won't be able to fight back.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Sorry fucktard, the Russians would have already launched their counterattacks on the assumption that attacks on their military bases were the first stage of an all-out war, in which case they have nothing to lose. Your entire jackoff dream is based on the assumption that (a) the Russians would have just twiddled their thumbs while their country is under attack and (b) the American attacks on Russia will be 100% successful and the Russians won't be able to fight back.

The only thing the Russians could do at that time was to lay waste to Europe. There was no way they could touch the US in the same way the US could do to them. At best is a few nuked ports.

[Samuel]

We will fight to the last German! And possibly Frenchman depending on how fast their armor divisions advance.

[Vehrec]

On the other hand, he did put wankers like Curtis LeMay and Maxwell Taylor in their place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. LeMay wanted to attack Cuba during the Crisis, which would have likely caused one or more American cities to be leveled by an atomic counterattack.

Actually no, this is how it goes.

1.) SAC/TAC blow the Soviet missile sites off the face of the earth.

2.) US Invades Cuba, ousts Castro.

3.) Kruschev gets overthrown -- because the US has just called his bluff; and the US has 1,500 bombers capable of blowing the Soviet Union into dust sitting on the pad and dispersed; while the Soviets have jack and squat. Attacking the US means the nuclear obliteration of the Motherland; and the Soviets know it.

Yeah, but is it really in US interests to obliterate Russia and much of Europe in nuclear war? Seriously? We just got done fixing that place up. I am not letting you go off and start World War Three when we've just thrown out the last bag of trash leftover from WW2. Not to mention the economic effects of having the populations and industry Germany and the Warsaw pact disappear in nuclear fire. There are US bases over there too, are you willing to write off the lives of all those servicemen as acceptable casualties? Or the civilian and political backlash if you're wrong and one leaker gets through. If De Moines vanishes off the map, do you think the senator for Iowa will stand for the people who made the call to hold their positions one hour longer than he can get their asses in front of congress?

[MKSheppard]

An excerpt from an essay I'm putting together now.

US Submarine Fleet
5 x George Washington SSBNs with 80 Polaris A-1 with 600 kt warhead and 1,200 nm range.
1 x Ethan Allen SSBN with 16 Polaris A-1 with 600 kt warhead and 1,200 nm range.

Total: 96 SLBMs on 6 boats (all nuclear powered)

NOTE: Polaris A-2 with a 1,500 nm range became operational on 26 June 1962; but I have no information on how many boats had A-2 during the Cuban Crisis.

Additionally, the Polaris A1 had a reliability rate of around 50% or less; and the early W47 Y1 warhead on the Polaris A1 and A2, due to a faulty mechanical safing device design was estimated to have about a 50/50 chance of initating or not. When it was tested in a series of shots in 1966; the W47 Y2 had a dud rate of 3 out of four shots. It wasn't until the W47 Y3 mod was introduced in 1967 that the W47 became reliable.

So basically, out of the 96 SLBMs the US had deployed; only about 48 will successfully fire; and of that 48; only 24 will actually initate over Soviet Targets.

[K. A. Pital]

1) The Soviet commander as I recall, on Cuba had authority to launch nuclear ordnance if the US would act decisively as Shep proposed.

2) The USSR would obliterate Europe. Millions of deaths once again.

3) It's just Shep. Millions of deaths of stupid bluffing Russians for the glory of the SAC are cool. Or maybe he spent too much time hanging around that grim guy... you know, Stuart.

4) Of course the US would win.

[Uraniun235]

1) The Soviet commander as I recall, on Cuba had authority to launch nuclear ordnance if the US would act decisively as Shep proposed.

In The Fog of War, McNamara tells how he met Castro in the early 90s (or thereabouts), and asked Castro three questions:

1) Did you know the nukes were there?
2) If you had known, would you have recommended they be used in response to a US attack?
3) What did you think would have happened if you had launched a nuclear counterattack?

Castro's response, according to McNamara, was basically as follows:

1) Yes, he knew
2) He actually did recommend that they be used in the face of a US attack
3) He expected Cuba would have been completely destroyed.

[MKSheppard]

Umm, damn, maybe it would be a good idea to split the Cuba discussion over to history? Since we're moving a bit off topic and a bit detailed?

[K. A. Pital]

It could warrant a special thread, but not in it's current form as a "discussion". I'm splitting the numbers and such to History. Personally, I don't really hold it against the K. administration that they didn't go apeshit and slaughter millions of Cubans, Soviets and finally indirectly cause the deaths of millions of West and East Europeans. But then, it's a matter of morals, not just war calculations.