Harriers in Vietnam

The Hawker Siddeley Harrier first flew in 1967 and entered RAF service in 1969. The USMC began receiving Harriers in 1971. If the USMC had introduced the Harrier in 1968 or 1969, would they have been useful in Vietnam, like the below (wrong camo) AV8A carrying napalm?

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The Hawker Siddeley Harrier first flew in 1967 and entered RAF service in 1969. The USMC began receiving Harriers in 1971. If the USMC had introduced the Harrier in 1968 or 1969, would they have been useful in Vietnam, like the below (wrong camo) AV8A carrying napalm?

It's got half the payload of the A-4 Scooter, and for dropping tanks the Harriers abilities are wasted.
 
Not really. the U.S didn't need to bomb the shit out of things as so much have a South Vietnamese government that can provide for people without lots of repression.
 
It's got half the payload of the A-4 Scooter, and for dropping tanks the Harriers abilities are wasted.

I think this is the main point. The Harrier is a good answer to a fairly specific set of problems, almost all of which require it's V/STOL capabilities. If you don't need those capabilities - and shortage of airfields capable of handling CTOL attack aircraft was never a major issue for US forces in Vietnam - then there are other aircraft that are more generally useful. The A-4 mentioned above, for example, is perfectly adequate for the demands of dropping napalm.
 
Given the USMC bought the Harrier specifically because of their Vietnam experience I'd say they would have been useful in Vietnam. Their big strength would have been rapid reaction ground loiter at forward air bases, I can't think of the name but there was one in Vietnam that routinely used arrested landing and maybe even rocket and/or catault assisted takeoffs.
 
Basically, a Harrier is an A-4 with shorter range and warload but capable of being based closer to the front line. I'm sure that they, like any other equipment change, would have been a help in some situations and a hindrance in others.

Equipment PoDs almost never affect the war in which they take place, though. That needs the strategic situation to change in some way. Changing equipment might have downstream effects due to butterflies and industrial consequences, but the war will still be won or lost in the traditional manner unless the change is revolutionary or catastrophically stupid.
 

GarethC

Donor
I think the advantage the Harrier provides to the USMC is to do with interservice politics. The USAF and USN don't fly it, so there's no shared logistics chain, which makes the absorption of Marine Air into either of those service arms problematic. Additionally, Harriers fly from LHA/LHD assault ships, not catapult CVs, so their adoption guarantees that some flattops remain doing Marine things, not mostly doing Navy things and occasionally helping out the Marines when an avuncular admiral says so.

There was Marine air support in SEA - as demonstrated by the Navy stopping carrier operations at Dixie Station in 1965 because they were no longer needed as Chu Lai became operational. Harriers would allow a more flexble and faster response in CAS provision, yes, assuming additional airstrips were used in the South to balance their shorter loiter time - but the OTL approach was to have CAS aircraft loitering with tanker support all day anyway.

I guess the issues are - if the USMC fields AV-8s in Vietnam (and the AV-8A is not much aircraft to write home about), what doesn't get fielded instead?

Is it just trading one AV-8 squadron for one A-4 squadron at Chu Lai? Does that trade-off, which presumably allows a higher sortie rate per aircraft deployed, at the cost of a smaller bomb load per sortie, make for a better CAS outcome? Where does the time-per-sortie come from - if it's mostly in the maintenance/rearm/refuel on the ground, as opposed to the in-air transit time, do Harriers enjoy any advantage over Skyhawks there?

Additionally, the Harriers will pretty much be purely tasked with CAS missions, whereas the A-4s did go up North - how much will that lack affect the US's air war over Hanoi?
 

Archibald

Banned
Harriers proved vulnerable to SAMs in GW1 because of the light airframe and the way the exhausts are placed (in the usual jet with the exhaust at the rear the missile explodes behind the aircraft, not on its sides)
More broadly, Vietnam saw use of every possible weapons (imagination was the only limit) outside tactical nukes, and the end result was brilliant - South Vietnam collapsed and the North invaded. I can't see Harrier changing anything to the final result.
 
Not really. the U.S didn't need to bomb the shit out of things as so much have a South Vietnamese government that can provide for people without lots of repression.

This. All the snazzy equipment in the world couldn't make up for the US government's poor political decisions.
 
Vietnam would have probably KILLED the Harriers reputation.

As someone else said the big advantage is it can be based close to the frontlines where it is needed and that it doesn't need long runways which are easy for the enemy destroy with airstrikes.

In Vietnam putting it near the front lines (if you can find a frontline) is that they will be more subject to sapper attacks. That was one reason the U.S. developed the large fixed bases and mobile strike capability. If you are going to operate from large fixed bases you may as well use an attack plane with a better load and range (and at a lower purchase and operating cost) such as the A-4.

Having a bunch of expensive Harriers destroyed on the ground in Forward Bases by a sapper with a sachel charge, a mortar or rocket round or an RPG is going to make it hard to justify the entire Harrier operating concept.
 
Those things could only get shot out of the skies and more pilots captured.

Better stick with the B52. Of course the B52 had a different role, but still.
 
Additionally, the Harriers will pretty much be purely tasked with CAS missions, whereas the A-4s did go up North - how much will that lack affect the US's air war over Hanoi?

I was under the impression it was only the Navy A-4's that went North of the DMZ.
 
What do people think the typical load of a UMSC A4 was in Vietnam? A Harrier would be carrying 3 x 1000lb bombs in normal conditions, about the same as an A4. In addition has at least double the engine power of an A4, so in STOVL operations sufferes a lot less in hot conditions typical in Vietnam. As an armchair strategist myself I'm loathe to have a crack at armchair strategists, but this time I'll say that the USMC was right and the armchair strategists are wrong, the Harrier would have been great in Vietnam. It could even operate somewhere like the Australian base at Nui Dat if required, alongside the helicopters and Caribous, no other fast jet could do that. All in all the Harrier would have been great in Vietnam, it wouldn't have won the war, but it would have done good work.
 
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