So, how many SOCTOP launches we have to deal with?
Quote from: koroljow on 03/02/2018 01:56 pmSo, how many SOCTOP launches we have to deal with?You're missing a reference http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/aftrack/1.pdf which confirms Discoverer 25, 26 and 28 (1961/06/16, 1961/07/07 and 1961/08/04)
Quote from: gwiz on 03/11/2018 01:53 pmQuote from: koroljow on 03/02/2018 01:56 pmSo, how many SOCTOP launches we have to deal with?You're missing a reference http://www.nro.gov/foia/declass/aftrack/1.pdf which confirms Discoverer 25, 26 and 28 (1961/06/16, 1961/07/07 and 1961/08/04) No, I don't. See source [5] in my list. The question is: does this document 'confirm' anything? Other documents doesn't mention these specific launches. And that's my problem.
I'd be inclined to treat a positive mention as indication that a payload was carried, but not take a lack of a mention as indication that one definitely wasn't included.
"And the sky full of stars: American signals intelligence satellites and the Vietnam War"http://thespacereview.com/article/3430/1I just acquired the 2012 book "A-6 Intruder Units of the Vietnam War" by Rick Morgan. Pages 75-76 refer to Operation Pocket Money, the mining of Haiphong Harbor. This book says that there were three A-6 Intruders, not four, conducting the initial raid. They led six A-7E Corsairs (pictured). All the aircraft carried mines (the Intruders carried bigger ones).The really interesting claim in the book is that although President Nixon announced that the mines would become active after 72 hours, the mines had actually been set to become active after 48 hours. Obviously there was some kind of miscommunication. That could have been a big problem--imagine what would have happened if a Soviet freighter left Haiphong after 50 hours, the captain thinking that he still had 22 hours of safety, and detonated a mine. That would have been bad. I wonder if Nixon's announcement was amended? Alternatively, the rush to get satellite surveillance of the area could have been tied to this, trying to find out if any ships had been damaged by mines after two days.There has to be an after-action report on this operation in Navy files somewhere. But I'm not an expert on US Navy history, and I'm not about to go on a research effort on this without having a better understanding of the topic.
Quote from: Blackstar on 03/10/2018 02:49 am"And the sky full of stars: American signals intelligence satellites and the Vietnam War"http://thespacereview.com/article/3430/1I just acquired the 2012 book "A-6 Intruder Units of the Vietnam War" by Rick Morgan. Pages 75-76 refer to Operation Pocket Money, the mining of Haiphong Harbor. This book says that there were three A-6 Intruders, not four, conducting the initial raid. They led six A-7E Corsairs (pictured). All the aircraft carried mines (the Intruders carried bigger ones).The really interesting claim in the book is that although President Nixon announced that the mines would become active after 72 hours, the mines had actually been set to become active after 48 hours. Obviously there was some kind of miscommunication. That could have been a big problem--imagine what would have happened if a Soviet freighter left Haiphong after 50 hours, the captain thinking that he still had 22 hours of safety, and detonated a mine. That would have been bad. I wonder if Nixon's announcement was amended? Alternatively, the rush to get satellite surveillance of the area could have been tied to this, trying to find out if any ships had been damaged by mines after two days.There has to be an after-action report on this operation in Navy files somewhere. But I'm not an expert on US Navy history, and I'm not about to go on a research effort on this without having a better understanding of the topic.So I've managed to locate some additional information on this event. What I wrote above is true, with a few corrections. Apparently the timers on the mines had a standard deviation. If they were set for 72 hours, some of them could go active as soon as 58 hours and some as late as 80 hours. The Navy did not learn about this until shortly before Nixon was scheduled to give his speech, and they were rather frantic (and officials were embarrassed). They apparently amended Nixon's speech to say something like "three daylight periods" which was close enough without being exact. But there are journal entries from senior Navy officials about how big a deal this was, and how disastrous it could be if the president gave a deadline and then a ship set sail before the deadline and got sunk by a mine.I think that this does a lot to explain why the Navy scrambled to request that the NRO use the satellites to monitor maritime traffic in the region after the mining of the harbor--they nearly screwed up big time and they needed to make sure that everything went smoothly.
Fascinating. "Operation Pocket Change" from launching diversionary attacks, giving US guided missile cruisers free fire authority from 500ft on up with their RIM-8 Talos missiles against MiGs(2 missiles fired 1 MiG destroyed), the actual opening round of mining operations, the drowning of an Admiral and his staff in a helicopter accident, to the actual dropping of the mines, which began at 8:59 local with the flight leader radioing the carrier that all mines were in the water at 9:01am local, while concurrently President Nixon was giving his speech. This operation had huge strategic importance.1)Would the orbital monitoring of maritime traffic during this critical period be primarily using photo-recon assets?2) Since the mining finally occurred in May 1972, would the recon satellites of the time only monitor/document marine traffic for later use. There was no realtime or even neartime capability correct? The mines apparently were recovered(mostly) during Operation End Sweep in 1973.pic #1 A7E Corsair II from the VA22(A7s from both VA22 and 94 flew that morning)). They carried the 500Mk32 acoustic minepic #2 A6-A Intruder from VMA224 carried the 1000lb Mk52 magnetic minespic#3 EKA-3B Skywarrior also supported the 9:00am local mining Operation in the electronic countermeasures role