86 What was the PAVE Spectre? (United States Air Force Gunships in the Vietnam)
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This article is from the Vietnam FAQ, by Brian Ross, John R. Tegtmeier, Edwin E. Moise, Frank Vaughan, John Tegtmeier with numerous contributions by others.
86 What was the PAVE Spectre? (United States Air Force Gunships in the Vietnam)
Pave Spectre was the program name for the "E" model. I think it was
because we had a laser designator, and it seemed as though everything
with laser had the "pave" word attached to the name.
If I can ask, what was different about Cambodia? Was it the
terrain? Were there no AAA guns? What made Cambodia different from the
Trail?
"Terrain mostly flat, many more villes, hence much more
restrictive ROE, much less AAA (well, lighter,
mostly-scattered 12.7 & 23mm vice clustered 23 & 37),
despite a lot of lucrative targets. Targets included boats
along the Mekong & tributaries. That sort of thing. My one
clear recollection is that we couldn't shoot into the villes
themselves, but anything moving on the roads between them
after dark was fair game. (and BTW we could only shoot at
moving boats). So where the truck traffic along the Trail in
Laos moved pretty slowly, in Cambodia the NVA truck
technique was to zip at blazing speed from ville to ville,
which made them hard to hit." [RH]
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