V BOMBER

The "V bombers" were the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s that comprised the United Kingdom's strategic nuclear strike force known officially as the V force or Bomber Command Main Force. The three models of strategic bomber, known collectively as the V class, were the Vickers Valiant, which first flew in 1951 and entered service in 1955; the Avro Vulcan, which first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1956; and the Handley Page Victor, which first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1957. The V Bomber force reached its peak in June 1964 with 50 Valiants, 70 Vulcans and 39 Victors in service. When it became clear that the Soviet Union's surface-to-air missiles like the S-75 Dvina could bring down high-flying aircraft, the V bomber force changed to low-level attack methods. Additionally the Blue Steel missile profile was changed to one of low level penetration and release. This reduced its range significantly. It was then planned to move to the much longer-ranged Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile. When the US cancelled Skybolt, the survivability of the V force was highly questionable. This led to the Royal Navy taking over the nuclear deterrent role from 1968, using UGM-27 Polaris submarine launched ballistic missiles launched from nuclear submarines. The tactical role passed to smaller aircraft like the SEPECAT Jaguar and Panavia Tornado. The V bombers were also capable of dropping conventional weapons, supported by a complex analogue computer system known as the Navigation and Bombing System that allowed accurate bombing even over very long ranges. The Valiants were used during the Suez Crisis as conventional bombers. Victors and Vulcans were deployed to the Malay Archipelago as a deterrent during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation but were not used in missions. The Vulcan is well-remembered for its conventional Black Buck bombing raids during the 1982 Falklands War. To support such missions, tanker aircraft versions of all three designs were developed. Reconnaissance versions were produced, and other modifications were also made during their lifetime. The Valiants were removed from service in 1964 after problems with metal fatigue of their wings became apparent; a planned low-level variant did not progress beyond the prototype. Usage of all V bombers as weapons platforms, nuclear or conventional, ended in 1982. the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_wDapeoyrs
Cold War Guardians: The RAF's Finest Military Aircraft

The Vietnam War (1 November 1955– 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. In essence, the Vietnam War was a postcolonial war of national liberation, a significant theater in the global Cold War, and, simultaneously, a civil war, with civil warfare as a defining feature from the outset:   Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until its withdrawal in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975. After the defeat of the French Union in the First Indochina War that began in 1946, Vietnam gained independence in the 1954 Geneva Conference but was divided into two parts at the 17th parallel: the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, took control of North Vietnam, while the US assumed financial and military support for South Vietnam, led by Ngo Dinh Diem. The North Vietnamese began supplying and directing the Viet Cong (VC), a common front of dissidents in the south which intensified a guerrilla war from 1957. In 1958, North Vietnam invaded Laos, establishing the Ho Chi Minh trail to supply and reinforce the VC. By 1963, the north had covertly sent 40,000 soldiers of its own People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), armed with Soviet and Chinese weapons, to fight in the insurgency in the south. President John F. Kennedy increased US involvement from 900 military advisors in 1960 to 16,000 in 1963 and sent more aid to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), which failed to produce results. In 1963, Diem was killed in a US-backed military coup, which added to the south's instability. Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the US Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson authority to increase military presence without a declaration of war. Johnson launched a bombing campaign of the north and began sending combat troops, dramatically increasing deployment to 184,000 by the end of 1965, and to 536,000 by the end of 1968. US forces relied on air supremacy and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations in rural areas. In 1968, North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive, which was a tactical defeat but convinced many in the US that the war could not be won. Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon, began a policy of "Vietnamization" from 1969, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN while US forces withdrew. A 1970 coup in Cambodia resulted in a PAVN invasion and a US–ARVN counter-invasion, escalating its civil war. US troops had mostly withdrawn from Vietnam by 1972, and the 1973 Paris Peace Accords saw the rest leave. The accords were broken and fighting continued until the 1975 spring offensive and fall of Saigon to the PAVN, marking the war's end. North and South Vietnam were reunified in 1976. The war exacted an enormous cost: estimates of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 970,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 US service members died. Its end would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions leave Indochina, of which an estimated 250,000 perished at sea. 20% of South Vietnam's jungle was sprayed with toxic herbicides, which led to health problems among people who were exposed. The Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, while conflict between them and the unified Vietnam escalated into the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the US, the war gave rise to Vietnam syndrome, a public aversion to American overseas military involvement, which, with the Watergate scandal, contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDDOCds46l0
AIR WAR IN VIETNAM | F-8 Crusader, F-4 Phantom And F-100 Super Sabre U.S. Jet Fighters