By the time Beijing decided to undertake its “self-defense counterattack” into the territory of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) on 17 February 1979, there were increasing doubts about the combat readiness and effectiveness of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Because of the presence of MiG-21s in the air force of the SRV (in addition to the Northrop F-5Es in service with the smaller air forces of the Southeast Asian region), much interest was generated about the roles and missions of the air combat units of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and how effective they might be against modern aircraft in any engagements in that area.
For a number of tactical and strategic reasons7 the Communist Chinese scheduled their “punitive” war against the SRV for mid-February. The plan was to embark on a short campaign, administer punishment quickly, and withdraw by the beginning of April, when the commencement of the rainy season in the region would make operations extremely difficult for a military system already beset with special logistical problems.
Having negotiated normalization with the United States in December 1978, the Chinese Communists apparently felt themselves armed with tacit American approval for their adventure in Southeast Asia. Troop deployments in strength began in January 1979. At the same time the Chinese Communist air command deployed 444 aircraft along the Vietnamese border skirting a perimeter around a 250-mile radius from Hanoi. Most of the aircraft deployed were MiG-19s, followed by a significantly smaller number of the older MiG-17s, a scattering of I1-28s (Chinese Communist designation B-5s), a few ground attack variants of the F-6bis (A-5), and 28 MiG-21s (F-7s).
The I1-28 (B-5) is a light bomber patterned on a Soviet model of the late ‘50s and fabricated in the PRC. It is a twin, jet-powered tactical bomber provided to the Chinese Communists by the Soviets to replace the piston-driven Tupolev Tu-2 that had been in service with the PLAAF until that time. The I1-28 now constitutes the main tactical strike force available to the Chinese Communist air force. It is capable of carrying a 6000-pound bomb load and has some all-weather properties, but it can undertake precision strikes only in fair weather, given its primitive avionics suite. Its size and configuration preclude low-level maneuvering and leave it exposed to medium- and low-range surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) as well as radar-sighted-and-directed antiaircraft batteries.
The effectiveness of the ground attack and troop support aircraft of the PLAAF— the modified MiG-19 (the F-6bis and A-5) and the Il-28—left much to be desired. Among the 948 aircraft deployed along the Sino-Vietnamese border at the height of the campaign, 94 were Il-28s and 120 were F-6bis and A-5s. There were 27 Il-28s stationed at Haikou on Hainan Island, 30 in Guilin, 12 near Suixi, and 13 more in Luichou—all in Kwangsi Province. Twelve more were stationed near Mengtzu in Yunnan Province, bringing the total number of tactical bombers available as ground support and strike aircraft to 94, with 12 modified for reconnaissance roles.8 The F-6bis aircraft were stationed northeast of Mengzi and at Wuxu in Kwangsi. The remaining air units on station included 580 MiG-19s, 98 MiG-17s, 28 MiG-21 fighter-interceptor aircraft, and 24 medium-range Tu-16 bombers stationed at Guilin.
The mechanical properties of all the aircraft available to the military planners of the PLA are reasonably well known. Both the I1-28 and F-6bis have severely restricted troop support and ground attack capabilities in any reasonably sophisticated antiaircraft environment. Yet, the conflict in Vietnam took place in just such an environment. The Vietnamese enjoyed effective battlefield air defense systems of Soviet derivation, including the SA-3 Goa, SA-6 Gainful, and SA-7 Grail SAMs supplemented by ZU-33, ZSU-23-4, and ZSU-57-2 antiaircraft weapons. A similar battlefield air defense system exacted terrific toll among the Israeli air support and tactical attack aircraft during the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East.9 Under these circumstances the Chinese Communist air command had every reason not to want to commit its aircraft to battle during this conflict. However, the decision to restrict the role of the PLAAF in the “punitive” war against Vietnam may have also been influenced by political considerations, in addition to the known equipment: deficiencies which were to decide the issue. It is reasonably certain that pilots and crews of the PLAAF were not sufficiently well trained to carry out the complex procedures associated with tactical air support.10
During the American involvement in the Vietnam War, our own highly sophisticated air units of the United States Air Force suffered appreciable losses in men and materiel to the antiaircraft defenses of North Vietnam. The Chinese Communist air command could have anticipated even heavier losses because of a dependency on obsolescent aircraft with questionable combat capabilities operating in a heavy threat environment.
According to military intelligence reports from non-Communist sources, no I1-28 was committed to overflights of Vietnamese territory during the entire campaign against the SRV. However, a few stationed at Suixi flew over the Gulf of Tonkin along the Kwangsi coast, and some ventured into Vietnamese airspace. Similarly, some I1-28 flights were made from Haikou on Hainan over the Gulf, but none penetrated as far as the territorial waters outside Haiphong. Thus the light bomber forces of the PLAAF remained well out of reach of SRV defense systems, and aircraft interceptors provided virtually no support for either ground or naval forces involved in operations against the enemy.
Some A-5 ground support aircraft did penetrate SRV airspace near Lang Son. Based in Wuxu, these aircraft appeared over the battlefield but undertook no actions against the enemy. Only during the heavy fighting which characterized the last days of the conflict between 27 February and 5 March 1979 did the F-6bis and A-5 aircraft make a brief appearance near Lang Son, but none fired a shot in anger.
Most of the Chinese Communist aircraft that penetrated SRV airspace were MiG-17s (F-5s) and MiG-19s (F-6s). During the conflict there were approximately 5500 aircraft sorties with 660 penetrations of the northern Vietnam border to provide at least the semblance of air cover at major combat sites.
Most of the sorties that found Chinese Communist aircraft over SRV territory were localized in two principal areas. The first centered around Lao Cai, where eight infantry divisions (the 42d, l4th, 3lst, 32d, 11th,37th, 39th, and 13th) of the PLA engaged the ground forces of the SRV; the other major locale of PLAAF activity centered around Lang Son and south and east of Caobang. MiGs from Tianyang and Wuxu followed the border on regular overflights above eleven infantry divisions (the 55th, 164th, 43rd, 28th, 127th, 126th, 42d, 125th, 54th, 121st, and 41st) of the PLA that were engaging enemy ground forces with conventional artillery, tank, and infantry attacks.
None of these MiG flights afforded any real air support to the ground forces or incurred any air opposition. Instead, the defense against SRV air attack was provided by a screen of SA-2 Guideline SAMs of early Soviet design. The PLA apparently depended on this system of ground-to-air missiles rather than the interceptor air units to protect its ground forces against air attack. The PLA used the only operational missile air defense system available to afford protection that could not be provided by the aircraft units of the PLAAF. The slant range of the SA-2 is about 50 kilometers, and it is notable that Chinese Communist ground forces were instructed to advance not more than 50 kilometers into SRV territory.11
In effect, the activities of the PLAAF in the Chinese Communist “punitive” war against the SRV were largely cosmetic. They provided the Chinese Communist military authorities the opportunity to photograph the Chinese-built MiG-21 in flight and release photographs of the air-to-air Atoll missile apparently featured on some aircraft in the war zone.
Such propaganda opportunities may have been purchased by significant manpower losses on the part of the ground troops of the PLA. Without effective air support the troops of the PLA suffered heavy casualties, estimated to be from 20,000 to 40,000 men. At one time during the campaign there may have been as many as 250,000 PLA troops (about 21 infantry divisions from 8 army corps—the 41st, 54th, 42d, 43rd, and 55th of the Kwangsi Command, as well as the 11th, 14th, and 13th of the Yunnan Command) engaged in the fighting. Without air support to suppress enemy fire and neutralize strongpoints, the ground forces of the PLA were compelled to absorb the full impact of the enemy’s firepower. Chinese Communist ground control apparently ordered the air units of the PLAAF not to engage any enemy aircraft (generally the technologically sophisticated MiG-21s and possibly the MiG-23 of the air force of the SRV) or attack ground positions which were defended by tough SAM defense systems supporting the Vietnamese army.12 There is more than a suggestion that the Chinese Communist command had little confidence in the effectiveness of the air-to-air ordnance available to PLAAF combat pilots, so rather than lose expensive major military equipment and trained pilots (in very short supply from the lapse in pilot training that occurred during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) the aircraft of the Chinese Communist air force were just not committed to combat.
The decision not to commit Chinese Communist air units to air combat or troop support was a consequence of something other than a disposition to confine the conflict. That decision was the consequence of a clear recognition of the inferiority of PLAAF air combat and ground support equipment in addition to the political constraints and general strategic concerns of the PRC. The MiG-17s/19s/21s of the PLAAF would have been at critical risk in any engagements with the air units of the SRV. The bombing and attack aircraft of the PLAAF, the Il-28s and the F-6bis, would have been at similar risk in the air defense environment created by the SAMs and interceptor capabilities of the SRV. Any significant losses in major air combat and ground support craft which might have resulted would have revealed major weaknesses within the PLAAF, so the Chinese Communist military command apparently opted not to disclose these deficiencies.
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Taken from an article by RAdm J.B.Lindner, USN (Ret.)
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March 1, 2004 at 9:25 pm