The Same Fight Two Ways: An Investigation of Tactical Innovation in the Skies Over Vietnam

Under what conditions do professional militaries innovate their tactics in war? Is this a straightforward product of responding to losses in combat or are other factors involved? This paper develops credible hypotheses to answer this question. Specifically, this paper examines the contrasting approaches of the United States Navy and the United States Air Force to the air superiority problems they both faced during Operation Rolling Thunder in the skies over Vietnam in 1965-1968. Despite facing an identical threat over the same location and even flying the same airplane, the two services arrived at significantly different solutions to their initial struggles. On the one hand, the USAF made exclusively technical adjustments to what it viewed as a problem of underperforming equipment, resisting any doctrinal or training reforms. On the other hand, the USN was willing to confront its shortcomings, which it perceived as insufficient and ineffective training regimens leading to subpar aircrew performance. The results spoke for themselves: while the Air Force remained at a 2:1 kill ratio throughout the war, the Navy's ratio jumped from 2:1 to 12:1. Drawing on primary sources, memoirs, histories, and declassified reports, this paper finds organizational flexibility, unbiased reflection, and inter-service rivalry to be key determinants of tactical innovational success. These findings offer lessons that can be applied to future conflicts and stress the importance of aligning technological advancements with the proper doctrinal innovations to construct the best force for victory in the future.