Strategic Air Command Patches from Vietnam

[chief4af]

Many of these were obtained directly from vets all period and theater made.

[Randy]

Nice group. Just wondering, what does the back of the top one look like? It just looks made a bit different than what I normally see for these.

 

Randy

[mohawkALSE]

That is an outstanding lot finding those all original from the vet and not some repro garbage.

[manayunkman]

And you have a real good eye.

[gwb123]

The December 72 Hanoi Bomb Competition is a new one on me.

 

Back in the day, I remember practicing my typing skills transcribing newspaper articles about the campaign.  The losses in men and aircraft were shocking. 

[manayunkman]

The tactics used facilitated planning but set up the Buffs for failure.

 

 

[Randy]

My dad flew all the Linebacker 2 missions in the B-52G, which did not have the ECM suite the D model had and suffered many of their losses because of it. He also said they were dumfounded on night 2 when the plan called for almost the exact tactics from the first night, to include approaches and altitudes. As noted above, the lack of realistic tactics the first few nights cost a lot of people and airplanes. Very nice patches BTW!

 

Randy

[chief4af]

On 9/9/2021 at 9:38 AM, Randy said:

Nice group. Just wondering, what does the back of the top one look like? It just looks made a bit different than what I normally see for these.

 

Randy

Hi Randy,

              Sorry for the delay in responding. I took a close up of the front as well as the back as you requested. I find the long "S" and the style of the 2 matches closely with many of the period patches I have in the collection. As the manufacturer didn't have a standard to follow many styles can be found, however common features will be found and accepted. I also attached 2 other B-52 patches to compare number styles too. Many people shy away from Vietnam patches as the same shops that made them in the war years are reported to make those patches today. So buyer beware.

[11thcavsniper]

I really like the SHORT Timers patch. I haven't seen that one before.

[Randy]

Yeah, that mission patch almost looks RVN made. Hard to say for sure from the pics. I have seen real RVN made mission patches from there as guys were sent to HHQ in Saigon to finish up a tour or were sent back in later years.

 

Randy