The B57-G: Tropic Moon III 1967-1972

As in World War II and the Korea police action, the enemy in Southeast "Asia sought the protective concealment of darkness to move his troops and supplies. Although U.S. tactical aircrews cut roads and destroyed moving vehicles during daylight hours, they were ineffective at night. Jungle vegetation and mountainous terrain amplified their difficulties in finding and attacking the trucks, watercraft, and troops that poured southward each night through the maze of roads, footpaths, and streams that constituted the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail in eastern Laos. Casting about for an aircraft capable of interdicting the infiltration flow at night, the Air Force finally settled on a modified B-57 as the most suitable vehic1e on which to mount and test new sensors and weapons in a night attack role.