Why Didn't the USA Use Air Raid Sirens in the Vietnam War?

[ConvairB58nick]

Although, the United States was Involved in the Vietnam War, The Country did use Sirens at their Bases Near Vietnamese Hydro Zones. Although the USA did use air raid sirens in the cold war. But the Cold War was Not an Acutal War since it was Just the USA & Soviet Union w/ No potential threats between eachother Mostly. Even though The Vietnam War Was an actual war, the US did not use Sirens on the Mainland. Since the War was fought Mostly Overseas.

[Ziginox]

Vietnam didn't have ICBMs or nuclear weapons.

Besides, the Vietnam war took place during the Cold War, so the US mainland did have active sirens during that time.

Somebody else with a bit more knowledge can likely chime in regarding US bases in Vietnam, but I'm sure there was at least some form of warning system at them.

[ConvairB58nick]

But the Sirens Were for the Cold War. Not the Vietnam War. They did have Warning Systems for the Vietnam War. But Not Outdoor Warning Sirens.

[Unit of Civil Defense]

Somebody else with a bit more knowledge can likely chime in regarding US bases in Vietnam, but I'm sure there was at least some form of warning system at them.

As far as bases in Vietnam, there was no real permanent bases as the roll of the United States during that time was basically a police force attempting to enforce political peace and quite between North and South Vietnam which was a lost cause. Warnings pretty much where communicated to those units in the zones under attack via 2- way radios.....like a gonset....keep in mind the war was fought along the rivers and in the jungle so the only combat air craft would have been the U.S and its allies.....an occasional communist spy plane may have buzzed the area but would get ran off by one of our fighter jets.
To get a better understanding of what it was like , may I suggest viewing either Full Metal Jacket or Platoon.

By the time that the Vietnam war was daily front page news, the sirens here stateside where becoming more and more used for tornado warnings.

[Non-Zero]

They were used in Vietnam.

[Unit of Civil Defense]

fake picture......Why would the dept. of defense gone thru all the effort to set up a siren system for a temporary post. There where NO permanent post, forts or bases in either North or South Vietnam. If indeed there was any air raid related sirens in Vietnam, don't you think that they would have been well documented by now....movies, history shows on television, books, etc. etc.
Go ahead and get your folks permission to watch one of the two movies that I posted earlier and tell me how many sirens you saw or heard....

[Non-Zero]

fake picture......Why would the dept. of defense gone thru all the effort to set up a siren system for a temporary post. There where NO permanent post, forts or bases in either North or South Vietnam. If indeed there was any air raid related sirens in Vietnam, don't you think that they would have been well documented by now....movies, history shows on television, books, etc. etc.
Go ahead and get your folks permission to watch one of the two movies that I posted earlier and tell me how many sirens you saw or heard....

So you clearly put no thought into this reply, because if you had done any amount of research or looked into the war you would have quickly figured out the photo is one of the MANY relay sites of the 221st signal bn. And if you still don't think so because you refuse to look into it, let me help you! Go here https://221stsignal.com/page146.html and click literally the fourth photo down.

Next time you wanna tell someone they are full of s​h​i​​t​​ how about you do the most basic research, and save us all the trouble of reading the reply thread.

P.S. I don't ask my folks permission to watch any movie, I'm not the young kid you think I am dude.

[Brendan W]

fake picture......Why would the dept. of defense gone thru all the effort to set up a siren system for a temporary post. There where NO permanent post, forts or bases in either North or South Vietnam. If indeed there was any air raid related sirens in Vietnam, don't you think that they would have been well documented by now....movies, history shows on television, books, etc. etc.
Go ahead and get your folks permission to watch one of the two movies that I posted earlier and tell me how many sirens you saw or heard....

I doubt very seriously the guy who took that photo faked that. Considering everything, he probably had better things to do than edit in a photo of some air raid siren like making sure his buddy in the foxhole next to him didn't get nailed by the Vietnamese let alone himself. I also doubt very seriously the DOD would go through the trouble of pasting in a cutout of a Thunderbolt and doing god knows what magic was available in 1969 to make it look like it was there. If you want more proof that there were sirens at "temporary bases", I suppose I could always go ask my dad who was a two tour combat vet over there (Out of Camp Evans) and probably has more balls than any one of us here considering he was a Huey pilot and ended up getting WIA but still made it back, albeit with a permanent limp. Back then, it was either there or it wasn't as far as photos go. If you want to question why a "temporary post", as you term it had a tbolt then perhaps we should question why they went through the trouble of building a proper asphalt runway? Why they even bothered setting up comms posts in the hills on camp property? Point is, it's been done before by the DOD, take the sandbox for example. Lots of former bases there that had sirens at them once garrisoned by our guys. The post (the one in question being Camp Enari outside of Pleiku) was in use after we gave it back to the ARVNs in '70 so I would argue it was more less a permanent installation that fell into disuse after the NVA overran Saigon in '75.

Also for whatever it's worth, here's the back of the photo above:



And to get back on the topic, Here's an interesting one for you all. A GI from Georgia wrote home in 1969 asking for a siren to use in Vietnam in case the enemy decided to attack, and after asking around, a represenative from a Federal distributor in Atlanta actually honored his request, sending over what appears to be a Model A? D? Hell if I know. Point is, we did use sirens over there.

Lastly, because I feel like being nice, here's the accompanying article featuring a rather groovy Zales ad from the time.


MOD EDIT: Removed racial slurs

[traintraveler]

fake picture......Why would the dept. of defense gone thru all the effort to set up a siren system for a temporary post. There where NO permanent post, forts or bases in either North or South Vietnam. If indeed there was any air raid related sirens in Vietnam, don't you think that they would have been well documented by now....movies, history shows on television, books, etc. etc.
Go ahead and get your folks permission to watch one of the two movies that I posted earlier and tell me how many sirens you saw or heard....

I doubt very seriously the guy who took that photo faked that. Considering everything, he probably had better things to do than edit in a photo of some air raid siren like making sure his buddy in the foxhole next to him didn't get nailed by the Vietnamese let alone himself. I also doubt very seriously the DOD would go through the trouble of pasting in a cutout of a Thunderbolt and doing god knows what magic was available in 1969 to make it look like it was there. If you want more proof that there were sirens at "temporary bases", I suppose I could always go ask my dad who was a two tour combat vet over there (Out of Camp Evans) and probably has more balls than any one of us here considering he was a Huey pilot and ended up getting WIA but still made it back, albeit with a permanent limp. Back then, it was either there or it wasn't as far as photos go. If you want to question why a "temporary post", as you term it had a tbolt then perhaps we should question why they went through the trouble of building a proper asphalt runway? Why they even bothered setting up comms posts in the hills on camp property? Point is, it's been done before by the DOD, take the sandbox for example. Lots of former bases there that had sirens at them once garrisoned by our guys. The post (the one in question being Camp Enari outside of Pleiku) was in use after we gave it back to the ARVNs in '70 so I would argue it was more less a permanent installation that fell into disuse after the NVA overran Saigon in '75.

Also for whatever it's worth, here's the back of the photo above:


And to get back on the topic, Here's an interesting one for you all. A GI from Georgia wrote home in 1969 asking for a siren to use in Vietnam in case the enemy decided to attack, and after asking around, a represenative from a Federal distributor in Atlanta actually honored his request, sending over what appears to be a Model A? D? Hell if I know. Point is, we did use sirens over there.

That's a Model A. D's have curved intakes, unless its a late production one, where they're straight.

Small world. I was thinking about that Atlanta story last night.

MOD EDIT: Removed racial slurs in quoted reply

[Synther]

Here are additional photos of another siren in Vietnam, claimed to be in/at Phu Loi.

nrbrxvq0kn2e1.jpeg (8.32 KiB) Viewed 2824 times

here-is-a-photo-of-my-grandpa-next-to-a-type-5-7-in-vietnam-v0-d9o5jecmrq2e1.png (23.42 KiB) Viewed 2824 times