<text id=00he2000><title>Technology on the Trail: Introduction</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Technology on the Trail: Introduction</hdr><body>
<p>The enemy was a rugged, six-wheel drive open-bed truck, simple, cheap, expendable and very difficult to find at night. It was designed in Russia and built in a factory named after Lenin. The ZIL-157 could carry 2.5 to 5 tons of anything, and move it at speeds of up to 40 mph (65 km/h) over the roads of Southeast Asia.
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<p>It was a key element in the movement of war materiel from distribution points in North Vietnam to the army and to the Viet Cong irregulars in the South.
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<p>Trucks moving by day are relatively easy targets, exposed on open roads and often trailing a dust plume that can be spotted miles away. A truck moving at night along a jungle trail covered with a triple layer of foliage is another matter entirely. To try to find and then to kill that truck was a problem that occupied the best brains and the finest tacticians of the war.
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<p>The solution evolved into a complex and highly sophisticated system that combined the latest technologies in electronic warfare, aircraft development, and weapons design. It represented at least $1 billion in capital costs, plus the operational costs of the system and of the aircraft that made it effective.
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<p>The system was called Igloo White, among other names, and it was a classical example of advanced technology to solve a primordial battlefield problem.
