During the 1960s the United States military worked hard to interdict the movement of men and materiel along the Ho Chi Minh trail.

The North Vietnamese were experts in the use of weather and darkness to conceal their movement, and understanding the superiority of American air power put their skills immediately to good use.

US forces seeking to impede the steady flow of supplies attempted to locate largely static targets during the day with poor results.

The United States Air Force, focused toward nuclear weapons and delivery of such munitions against static strategic targets had spent little effort in expanding its tactical capabilities since the end of World War II.

The United States Air Force had largely redirected its efforts to the matter of strategic deterrence in the period between the Korean War and deployment to southeast Asia.

To try and coordinate this effort, a task force was established by Lt. General James Ferguson, then Deputy Chief of Staff for Research and Development.

Dubbed Operation Shed Light, it began on 7 February 1966 as a means of coordinating a wide variety of technological and other projects and programs that were being pursued in order to improve the United States Air Force's night fighting capabilities.

Shed Light's initial programs were broken down into a number of categories, the most important being communication and navigation systems, sensors, and illumination and target marking equipment.

[17] Improvised mounting of "starlight scope[s]" in the bomb bay of the B-26 is also mentioned in oral history reports, and this fit was found to be largely impractical.

Project Night Owl, conducted in 1954, testing flares dropped from F-86 Sabre aircraft, led to twenty-five percent of pilots reporting experiencing some level of vertigo.

The Battlefield Illumination Airborne System or BIAS, employed two banks of Xenon ARC lamps (28 total) fitted to a modified C-123B aircraft.

Astrosystems International developed a so-called "Quartz Chamber" which burned pure oxygen and aircraft fuel, converting the chemical energy into light.

Moonshine was to be a joint effort with NASA to determine the feasibility of a geosynchronous satellite that could project light directly down on any desired location.

Project 2531 was to investigate target marking munitions, and looked into warheads for the Mk 40 2.75" rocket motor, using a variety of chemiluminescent materials.

[33] The RF-4C had the benefit of being of a similar capability to strike aircraft at the time, and a modified hunter version, given a designation RF-4C(H) was to be developed, replacing the camera equipment with LLLTV, FLIR, and Side-Looking Radar (SLAR) units.

[37] This time frame led the initial study report to propose using the OV-10 Bronco aircraft in the interim measure, but decided against it because of the inability of the OV-10 to carry all the desired sensor equipment.

The S-2's built-in search light was to be slaved to the LLLTV, crew protection would be provided, and the armament system would be primarily 10 SUU-24/A munitions dispensers in a revised bomb bay.

[16] The F-111 would initially have a mixed record in Southeast Asia, when a detachment of six aircraft from the 474th Tactical Fighter Wing were deployed to Takhli RTAFB in Thailand, in early 1968, as part of Operation Combat Lancer.

Eventually the aircraft redeemed itself when two squadrons (48 F-111As) from the 474th deployed to Takhli in September 1972, in order to participate in the aerial offensive against North Vietnam under Operation Linebacker II.

During this deployment the F-111s operated day and night, in all weather conditions and without electronic countermeasures escort, and relied on less aerial refueling support than other tactical aircraft.

[44] Black Spot had been in development prior to the establishment of the Shed Light Task Force, but were subsequently incorporated in under the wide reaching charter.

The Black Spot aircraft were to fit under the "self-contained night attack capability" description and E-Systems of Greenville, Texas was contracted to complete the modifications.

Once in South Vietnam the aircraft were engaged in missions against the transport of materiel along Ho Chi Minh Trail and in the Mekong Delta Region.

Two missions a night were flown from Ubon with two A-1 escorts from Nakhon Phanom RTAB (often referred to simply as NKP) flying cover and providing additional firepower.

[46] The description of the designation in the official documentation supports this, by saying that the NC-123K is "Similar to C-123K but partially demodified from AC-123K (modified to an attack configuration) to permit general cargo handling and troop movement.

[57] In the end the Tropic Moon III proved to be a capable system, both with conventional ordnance and laser guided weapons, day and night.

The B-57G conducted its first combat missions in October 1970 during Operation Commando Hunt V.[58] The kill rates per sortie between the AC-130A/E and the B-57G made it clear which system was dominant in the role of "truck hunter," in reference to the primary targets of the campaign.

One B-57G was modified to house a special bomb bay installation of one Emerson TAT-161 turret with a single M61 20mm cannon as a gunship under Project Pave Gat.

General John D. Ryan, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Air Forces, complained following the poor showings from the Tropic Moon II program that he was "tired of buying everything they send us".

[16] He then requested that his staff draft a message that would allow him to send "this thing [the Tropic Moon II B-57B] to CONUS [Continental United States].