Why did America lose? [Archive]

Gen. Sandworm

08-08-2006, 06:02 AM

Let us also not forget the ceasefire arrangement which was brokered. It required the US to leave, and as soon as they left the North moved against the South. The US were not defeated militarily, but politically. People often try to make out that the US was somehow defeated on the battlefield and driven out, but this is simply not true.

Very good point. There are many things that lead to the political defeat of the US in Vietnam. US media for one. Tet was seen as a Vietnamese victory by many but was a complete failure for the north except in the american media. The kill ratio in the conflict was completly loppsided towards the US/S. Vietnam. However the never ending persistence of the north and their supporters helped achieve mounting pressure on the american goverment ........ at home and on the battlefield. For many years the US govt was convinced they were winning the war by what the numbers showed however along with the civil rights movement, growing distrust of the govt and constant streams of dead soldiers on the TV was alot to bear. Let us not forget the almost 50000 people that "almost" stormed the pentagon and the killings at Kent State Uni. for example. The north also played into these problems at home. Attempting to make a distrust between whites and blacks in the army. Also boundry conditions played a huge part in this conflict. It was in no way like the Korean war.

Going to stop here and just make my point.

My main belief here is that the North did their homework and studied the US and what would make them crack, while maintaining the best military tactics they could apply to the stonger american forces. Therefore forcing the US to abandon the war in Vietnam. On the otherhand the US failed to completly understand the history of the region and the effort that the north would put into the war. The also didnt expect the blowback that would be recieved in their own land.

Funny how media coverage is a bit different today. :roll:

WaistGunner

08-08-2006, 02:54 PM

The North Vietnamese were well aware of the fact they could not defeat American might in a heads up confrontation. They were also well aware of the fact that they didn't have to. If you think about it it is very similar to the American Revolutionary War. In both cases the "rebel" force is under manned and under strength compared to their powerful opponents. In both cases the rebel forces were well aware of the anti-war factions. In both casesthe commanders knew they didn't have to defeat the enemy forces they just had survive long enough for the anti opinions to over rule the agressive opinions.

You could say that N. Vietnam didn't defeat America in the physical sense, they simply outlasted American political resolve. Tet of course due to the politcal spin in part helped inbreaking the resolve. You could say that Tet is to America what Yorktown was to Britian.

PLT.SGT.BAKER

08-09-2006, 09:35 PM

Who knows what could've happened if america still went on in the vietnam war.

(off topic) I do seem to recall that my mom said when she was little she saw troops in china that were going to war. I tried to get more info out of my mom about this but she says all she can remember.

FW-190 Pilot

08-11-2006, 02:36 AM

good tactics by Vietnam. American soldier rely on helicopters to transport their soldiers. At first they are scared because Vietnam soldier never saw a helicopter before, but as soon as they know what it is. Vietnam soldier always pretended to lost a battle and retreat, but they always come back and trace the american airfield(helicopter) and then suround the area. Not to mention over 90% of the time, the vietnam soldier start the battle, not American.

Hiddenrug

08-20-2006, 12:24 AM

I do believe that the Vietcong disliked attacking Australian soldiers becuase they were so fomidable. Any thoughts?

Doug 1956

08-20-2006, 09:07 AM

Nickdfresh

08-20-2006, 10:05 AM

Very good point. There are many things that lead to the political defeat of the US in Vietnam. US media for one. Tet was seen as a Vietnamese victory by many but was a complete failure for the north except in the american media. The kill ratio in the conflict was completly loppsided towards the US/S. Vietnam.

I have a problem with this. You're leaving out the "Westmorland's (infamous) Saigon Press Conferences" factor. Gen. Westmorland, and the military at large, made repeated and increasingly bellicose statements regarding the "pacification" of South Vietnam, and how the War was going well when in fact the U.S. military was effectively doing what Sen. John McCain refers to as a "Whack-a-Mole." That is, securing areas for a short time that were soon bandit country again the minute we left, and often exaggerating the enemy losses through the "body-count" mentality. This all meant that the U.S. gov't was effectively lying to it's population both unintentionally, and by design, as the Pentagon Papers clearly showed, about the overall course of the war and how much sacrifice it would take to "win" it.

The Tet Offensive was, in a sense, the end of a widely effective Viet Cong (National Liberation Front), but the beginning of the North Vietnamese Army's increasing conventional forays into the South. In short, the whole thing blew up into a giant egg on Westmorland's, the Pentagons, and LBJ's faces.

And the Vietnamese could sustain whatever we inflicted. I think the Irish have a proverb that goes something like, "it is not he that can inflict the most, but he that can withstand the most, that will win the day."

However the never ending persistence of the north and their supporters helped achieve mounting pressure on the american goverment ........ at home and on the battlefield. For many years the US govt was convinced they were winning the war by what the numbers showed however along with the civil rights movement, growing distrust of the govt and constant streams of dead soldiers on the TV was alot to bear. Let us not forget the almost 50000 people that "almost" stormed the pentagon and the killings at Kent State Uni. for example. The north also played into these problems at home. Attempting to make a distrust between whites and blacks in the army. Also boundry conditions played a huge part in this conflict. It was in no way like the Korean war.

Going to stop here and just make my point.

My main belief here is that the North did their homework and studied the US and what would make them crack, while maintaining the best military tactics they could apply to the stonger american forces. Therefore forcing the US to abandon the war in Vietnam. On the otherhand the US failed to completly understand the history of the region and the effort that the north would put into the war. The also didnt expect the blowback that would be recieved in their own land.

Funny how media coverage is a bit different today. :roll:

Some good points here. But it's not the media's job to serve as pro-Gov't propaganda, and there was plenty of media manipulation but those that in fact knew the War was not going well but were callously putting on a brave face as our boys were dying. What's the media supposed to report in that case? The lovely weather in Hue?

Nickdfresh

08-20-2006, 10:27 AM

Why did America lose? You first had to look at what the aims of their were and what the aims of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were.

America was attempting, according to most sources, to stop the spread of communism. There were no military aims as such, no plans to do anything but defend, and to try to prop up an unpopular and corrupt regime. It should also be remembered that the USA, with the South Vietnamese 'government' refused to allow democratic elections to take place in the whole of the country after the French pulled out.

Von Clauswitz, famously, wrote that war is politics by other means. Lincoln, in a policitical sense, talked about government being government being for, by and from the people. A civil war such as the Vietnamese American war required a political settlement, of the poeple.

The USA could not win the politics, so it could not win the war.

Very true. It's one, admirable, thing to fight against communism, but you have to fight FOR something as well, and it was certainly not democracy in this case. It was a corrupt, despotic military regime with links to French colonialists that was incapable of building a decent civil society or military force capable of standing on it's own. We simply went into somebody else's civil war.

Nixon got the US out through "peace with honor" through the policy of "Vietnamization," an effort to finally modernize the ARVN and turn them into a mini-version US military (rather than adapting cultural nuances as the NVA had). I'm not sure why the US hadn't pursued this policy all along rather than giving up by about 1964 (most ARVN troops still carried WWII surplus M-1s into the late sixties!). By that time, everything was rushed and the ARVN troops were heavily dependent on over-whelming US firepower and mobility (as the the US Army & MC). The troops were low quality because they were poorly trained, exceedingly poorly led by a corrupt bunch of cunts of an officer corp, mostly poorly armed (until after 1968 anyway), had a rigid base camp/jungle fortress (9am-5pm) mentality.

The US also labored under the delusion of "monolithic Communism," whereas everything was perceived to have been run from Moscow or maybe Peking. In fact, the War was planned very much in Hanoi. The NVA adapted Soviet technology, but had their own long tradition of anti-Colonial struggle going back to before WWII.

Nickdfresh

08-20-2006, 10:43 AM

This has always puzzled me. A first world super power, that was capable of holding off the USSR, was pushed out by a 4th world army relying on bicycles and water buffalo for logistics and straw hats and black PJs..

:lol: Yeah, along with their AK-47s, T-54/55/56MBTs, BP-40 rockets, Soviet trucks, SA-2 SAMS, MIG-19/21s, 152mm artillery which often out-ranged US guns, a long tradition and experience in jungle warfare, and experience in both guerilla and conventional combat.

The most common mistake if to think of Vietnam as only a guerilla war against the VC (or National Liberation Front). It was in fact a two front war against the NLF partisan army and the NVA regulars that were very heavily armed.

Nickdfresh

08-20-2006, 10:53 AM

I do believe that the Vietcong disliked attacking Australian soldiers becuase they were so fomidable. Any thoughts?

Yes, Australian troops were each 7' tall, had 20mm Vulcan cannons mounted on their shoulders, and could bend over to fire explosing turds of naplam to 200m.

:lol:

But yes, the volunteer Australian Army was noted as more professional than the average US conscript. And the Aussie SAS was as good as anything in the theater.

Cuts

09-09-2006, 05:04 AM

I do believe that the Vietcong disliked attacking Australian soldiers becuase they were so fomidable. Any thoughts?

Army tactics and the strategies of base loc & log made a considerable difference to the cas ratio, and that in itself is one of the most important factors influencing individual sldrs' and sub-unit cmdrs' thoughts and subsequent actions.

Digger

09-29-2006, 09:40 AM

Nickdfresh

09-29-2006, 11:56 AM

G'day,

Most of the Aussies who served in Vietnam were conscripts or Nashos as they were often called. They were well trained in the art of jungle warfare at Canungra in Queensland and this training reflected in the skills they showed in combat.

Whether they were better than the average American soldier or not is open to question, though I must admit I have heard 'horror' stories.
The Battle of Long Tan is the most commorated Australian action of the war, with a book and movie coming out.

They undoubtedly were. Not that the U.S. Army in Vietnam were slouches either. But there was a gradual breakdown in discipline and effectiveness. In fact, I'd say the U.S. Army performed surprisingly well all things considered, the Vietnamese may attest to this, since they had previously dealt with an all-volunteer French Army with the Foreign Legion being filled out with ex-Waffen SS Germans. But the Australians were more professional as soldiers. One example I can cite from a book I've read is that there were some joint exchanges of personnel. And the Aussies used to lament that the Americans were using drugs, and carrying AM/FM radios, in the field, which could cause excessive noise or hinder awareness.

Like America, the war was not popular here and civil protests mounted in number and size as the conflict dragged on. However the unrest was unlike anything seen in America.

Regards to all,
Digger.

Interesting. I didn't realize Australia had conscription at the time...

Digger

09-29-2006, 07:22 PM

G'day,

Conscription was one of the emotive issues of the Vietnam war era, perhaps because it was a lottery by drawing birthdates for each month. So it was not a case of, one in, every one in.

I think the 'myth' of the American's performing poorly in Vietnam was largely constructed by the media. Sure there were problems with drugs and some units were unprofessional, but I think that happens everywhere, in every war.

For example, not all German army divisions were 'elite' units, nor were they all well equipped.

Regards to all,
Digger.

ArmyDude1973

12-07-2006, 10:07 PM

theres a number of reasons why amercans lost. 1 most of north vietnams defensive positions were underground and they could pop up anywere on the battlefield were the enemy was and quickly disapear knowen as hit and tactics.2 they had money arms and ammo sent to them from russia and china.3the major part was the americans had very little support from there countrymen with all the protest against war which made the moral of the troops depressive

GermanSoldier

03-14-2007, 09:54 PM

We lost because we did not have much support from other countrys. Now I am not saying that nobody helped us, but I wish we would of had more help from other countrys. The battlefields were very unusual to the US Military at Vietnam. I believe the viatmaneese soldiers ambushed very good. That caused us some heavy casualties in Vietnam. They also had many traps that always frightened the US Military in the Vietnam War. This is why we lost the Vietnam war. Many say we did not lose or win. We just left the country and came back home. I do not know if I agree with these people 100% maybe 25%.

32Bravo

03-25-2007, 06:13 AM

(i) Our intelligence was extremely bad

(ii) We were ill-triained and ill-equipped for jungle warfare

(iii) The local inhabitants were not being helpful

(iv) There was a wide gap between our forces

(v) Morale was threatened

Politically: slavish to the doctrine of the Domino Theory of the Cold War (which was the reason why the US became entangled in the first place), and vicitim of conflicting, internal US politics (e.g. civil rights movement; anti-war movement; arms industry).

Digger

03-25-2007, 08:43 AM

WWII was the last war America fought 'Total War'. Since then they have fought with one hand tied behind their back and the consequences have been predictable.

Regards Digger.

32Bravo

03-25-2007, 09:09 AM

Why predictable?

I can think of other small, post-war campaigns which were fought successful: Kenya, Malaya, Borneo and Oman spring to mind.

In Dereliction of Duty, H.R. McMaster has produced the finest volume on the political beginnings of the Vietnam War that has been written to date. His brilliant work benefits from the recently declassified papers and documents of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Vietnam War era.

McMaster tells a profoundly sorrowful tale of political expediency and duplicity, of arrogance and ignorance, and of bureaucratic folly and shameful opportunism at the expense of American combat soldiers. From his point of view, the entire national-security system failed. According to McMaster, President Johnson was concerned with his role in the domestic-policy arena and failed to focus his attentions on the Vietnam War and to establish an attainable and realistic objective.

Robert McNamara, McMaster says, was simply opportunistic and arrogant. He felt his first loyalty was to the president and not to the American soldiers he callously threw into the "meat grinder" that was Vietnam. Moreover, McNamara never trusted the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he ignored and patronized them shamelessly. In addition, McNamara was in love with statistical analysis and believed that wars could be run more efficiently through the quantification of "body count."

McNamara prosecution of the war was strongly influenced by the battle of La Drang Valley. It was this battle that caused him to adopt the concept of the body count.

In the first phase, the air cavalry fought a successful operation. In the follow up phase, US troops following-up on foot, were ambushed by the retreating NVA who inflicted over 90% casualties(300 plus) on the Americans.

This gave the impression that it was better to prosecute the war by using tactics developed around the use of the helicopter. It supposedly saved American lives and cost the NVA/VC theirs.
Hence the 'Body-count'.

There's only one way to fight in the jungle, and that's in the jungle.

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Vietnam/tactical/chapter2.htm

http://www.tempslibres.org/awhw/haibun/haib06.html

I visited 'The Wall' when visiting D.C. a couple of years ago. One of the most impressive war memorials I've ever seen, for it's simplicity and its message.

Ryan

03-27-2007, 12:06 AM

I was talking about this a day or two ago acctually. But one of the reasons we came up with was the terrain, The viatmanese used guerilla units and tons of them, and alot of booby? traps.

Chevan

03-27-2007, 01:33 AM

Anerica losed the Vietnam becouse it tryed to support the
"our bastards" - the regime which had no wide support amond mostly poor viatmanese.
The USA lose ideological war at first.
Moreover the lovely method of Pentagon - to support "democraty" by the Napalm bombing and mass violence above the peasants - is not the best choise to fight for the victory.

Cheers.

32Bravo

03-27-2007, 03:48 AM

I was talking about this a day or two ago acctually. But one of the reasons we came up with was the terrain, The viatmanese used guerilla units and tons of them, and alot of booby? traps.

War of the flea?

http://www.ausa.org/webpub/DeptAUSANews.nsf/byid/CCRN-6CGMJX

Among the pre-requisites for conventional troops to become successful in jungle counter insurgency operations, they are required to be trained to a level of competence and confidence to enable them to operate with stealth, guile and cunning. After attaining that level, it's boots on the ground; patrolling! patroling! and patrolling!....dominate the jungle!... the jungle is neutral!

Rising Sun*

03-28-2007, 07:45 PM

This has always puzzled me. A first world super power, that was capable of holding off the USSR, was pushed out by a 4th world army relying on bicycles and water buffalo for logistics and straw hats and black Pjs.”

It wasn’t pushed out in any military sense. As others have pointed out, the PAVN (People’s Army of Vietnam) and VC (Viet Cong) were badly damaged in the Tet Offensive in 1968. They never managed to recover while the US and other external forces remained in SVN (South Vietnam)

A distinction needs to be made between the PAVN which were regular troops and VC which were guerillas. The PAVN were good troops and generally were about as good as the forces they faced from any nation. The VC were good guerillas. Both were resourceful and adaptable. One simple example is that one idiotic Australian commander, against sound advice, sowed a very large minefield around a major Australian base. I think it was something like 20,000 mines. As predicted, the VC removed most of them fairly quickly and used them against the Australians and others. The VC then knew where the mines weren't and how to move through the minefield, while the Australians didn't and were thus excluded from their own and now non-existent defensive perimeter through which the enemy could move at will. The PAVN used simple but effective tactics, such as sneaking up to the edge of the treeline near a base during daylight and tying sticks to trees, or sneaking into more open country and making similar arrangements with sticks of wood and twine, as aiming alignments for RPG’s or MG’s targeted on enemy MG’s, mortars, artillery etc. in the base. Simple, but a highly effective way of getting rid of or suppressing the enemy’s main defensive weapons long before decent night vision was available. Meanwhile the Americans had their state of the art but fairly useless Starlight night vision scopes and couldn’t see much of what was happening in the dark, until the PAVN lit up the base with accurate incoming fire directed by a few sticks of wood. Both the PAVN and VC based their infantry tactics on ‘hugging the enemy’s belt’. This involved getting in very close to the enemy so that he couldn’t use his advantage of artillery and air power because he’d be destroying his own troops. It also overcame the lack of decent artillery support and the total lack of air support for the PAVN and VC. Again, a simple but brilliantly effective tactic in negating the enemy’s huge technological and equipment advantages. There are many other examples of the ways in which the PAVN and VC used intelligent and effective tactics and low tech equipment to great effect.

Japanese using the humble bicycle surprised and helped defeat the British forces in Malaya in 1941-2. The bicycle served NVN (North Vietnam) just as well. It was precisely because of the low tech approach that the PAVN and VC did so well against the Americans in particular. American troops couldn’t move far without trucks and choppers and without carrying huge amounts of gear on their backs and being re-supplied regularly, often daily (with hot meals in some cases!), in the field, thus requiring enormous logistical and transport back up. NVN porters just trotted down the Ho Chi Minh Trail with little more than a bag of rice for sustenance and an overloaded bicycle full of supplies for their troops in the field in SVN. http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/as/vietnam/vietnamkrieg-fotos.html
No disrespect to them, but they were like ants. A B52 raid could cut a mile long swathe through the jungle and kill some of them, but the ant column just diverted and kept moving remorselessly. The dispersion of carriers and supplies made it impossible for significant and effective strikes to be carried out in the same way that Western motor vehicle supply columns can be strafed or bombed by a single-seater plane, thus destroying large quantities of supplies for very little effort and with very little manpower. The Americans bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail for years, and were sufficiently desperate to consider using tactical nukes, but they never stopped the supplies getting through. http://www.afa.org/magazine/nov2005/1105trail.asp http://www.nautilus.org/VietnamFOIA/background/HoChiMinhTrail.html Human ants with bicycles beat the US with spotter planes and B52’s and everything in between.

The error in thinking that the US ‘lost’ the Vietnam War is thinking that it intended to conquer or defeat NVN. That was never the objective, from Kennedy’s May 1961 National Security Action Memorandum 52 http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsam-jfk/nsam-52.htm onwards. The real objective was to maintain the status quo in SVN and stop it falling under communist control.

This was an insane and inevitably hugely costly strategy when NVN forces could come into SVN but SVN, American etc ground forces would not cross the DMZ into NVN and, worse, advertised the fact. They could never stop NVN coming into SVN as long as they refused to go into NVN, so this merely assured a bloody, wasteful, and inconclusive conflict that would last for exactly as long as NVN was prepared to keep sending troops to SVN and supporting the VC, particularly when there was considerable popular support for NVN in SVN.

Be all that as it may, the US achieved its objective of keeping SVN from becoming communist for the whole time that the US was in Vietnam. It did not ‘lose’ at all in that sense. Once the US and other allies (including Korea which was the second largest external force in Vietnam and from memory lost something like 5,000 troops) left, SVN was incapable of defending itself. It would have gone under in 1972 but for American air and naval support and other steps by America, including subtly threatening tactical nuclear strikes on NVN. http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/vietnam/vietnamization/easteroffensive.aspx Although the final campaign in 1975 was a fine run thing in some respects, new strategies by NVN were completely successful http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/99winter/pribbeno.htm

It is somewhat of a mistake to conceive of the Vietnam war as a US war. This reflects the Western perception of it, which overlooks the fact that the primary combatants were NVN and SVN, fighting to resolve national, political and ethnic issues left in the wake of the destruction of the French colonial period by the Japanese occupation in WWII. America got itself involved for its own purposes, essentially to contain communism. These purposes happened to coincide, more or less, with the reasons why the dominant, unrepresentative (ethnically, politically, and religiously), privileged, and corrupt ruling classes in SVN wanted to resist the communists.

The preoccupation with America’s involvement ignores the realities of SVN’s experience. While America committed large forces and had large losses, SVN suffered (from memory) about ten times the military casualties America did, and committed larger forces for a longer period, before, during and after American involvement. SVN also suffered immense civilian casualties and had the country ravaged by war, while America suffered none of this. The South Vietnamese also didn’t have the luxury of withdrawing when political factors affecting America and other external forces changed and left SVN vulnerable.

As a minor but interesting point, there is evidence that America got involved in part because of goading by Australia, which felt very vulnerable to the spread of communism (e.g. Malaya, Indonesia in 1950’s early 1960’s) from China / NVN down the same land chain which the Japanese had advanced and threatened it less than 20 years earlier. Australia’s goading related to an apparent switch or indifference in American foreign policy towards Australia arising over West Irian and Indonesia. This alarmed Australia as it feared being cut adrift by the US, to which it had hitched itself during WWII and Korea. Australia wanted to engage America militarily in the defence of S.E. Asia against communism, to lock America into forward defence of Australia which was beyond Australia’s military capacity. This happened to coincide with America’s own reasons for getting into Vietnam. A much more detailed analysis is here http://www.vvaa.org.au/bross-2.pdf

Could anyone shed any light as to the political powers or otherwise that brought the war to a close?

This has probably as good a summary of a long and complex process as you’ll find http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761552642_1/Vietnam_War.html

Was the war really lost before it began?

Probably. The US backed what was essentially a corrupt dictatorship in SVN which suited America’s interests (as if that would be a novelty!), but which couldn’t survive without US support. A fair comparison is with Chiang’s Nationalist forces in China after WWII, which like SVN fought with varying degrees of competence, but like SVN the troops in the field always had above and behind them a politically, financially and morally corrupt bunch of bastards feathering their own nests and pulling in different directions while thousands of men, women and children died pointlessly in their service and as a result of their actions, on and off the battlefield. Both the Nationalists and SVN were probably doomed to lose, sooner or later, to a determined and united enemy like Mao and NVN, and for much the same reasons.

Rising Sun*

03-28-2007, 08:39 PM

They undoubtedly were. Not that the U.S. Army in Vietnam were slouches either. But there was a gradual breakdown in discipline and effectiveness. In fact, I'd say the U.S. Army performed surprisingly well all things considered, the Vietnamese may attest to this, since they had previously dealt with an all-volunteer French Army with the Foreign Legion being filled out with ex-Waffen SS Germans. But the Australians were more professional as soldiers. One example I can cite from a book I've read is that there were some joint exchanges of personnel. And the Aussies used to lament that the Americans were using drugs, and carrying AM/FM radios, in the field, which could cause excessive noise or hinder awareness.

Interesting. I didn't realize Australia had conscription at the time...

There's a few hidden factors in comparing Australian and US forces, which put American forces at a disadvantage in a comparing the effectiveness of troops and units.

1. Although Australia had conscripts, if they really didn't want to go to Vietnam, in most cases they didn't go. There were processes for giving troops the choice before they went, although not uniformly applied in all units. Australian soldiers didn't want to serve with people who didn't want to be there as they would cause obvious problems on and off the battlefield. My understanding is that US conscripts didn't have the same choice. This gave Australian units an advantage in cohesion, determination and general morale.

2. Training is another factor, particularly from the late 1960's when the quality of US troops fell off, and certainly compared with US troops who were there in the mid-60's. Australian infantry had the usual basic training plus months of infantry or other (armour, artillery etc) corps training plus specialised jungle warfare training at Canungra, which was one of the best jungle warfare schools in the world. By the time the average Australian infantry conscript reached Vietnam he had 9 to 11 months of good quality training specifically directed to jungle warfare in Vietnam.My understanding is that the demand for increased numbers of US troops resulted in many being sent over from the late ‘60’s with a great deal less training than Australian troops, which ensured that they could not perform as well. This is an indictment of the American military leadership, not the poor American grunts who had no control over what training they received.

3. Australian training was specifically directed to Australian tactics which were more suited to small scale jungle operations against a fluid enemy than were American tactics, which were more suited to larger scale operations against an enemy which would stand and fight. There was a place for both tactics as both types of engagements occurred in Vietnam. The Americans did well in their general tactical approach of applying overwhelming firepower in large engagements, but they generally failed to adapt their tactics to the smaller engagements which were the daily grind in Vietnam and in which Australians were very good. There is no reason that American troops couldn't have been just as good as Australians in this area, except that American military doctrine which informed their tactics and training was too focused on firepower and force.

4. Short term junior leadership is another factor. American units, or at least Army units, tended to rotate officers through at platoon and company level for relatively short periods, as little as a month, to give them experience, or even just to let them get their combat badge. This ensured that troops often didn't know or get to trust their officers, and vice versa, which has obvious implications for both groups in discipline and battle. Australian units normally kept the officers they trained with until they were killed, wounded, or, in rare cases, removed because they weren’t up to the task. The US practice undermined cohesion at platoon and company level, which is where it matters most on the battlefield. Troops who don’t trust their officers won’t follow them in sticky situations if they can possibly avoid it.

5. Another factor that may bear on cohesion and morale is that I think the US Army continued its WWII practice of not returning recovered wounded to their original units but sending them to another unit. Australians went back to their units when they recovered. If so, and combined with the rotating officers, some American units were bound to be less cohesive than Australian units.

alephh

03-30-2007, 04:41 PM

The US were not defeated militarily, but politically.

I feel it wasn't a political defeat either, maybe more like military leadership/intelligence/PR defeat...

U.S. Generals/military said things like "NVA is getting weaker" - the exact opposite happened with TET - U.S. Military lost their credibility. Without that the political pressure wouldn't have been so bad.

People often try to make out that the US was somehow defeated on the battlefield and driven out, but this is simply not true.

But U.S. military wasn't exactly winning the war on the battlefield with it's static military base tactics and so on.

Most insane thing, in my opinion, is that in Philippines 1946-1955 U.S. soldiers/advisers formed and used (with locals) a nearly perfect counter-guerilla warfare campaign. And then in Vietnam War, they used totally wrong/opposite methods, ignoring everything they have learned. :-o

_

32Bravo

04-05-2007, 04:12 PM

Ignorance was never a factor in the American endeavour in Vietnam pursued through five presidences, although it was to become an excuse. Ignorance of country and culture there may have been, but not ignorance of the contra-indications, even the barriers, to achieving the objectives of American policy. All the conditions and reasons precluding a successful outcome were foreseen at one time or another during the thirty years of American involvement. American intervention was not a progress sucked step by step into an unsuspected quagmire. At no time were policy-makers unaware of the hazards, obstacles and negative developments. American intelligence was adequate, informed observation flowed steadily from the field to the capital, special investigative missions were repeatedly sent out, independant reportage to balance professional optimism - when that prevailed - was never lacking. The folly consisted not in pursuit of a goal in ignorance of the obstacles but in the persistance in the pursuit despite accumulating evidence that the goal was unattainable, and the effect disproportionate to the American interest and eventually damaging to American society, reputation and disposable power in the world.

2nd of foot

04-06-2007, 04:41 PM

The TET offensive was a media victory for the NVA. NV and the US press portrayed it as this. In reality it was a total defeat for the NVA. After Tet they could not field major units in one place and if they did they were destroyed. The bombing of NV, if continued would have ended the war but this method was not acceptable to the US media and was stopped.

The US lost because America lost the will to win.

32Bravo

04-07-2007, 03:49 AM

Up until Tet, the U.S. thought they were winning. A perceived defeat for the NVA/VC in the field, but a victory for the North in the political war, where it mattered. Giap and Ho were aware that the North could not succeed militarily with Tet (not in the orthodox sense that is), that wasn't the mission. The mission was accomplished successfully.

Khe Sahn, as a 'come-on' - superb move. Tet was a fanastically planned and executed offensive.

Giap's name should be up there with the greats.

32Bravo

04-08-2007, 04:26 AM

We can argue that the U.S. won the tactical battles of the Tet Offensive, or not, but the U.S. certainly lost the strategic battle, and that was the one that the U.S. should have won to succeed in Vietnam. It was the battle that the Vietnamese did win. Why did the U.S. lose the strategic battle? Well, it goes back many years.

The road to American failure in Vietnam began with the death of Franklin D Roosevelt in April 1945. Roosevelt was against allowing the French back into Indo-China, and for an independent, Vietnamese government.

With the ending of the war in Europe, De Gaul was, eventually, able to convince Truman that it was necessary for France to re-occupy Indo-China to prevent France itself becoming a satellite of the USSR. This action succeeded in driving the Vietnamese into the 'communist camp'.

With the fall of China to the communists, the war in Korea, the Malayan Emergency, and the inevitable defeat of France in Indo-China, it became more paramount to the U.S. that communist expansion must be halted in Vietnam.

John F Kennedy, neither a liberal nor a conservative, Kennedy was an operator of quick intelligence and strong ambition who stated many elevated principles convincingly, eloquently, even passionately, while his actions did not always match. In major offices of government and the White House staff, he put men of active mind, proven ability and, as far as possible, a hard-headed attitude to match his own. Mostly men of his age, in their forties, they were not the social philosophers, innovators and idealists of the ‘New Deal’.

Robert McNamara, a prodigy of the Harvard Business School, of ‘systems analysis’ for the Air Force during WW2 and of rapid rise afterwards to presidency of the Ford Motor Company, was characteristic and outstanding choice for Secretary of Defence. Precise and positive, McNamara was a specialist of management through ‘statistical control’, as he had demonstrated both in the Air Force and at Ford. Anything could be quantified was his realm. Though said to be sincere as an Old Testament prophet, he had the ruthlessness of uninterrupted success, and his genius for statistics left little respect for human variables (Hmmm?) and no room for unpredictables (even louder –Hmmm?).

Kennedy: “If it (Vietnam) were ever converted into a white man’s (read non-Asiatic) war, we should lose it as the French had lost a decade earlier.”

McNamara: “We have the power to knock any society out of the twentieth century.”

Like Kennedy, many of his associates were combat veterans of WW2, having served as Navy officers and fliers, as bombardiers and navigators, and in the case of Roger Hilsman, the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, as leader of an OSS unit behind the Japanese lines in Burma. Power and status exhilarated these men and their fellows: they enjoyed the urgencies, even the exhaustion, of government; they liked to call themselves ‘crisis managers’, they tried hard, applied their skills and intelligence, were reputed the ‘the best and the brightest – and were soon to discover that rather than controlling circumstances, circumstances controlled them.

Military theory and strategy underwent a major change with the advent of the Kennedy administration. Appalled by the plans based on ‘massive retaliation’ which the military under Eisenhower had embraced, Kennedy and McNamara turned to the ideas of the new school of defence intellectuals expressed in their doctrine of limited war. Its aims were not conquest but coercion; force would be used on a rationally calculated basis to alter the enemy’s will and capabilities to the point where ‘the advantages of terminating the conflict were greater than the advantages of continuing it’. War would be rationally ‘managed’ in such a way as to send messages to the opposing belligerent, who would respond rationally to the pain and damage inflicted on him by desisting from the actions that caused them.

One thing was left out of account by the new doctrine – the other side.

War is polarity.

What if the other side failed to respond rationally to the coercive message? Appreciation of the human factor was not McNamara’s strongest point, and the possibility that humankind is not rational was too eccentric and disruptive to be programmed into his analysis.

Source: B W Tuchman - The March of Folly.
and others which I am forgetful of.

Shadow Of Evil

04-08-2007, 09:53 AM

32Bravo

04-08-2007, 10:26 AM

Well it all started as a fight to end communism... such as with the soviets Apparantly Eisenhower thought that if vietnam was allowed to be a communist country, then all other asian countries would follow , like a domino effect.

If i am wrong sorry! I have only studied up to WWII so far.

Interesting that you should bring Eisenhower into the equaion. Eisenhower's attention was somewhat focussed on Laos. Yes, Vietnam did become the pre-dominant 'Domino'. Not so much a fight to end communism, but a fight to halt the expansion of communism. Hence, the Domino Theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory

32Bravo

04-08-2007, 10:49 AM

It was only two weeks before Kennedy was sworn into office as President of the USA, that Nikita Khrushchev presented the U.S. with a very decisive chellenge by declaring that national 'wars of liberation' would be become the vehicle for the advancement of the communist cause. These 'just wars', said Khruschev, wherever they occurred, be it Cuba, Vietnam, Algeria, would receive full Soviet support.

Rising Sun*

04-11-2007, 11:31 PM

America's biggest success in Vietnam was disengaging successfully, which it did when it accepted the political reality that China was the regional power and that it could not contain regional communism militarily.

Nixon, who is remembered most for some misdeeds, was masterful in engaging successfully with China to enable American disengagement, although that was disastrous from the South Vietnamese viewpoint. It was all the more remarkable given Nixon's rabid anti-communist activities in the 1950's.

What's interesting is that before and during WWII, Roosevelt saw China as the dominant force in the region, and in time as a major world power, and wanted to nurture and cultivate it. His successors lacked the same foresight.

What's even more interesting is that in the late 1940's or early 1950's (rusty on dates) Ho Chi Minh, foolishly believing in America's advertised commitment to liberty and independence, made approaches to the US for US support for Vietnamese independence. IIRC these approaches never got far beyond the relevant desk in the State Department. Given America's hostility to French and British colonialism, it's surprising that more attention wasn't given to these approaches, but America's obsession with communism blinded it to any engagement with communists for a couple of decades until Nixon engaged fully with one of the two main communist powers. An awful lot of death, destruction and misery in both Vietnams could have been avoided if America had engaged with Ho at the outset.

The lesson for the future is that America is now in much the same position in Iraq, being forced to stay there to contain Iran as the major regional power exporting the current feared 'ism' (Islamo-fascism) without having any prospect of long term military success until a new Administration can free itself of the blinkered approach of the current mob and engage successfully with Iran. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

32Bravo

04-12-2007, 04:07 PM

Of course, the Brits shared occupation with China in 1945. Chek didn't want to know, he had enough problems with Mao. When Ho's delegation introduced themselves to the Brits, they were chucked out. The Brits were concerned for their own colonies and, therefore, didn't want to be seen supporting another group of discidents.

Ho was reputedly a communist and, given the terror of the time, could not be condoned by the U.S. even though the OSS had been supporting him against the Japanese during the war.

An independant Vietnam would have been a good defense against communist China's expansion, but everyone at the time figuered that they would collaborate with China to spread the social message.

Nixon was good for America. He taught them not to trust their presidents.

Laconia

04-12-2007, 07:28 PM

We lost because the Congress cut off the funding of the war and the media did everything they could to cast our attempt to defeat the Communists as a losing proposition. Plus, the politicians did not let the military prosecute the war to the fullest extent. We only have to look at how the majority of the media is reporting the war in Iraq. Nothing piositive -everything negative. Also, the Democrats seek to appease the Islamo - Facsists, and not giving the President any support, even though they voted to invade Irag. What happened concerning Vietnam is happening again.

Rising Sun*

04-12-2007, 08:04 PM

An independant Vietnam would have been a good defense against communist China's expansion, but everyone at the time figuered that they would collaborate with China to spread the social message.

I think that when it came to understanding Vietnam America, just as it has done in Iraq, failed to appreciate both the realities and subtleties of the situation.

Vietnam and China were traditional enemies rather than allies. Vietnam accepted help from China during the Vietnam war, but the Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979 indicates their attitude to each other when not united to fight a common enemy.

The essential problem seems to be that up to about the mid/late-1960's, and especially to the mid-1950's when Vietnam's future was being decided, the West and the US in particular tended to regard "communism" as a monolith crossing all borders and representing a unified threat to the West. In reality it was different things in different countries and not in the least united, but the West failed to grasp this, and so failed to grasp the opportunities that went with it for different relations with different communist inspired national independence movements.

Again, this parallels current events where "Islamic terrorists" or "Muslim fundamentalists" or "Islamo-fascists" are lumped into one basket when they have different aims in different places and in some instances are in full-out war with each other. Tarring everybody with the same brush prevents negotiation with individual groups on terms that might be productive, at least in those cases where it is possible to negotiate with them.

Laconia

04-12-2007, 09:26 PM

I think that when it came to understanding Vietnam America, just as it has done in Iraq, failed to appreciate both the realities and subtleties of the situation.

Vietnam and China were traditional enemies rather than allies. Vietnam accepted help from China during the Vietnam war, but the Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979 indicates their attitude to each other when not united to fight a common enemy.

The essential problem seems to be that up to about the mid/late-1960's, and especially to the mid-1950's when Vietnam's future was being decided, the West and the US in particular tended to regard "communism" as a monolith crossing all borders and representing a unified threat to the West. In reality it was different things in different countries and not in the least united, but the West failed to grasp this, and so failed to grasp the opportunities that went with it for different relations with different communist inspired national independence movements.

Again, this parallels current events where "Islamic terrorists" or "Muslim fundamentalists" or "Islamo-fascists" are lumped into one basket when they have different aims in different places and in some instances are in full-out war with each other. Tarring everybody with the same brush prevents negotiation with individual groups on terms that might be productive, at least in those cases where it is possible to negotiate with them.

Paragraph 1. Yeas, I agree. At the end of ww2, Ho Chi Min came to the U.S. and asked our help in driving out the French. He actually followed our Constution as a guide. We messed up and supported the French as a longtime ally.
Para 2. Agree totally.
Para 3. While Communisum was "different things in different countries", in the main these movement were supported/encouraged by the Soviet Union. That's why we were so paranoid about Vietnam.
Para 4. Do not agree here. The main imputus behind Al Queida and their associated groups is the return of a worldwide Caliphate. Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Syria, Iran will have their little fiefdoms. But make no mistake about it this time, we are talking of the unifying force of religion here! It is not possible to negotate with them seperately. Syria and Iran will continue to stir up trouble wherever they can. The Arab world looks for weeknes and will expoit this (weakness) to the max. The only type of negotiation with this hard core is ruthlessness. The U.S. President should delare that if a nucular bomb ever goes off in an American city, and it is proven that it was Muslim terrorists, Mecca and Medina would be toast.

Rising Sun*

04-13-2007, 09:01 AM

Para 4. Do not agree here. The main imputus behind Al Queida and their associated groups is the return of a worldwide Caliphate. Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Syria, Iran will have their little fiefdoms. But make no mistake about it this time, we are talking of the unifying force of religion here! It is not possible to negotate with them seperately. Syria and Iran will continue to stir up trouble wherever they can. The Arab world looks for weeknes and will expoit this (weakness) to the max. The only type of negotiation with this hard core is ruthlessness. The U.S. President should delare that if a nucular bomb ever goes off in an American city, and it is proven that it was Muslim terrorists, Mecca and Medina would be toast.

This is a topic in itself, probably many,many topics.

If you'd like to pursue it, which I would, how about starting it in Off Topic Militaria in http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=55

Your quote above is a good opening.

Laconia

04-13-2007, 10:48 PM

This is a topic in itself, probably many,many topics.

If you'd like to pursue it, which I would, how about starting it in Off Topic Militaria in http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=55

Your quote above is a good opening.

Go ahead, you start. I'm chicken.

Rising Sun*

04-15-2007, 09:14 PM

Go ahead, you start. I'm chicken.

You might be wise to be chicken. Maybe we should leave it alone.

Vassili Chukolov

04-30-2007, 04:45 PM

If it weren't all the political stuff in the way, yeah, America and other allies could have gone straight to Hanoi. But with the political stuff, we had to back down. And the causulties considered 'light' compared to some other wars. Really, did we lose or not? People have different views and thoughts about the war that makes a topic like this, keep going and going, like the energy bunny.

Nickdfresh

05-04-2007, 05:52 PM

32Bravo

07-05-2007, 02:09 PM

Well, from what I have read, it would seem that the more appropriate question would be - How could America have won?

From my understanding, it was lost before 1965. There are many misleading myths about the war. In the first instance, the French should never have been allowed back there, and after they had been defeated, there was no way anyone was going to defeat the north Vietnamese. If the US had invaded the north and taken Hanoi, they would still have lost. All of the problems of winning in the south would have been small beer comapared with winning and holding the whole of the country. By 1965 it was far too late for anyone to prevent the north from succeeding in ultimate victory. It was probably far too late in 1954.

namvet

06-29-2008, 08:23 PM

we lost because of LBJ. and his fear of killing Russian advisors in the north and would bring Russia into that war.

we lost because of LBJ ordered pilots to stop bombing high priority targets.

we lost because LBJ could not stand up under the media storm and pressure from anti war protesters

we knew after tet the north was finished with that war. we were sitting around waiting for the paper to be signed so we could go home.

we lost because in 1968 LBJ ordered a bombing halt of the north. and a general retreat.

and we knew that gave time for the north to rearm and resupply and start a new offensive. which the did.

we lost because the North was counting heavy on the anti war media and anti war movement here. and they got it. in spades.

we lost because of no leadership. and political screw ups that cost us all.

we lost because we were ordered out. or is that really losing ?????

bwing55543

09-07-2008, 08:25 PM

Nickdfresh

09-07-2008, 09:04 PM

namvet

09-07-2008, 09:06 PM

So why didn't Nixon win it all?

once again. with clarity

Nickdfresh

09-07-2008, 09:28 PM

I can think of a few reasons.

The US did not appear to have any real military objectives, other than halting communism. Vietnam appeared to be a defensive war where the American military would consider itself victorious if it managed to prevent communist forces from taking a South Vietnamese cities. In World War II, the US could measure their success in the war by how much territory they gained after a battle. I feel that if the US wanted to go all-out, and abandon their "limited war" principles, the US could have just blown Hanoi right off the map and installed a pro-US government in Vietnam. As people mentioned before, it has a lot to do with the politics behind the war.

It was a war of attrition, designed to wear down the North in their goal of uniting the South without provkoing a confrontation with the Soviets or the Chinese. Nor did the US have the resources nor fortitude to invade the North, which would have resulted in tens of thousands more US casualties and possibly Armageddon...

Also, the US lost the war because of the nature of the enemy.

The couldn't "win" nor "lose" the war because it was a Vietnamese civil war. Not "our" war. The Saigon regime was hideously corrupt and largely comprised of the soft "Catholic" minority leisure class. Most of whom had collaborated with the French during their colonial occupation, and were thusly tainted and devoid of legitimacy...

As Iraq also proves, the US military was always very effective against a conventional army, not so against a guerilla one. The Vietcong especially, could use the tactic of hiding in a jungle, wait for an American squad to patrol near there, pop a few grunts, and then disperse into the jungle. It didn't help that the Vietcong did not have uniforms, so the Americans were not able to tell Vietcong from civillian (hence, the massacre at My-Lai).

Completely untrue. The US, and their RVN allies, largely destroyed the VC/National Liberation Front via the "Phoenix Program." Something that was largely forgotten by the US military until "the Surge" in Iraq. The failure of Iraq was that the US forgot some of its successes in Vietnam regarding counterinsurgency...

It was the tanks of the North Vietnamese Army that took Saigon, not the black-pajamaed revolutionaries of the VC/NLF...

Incidentally, they DID have a uniform. The infamous "black pajamas" uniform. In any case, there was even a difference within the VC, from "Main Force Regulars" to the paddy farmer that had an AK and might join an attack occasionally...

In Vietnam, the US definitely had air superiority. Again, in World War II, when the US was facing other conventional armies, the air superiority was an immense help. However, in Vietnam, when the US did not even know where the enemy was half the time, air power was not enough to win the war.

The US air power question was again one of a high tech industrial society building an air arm designed to destroy another high tech industrial society...Which is why it largely failed in the agrarian world of Vietnam...

In general, I define the Vietnam War as an American experiment in Asia gone horribly wrong. If anything, far from preventing the spread of communism, the Americans helped spread it by getting Laos and Cambodia in on the side of the communists; they wound up bombing those two countries when trying to get to the Ho Chi Minh trail.

I would characterize it as an abortion and a complete blunder in the vein of the Cold War mentality of binary oppositions of US vs. USSR, monolithic communism, and a complete acquaintance to the French post-WWII neo-colonial aspirations. We possibly could have made Ho Chi Minh "ours" if we had forced a French withdrawal and had not been so paranoid about "commies." I mean, he did cite the US Constitution in his declaration of independence and we did cancel an election in the late 1950s to prevent him from winning...

Nickdfresh

09-07-2008, 09:30 PM

once again. with clarity

Meaning?

Rising Sun*

09-08-2008, 06:23 AM

It was a war of attrition, designed to wear down the North in their goal of uniting the South without provkoing a confrontation with the Soviets or the Chinese.

It has long been forgotten in most circles that the original US aim was only to maintain the status quo in SVN. Although the situation in SVN changed after that, the war continued essentially on that basis but with the objective becoming more confused and harder to obtain, and less easy to identify if ever it was obtained.

It was a failure, through political control of military matters, of the basic military principles of:

1. Identify the Aim.
2. Maintain the Aim.

The military was hamstrung by the politicians. The military failure lies primarily at the feet of American politicians who hamstrung the military. As do the deaths of far too many people on both sides during an idiotic military excercise lie at the feet of the same politicians.

Who in their right mind fights a war with no intention of taking the steps needed to win it?

Politicians, obviously. :evil:

Nor did the US have the resources nor fortitude to invade the North, which would have resulted in tens of thousands more US casualties and possibly Armageddon...

I disagree, so far as a military conquest of NVN is concerned. It was entirely within US, SVN and allied nations' military capacity.

NVN survived only because its enemies refused to advance through the DMZ, or just leapfrog it and land by sea further north to deal with what was left after an unrestricted bombing campaign.

The Tet Offensive damaged NVN and the VC militarily to the point that SVN, which did the bulk of the ground fighting, and the US etc could have pressed the advantage all the way to Hanoi under American air and sea power, if the political will was there.

But, as you say, it was the Armageddon factor which inhibited such an attack on NVN, and continued a miserable abortion for pointless years by waving a bloodied knitting needle at the patient's groin rather than thrusting it into the womb.

Adrian Wainer

09-09-2008, 06:39 PM

Well the USA did not lose the War on the ground, it lost the War on the television in the sitting room of American families. But for all practical purposes it was much the same thing, since the North overran the South and several other Asian states fell to "communist" rule. It is very difficult to give a simple analysis of just how things went wrong for America in Vietnam, because the US made so many mistakes and the mistakes were all interacting together to make an even bigger mess, it is hard to see exactly what were the critical problems.

First of all should the US ever have got involved in the first place, one can produce a reasoned argument that Ho Chi Min was a Vietnamese nationalist first and a communist very much second and that US should have backed Ho Chi Min and since China and Vietnam have a tradition of regional animosity even a Communist leaning Vietnam would have had a very standoff relationship with China. So Ho Chi Min could have been a Vietnamese Tito for the West, communist leaning but not part of the Anti-western Communist block. The other argument is that there is a definite cultural difference between the North of Vietnam and the South and that the Southern regime corrupt as it was, was a legitimate national Government ( and as for the corruption issues, yes for sure the Southern regime was corrupt but so were then and still are today many states and America e.g. did not abolish slavery till after the civil war and immediatly after 9/11 there seemed to be one rule as to who and what could fly with respect to the Bin-Ladens, so that even medical ambulance aircraft that fly organ donor transplant materiel were grounded but the Bin-Ladens had apparently no problem arranging a private jet to whisk them back to Araby ) and who are more corrupt than the Communists? Like if Jane Fonda thought North Vietnam was such a great place, why didn't she go live there instead of appearing on the TV flogging a fancy French face cream that will do the same thing as a cheapo brand sold in the likes Walmart except at the privledge of costing several times the price of the cheapo brand, for the French product. So the US did have the choice of supporting Ho Chi Min or the South and it chose the South. In fact there was a third choice the US could have decided not to have got involved at all. But the US chose the South, any of the three choices 1 supporting Ho Chi Min 2 Supporting the South 3 decideing not to become involved, were legitimate options in my view. So that the US in deciding to support the South was a legitimate choice.

Then the mistakes started, the US pursued a gradualist approach to the build up to the War, this gave the North an opportunity to develop the skills to negate many of the advantages provided by superior American technology, North Vietnam should have been hit hard from the get go. The risks of bringing in the Russians were slight, in that why would European Russians from Moscow want to go to War over a bunch of "slanty eyed" [ NB I am not being racist, I am just trying to put myself in the shoes of the Soviets ] Vietnamese foreigners. As for China, the Vietnamese and Chinese hate one another, so I can't see them having been too particularly concerned, as long as the objective did not go beyond making it non-viable for North Vietnam to threaten the South. The idea of bombing North Vietnam in to the stone age was a particularly silly one, since North Vietnam was an agricultural third world country and the important high technology military products were coming from the USSR, what was certainly possible was to reduce North Vietnam to the level of bicycle and horse transport and reduce any North Vietnamese military facility like airfields to ruin. This was not done and instead we had the idiocy of major military targets in North Vietnam being off limits to US airstrikes, whilst the US was engaging in heavy duty air strikes in South Vietnam using fastmovers like the F4 Phantom II, which was frankly nuts since the South was the country the US was supposed to be defending. The idea of rotating the US forces out of Vietnam after a twelve month tour of duty was another dumb ass thing to do, in that as soon as the troops started to get a feel for the country they were shipped out and officers rotated out after an even shorter time. Then there was the greatest dumbass of them all, General Westmoreland who pursued a War of attrition, when the primary objective was not to kill NVA or Vietcong but to secure the future of South Vietnam. The killing of NVA and Vietcong in a strategy of attrition was doomed to failure from the get go, in that since North Vietnam was essentially off limits to attack by the US, the North Vietnamese could turn up and down the war as it suited them and whilst America with its superior technology and firepower could always kill more NVA and Vietcong than they could kill Americans, since the Americans were fighting in a foreign country [ South Vietnam ] with a freepress back in the US, all the North Vietnamese had to do was kill enough Americans to convince the folks backhome in the US, that they were in a War against an enemy which would never give up for a country [ ie South Vietnam ] that was not worth fighting for, which the North achieved. The Americans were not beaten by crafty North Vietnamese guerillas making ambushes in the jungle as is popularly believed but an inability of the US Government once having decided to become involved to pursue old fashioned military tactics of hitting an enemy so hard he decides he is playing out of his league and decides to throw in the ball, which is what would have happened if the fierce determination of the North Vietnamese regime to annex South Vietnam had run in to the problem that their activities in seeking to over-run the South had so provoked the US that the regime in the North was in danger of imploding due to US attacks on its infrastructure.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Churchill

09-09-2008, 07:07 PM

The military was hamstrung by the politicians. The military failure lies primarily at the feet of politicians who hamstrung the military.

Fixed.

And which war does this remind me of...?:rolleyes:

Nickdfresh

09-09-2008, 07:36 PM

It has long been forgotten in most circles that the original US aim was only to maintain the status quo in SVN. Although the situation in SVN changed after that, the war continued essentially on that basis but with the objective becoming more confused and harder to obtain, and less easy to identify if ever it was obtained.

Correct.

It was a failure, through political control of military matters, of the basic military principles of:

1. Identify the Aim.
2. Maintain the Aim.

The military was hamstrung by the politicians. The military failure lies primarily at the feet of American politicians who hamstrung the military. As do the deaths of far too many people on both sides during an idiotic military excercise lie at the feet of the same politicians.

Who in their right mind fights a war with no intention of taking the steps needed to win it?

Politicians, obviously. :evil:

It was both politicians and the military. The military and civilian planners at the Pentagon routinely sent gloomy reports of what was actually going on on the ground, and also the inherent fallibility of the Saigon regime. There was little hope nor optimism that the South could survive against determined Northern efforts to unify the country, and most of that traces back to the very legitimacy of the South in the eyes of its citizens and the near constant turmoil of the political situation which led to a military system that was inherently corrupt and pretty much sapped the will of the ARVN. It has been stated more than once that both the LBJ and Nixon Administrations routinely made private analysis's that directly contradicted their rosy public statements; and Nixon especially only sought to delay the fall of Saigon for as long as possible after the US exit.

I disagree, so far as a military conquest of NVN is concerned. It was entirely within US, SVN and allied nations' military capacity.

NVN survived only because its enemies refused to advance through the DMZ, or just leapfrog it and land by sea further north to deal with what was left after an unrestricted bombing campaign.

The Tet Offensive damaged NVN and the VC militarily to the point that SVN, which did the bulk of the ground fighting, and the US etc could have pressed the advantage all the way to Hanoi under American air and sea power, if the political will was there.

But, as you say, it was the Armageddon factor which inhibited such an attack on NVN, and continued a miserable abortion for pointless years by waving a bloodied knitting needle at the patient's groin rather than thrusting it into the womb.

Really? The South could barely defend itself against the NLF, and they were almost useless against NVA. What is often conveniently forgotten is that most of the ARVN soldiers were still carrying WWII vintage US rifles in 1968, somewhat silly since they average height of the South Vietnamese soldier was about 5'4" and they probably weighed less that 130lbs., yet they were carrying heavy, ten pound M-1s and Carbines that were no match for the AK-47s and SKS rifles carried by the Northerners, had a tank force that was vastly inferior to the North, had a very static warfare-centric mindset that was strictly "nine-to-five," and they were heavily dependent on US firepower...

Could the US have invaded above the 17th parallel? Perhaps. But I think you're looking at things in a vacuum a bit. Firstly, it WAS considered and Gen. Westmorland put in a troop request for 200,000 additional soldiers that would begin heading Northward. The problem with this? Where exactly were they going to come from? General mobilization? US forces assigned to NATO would have been severally weakened, and if the Soviets had decided to make a move, the US would almost certainly have had to use nuclear weapons. Secondly, the North Vietnamese Army had heavily fortified their border with bunker complexes and were employing classic defense in-depth that would have drastically increased US casualties making the War completely politically untenable at home. And as mentioned, simply the chance of bringing the Chinese into the War was a risk too great to even fathom. But also, the public support for the War was spiraling downward as American "boys" were coming back too their small towns in silver caskets. One of the key factors to the Tet Offensive destroying the last major vestige of majority US support for the War was the continued "Saigon Press Conference" madness in which statements and body counts, vastly inflated ones, were touted as a continued mantra of "we're winning! The light is at the end of the tunnel!"

The truth is that the military was every bit as disingenuous as the civilian leadership, and there are clear schisms that the the civilian leadership felt somewhat deceived by the officer corp on the ground as well. As for the VC/NLF being destroyed by Tet, I agree. But only to an extent...

Some argue that in fact the Hanoi regime purposefully ordered the VC into a suicidal battle of conventional attrition that they could not hope to win against withering American firepower. It is thought by some that the Vietnamese and the US gov't are currently still actively touting the myth that the Viet Cong, or more correctly, the National Liberation Front was little more than a partisan extension of the North Vietnamese Army. But in fact, it did not start out that way. The VC also had an independent political leadership -one that was sorely tested and attrited by US search and destroy operations- and was slowly supplanted by Northerners. But they were still considered a potential rival by Hanoi for complete domination of the South in a reunification. If Tet severally damaged the NLF, they were actually largely defeated by the US-RVN "Operation Phoenix" designed to eliminate the NLF hierarchy in much the same way they have previously attacked the Saigon regime: through captures of high value targets, state terror, and outright assassination.

Rising Sun*

09-09-2008, 09:31 PM

Could the US have invaded above the 17th parallel? Perhaps. But I think you're looking at things in a vacuum a bit. Firstly, it WAS considered and Gen. Westmorland put in a troop request for 200,000 additional soldiers that would begin heading Northward. The problem with this? Where exactly were they going to come from? General mobilization? US forces assigned to NATO would have been severally weakened, ...... Secondly, the North Vietnamese Army had heavily fortified their border with bunker complexes and were employing classic defense in-depth that would have drastically increased US casualties making the War completely politically untenable at home.

Which is why I referred to (a) amphibious landings further north, thus getting behind the enemy's strongholds, rather than trying to punch through them from the south by land, and (b) unrestricted (conventional) bombing and naval support.

The North was weaker in its resolve to continue the war than the US understood, as demonstrated by the way it backed off when Nixon let it be known he was thinking about nuking the North.

If the air ordnance actually applied to ploughing up jungle in NVN and SVN and elsewhere (often for fairly futile purposes like trying to stop supplies coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail) had been applied to softening up major strategic points for amphibious landings and for supporting those landings and subsequent operations, and if Agent Orange had been applied to NVN food crops instead of to jungle in SVN, I suspect that the North would have been a lot more amenable to withdrawing from SVN when facing the prospect of defeat and starvation in its own territory.

The biggest flaw in the whole SVN, US etc approach was in making it clear to NVN that they wouldn't go north of the 17th parallel by land. This allowed NVN to export the land war to SVN while suffering aerial bombardment with no prospect of it being invaded or conquered. The NVN leadership was always prepared to accept that as the cost of continuing its war in SVN, secure in the knowledge that aerial bombardment couldn't conquer it.

We're witnessing something similar in Afghanistan, with Pakistan playing the part of NVN and exporting war into Afghanistan while being largely immune from incursions into its own territory by the US etc, although one recently pissed them off mightily. If you don't go into the enemy's heartland on foot and conquer him, the war will go on as long as your enemy wants it to. It's not rocket science, but politicians and their military advisers seem incapable of grasping this simple fact.

Nickdfresh

09-10-2008, 11:15 AM

Rising Sun*

09-10-2008, 07:55 PM

From a purely military standpoint, an amphibious landing would have been the way to go. But the two factors I've mentioned, the constrictions of US military power place on it by its global commitments, the anti-War movement at home, and the specter of again fighting huge numbers of Red Chinese "Volunteers" was probably not palatable to either Johnson nor Nixon. Also, this would have healed the schism between China and the USSR, at least temporarily. Westmorland already had 500,000+ US servicemen in Vietnam at the peak, and asked for 200,000 more. There simply were not enough to send without total mobilization in the event that tensions increased with the Soviets. In some circles it was viewed on whether one would rather save South Vietnam, or West Germany. It's been a while, but I think the US Army of the period was perhaps 1.1 or 1.2 million men? How many would have been committed to an Asian backwater and for how long? Would the US's unreliable, sketchy ARVN allies be much use? What of the occupation even if China doesn't become directly involved?

All true, and all the more reason why the US should never have got so deeply involved when it was well aware beforehand of the problems involving the Soviets and China if it tried to fight the war to win, as distinct from keeping NVN out of SVN.

It's a paradox that the US was keen to fight in Vietnam to stall expansion by 'the communists', which the US tended to see as one group rather than as quite distinct forms of communism and nationalism in various countries, but at the same time it wasn't game to fight the NVN communists to win because doing so might bring in the Soviet and or Chinese communists. Just another example of poor thinking at the time, rather than the wisdom of hindsight.

I think one of the real factors was that the US was doing almost all of the real fighting by 1966, and the ARVN was little more than a rear security force aside from the elites like the Rangers and the Marines (who were armed with M-16s like the average GI).

I'm not sure about that. ARVN deaths were around 200,000, some say around 250,000, which is around four times American deaths. Perhaps they had a higher death rate than Americans because of inferior training, leadership, equipment and air support, but they were clearly heavily engaged in action.

I seem to recall some analysis (maybe several) which showed ARVN did the bulk of the fighting, and they certainly did all the fighting after the US and its allies pulled out, but that this is not recognised outside Vietnamese circles as the Western media concentrated on Western, primarily American, operations.

One thing I've always thought was that the US should possibly have dissolved the useless, corrupt Saigon regime that set an example of rot allowing pansy, dandies to lead the ARVN, men who spent more time stealing their soldiers pay than really dealing with the threat of the VC or NVA.

What were the chances of that when the US started out by supporting the biggest crook of them all, Diem, and his rotten crew?

Supporting that bunch of crooks was doomed from the outset.

In short, the US should have started "Vietnamization" much earlier, reconstituted the RVN forces with officer promotions based on merit rather than family connections, and essentially allowed the Vietnamese ARVN to take on its own cultural identity. Many ARVN officers felt as if they were trying to turn them into a mini-US Army...

Definitely.

There was an element of American arrogance that American military superiority would prevail in a type of war American forces were ill-equipped by training and outlook to fight because American military doctrine focused on the application of crushing force. This flowed from WWII experience and was fine in Europe during the Vietnam era against anticipated Soviet regular forces, but wholly inadequate against irregulars and hit and run NVA forces. American military policy in Vietnam should have been to engage more closely with the Vietnamese and understand the war from their perspective rather than from the American military operational perspective, which could have avoided alienating a lot of the SVN civilians and military. The essential problem was that American military leaders lacked the right training and attitude to deal with an insurgency, as shown in the following quote, which also outlines other deficiencies in America concentrating on conventional military actions in SVN, and which reinforces the points you have made about the wider geo-political aspects. It's from a paper about the Australian counter-insurgency adviser, Ted Serong.

And just how was a foreign advisor to press advice upon the leaders of a national army of a sovereign state? In his diary entry for September 21, 1962, Serong wrote: "I am sickened to see these little bastards getting away with murder, and to see our boys getting killed while they're graciously making up their minds whether or not they'll take our advice. Maybe they won't want to stop the insurgency". He was in Quang Ngai, commenting on the activities of the 1st Corps of the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN). He continued, "visited CIA station...Brigadier General Kelleher and Gill Strickler both distressed...in I Corps (Military Region 1) an ARVN operation compared to Sherman March through Georgia...this comes back to our `advisory' effort. We must have a `goad' and a `veto.'"(5) Built into the advisory relationship was the urge to take over.

Serong was Advisor on Counterinsurgency to General Paul Harkins, the American commander. General Harkins did not believe in counterinsurgency, but he did not want an advisor. If the U.S. government required other nation's troops to be present in Vietnam, as a show of flags in support of American foreign policy, General Harkins, understandably, did not want other nation commanders in his executive councils. Major General Charles Timmes, the head of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam (MAAG), the command structure to which the Australian team reported, told Serong in mid-June 1963 that Harkins did "not want the Australian crowd as initiators of policy" a concern, Timmes said, which had increased with the possible arrival of a New Zealand contingent. Throughout 1962 and 1963 we find Serong presenting Harkins with a steady stream of reports. A draft for a code of conduct, advice on broadening his sources of intelligence on the enemy, and a note on the key points necessary for the training of the ARVN. Serong's three requirements here were always the same: physical fitness, weapons drills, responsiveness to discipline. The same entry is repeated throughout the diaries. His training notes elaborate: inspection-concentrate on one thing each month, simple things are more important than technology, never give up a pursuit-no matter what. By February 1963 he was writing "at tonight's briefing Harkins gave the appearance of having lost his grasp of the strategic direction of the war, and being prepared to settle for the happenings of the day, the day to day trivia."(6 ) He resolved to accept an invitation from Major General William Yarborough to lecture at the Special Forces Training School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and to put his case in Washington for a unified U.S.-South Vietnamese command.

CONTINUED ...

Rising Sun*

09-10-2008, 07:55 PM

As early as September 1962 Serong had concluded that MACV's reports of progress in the war were wildly optimistic. Territory on the border was being lost in incursions into South Vietnam, he found, the numbers in the Viet Cong were increasing, and the Strategic Hamlet program, the basic internal strategy, was failing because it had been expanded without consolidation. His presentations to Harkins explaining this had no effect, although his analyses were sought by the CIA, in particular by John Richardson, then Saigon station chief, and by journalists critical of Harkins' leadership, among them David Halberstam of the New York Times. In May 1963 at Fort Bragg he elaborated on his analysis, although with some circumspection. You could get impressive figures by counting missions flown, casualties taken and inflicted, stores delivered and ammunition expended, he said, but the only real indicator of progress in a war of counterinsurgency was the volume of intelligence spontaneously offered by the population, since this was the indicator of whether or not the people believed you really could offer them security.(7)

At Fort Bragg, however, and in his talks to the National Security Council he encountered the problem of the junior ally. His advice on tactics and training methods were duly adopted into counterinsurgency courses, he was received and even feted by the representatives of the National Security Council he addressed, but in spite of some interest in his key point that the Strategic Hamlets program was "overextended", advancing too quickly and so leaving gaps for the penetration of the Viet Cong, he could have no influence on strategy.(8) And after all, Serong's rank was Colonel. No-one expected him to be formulating strategy. But he was, and his National Strategy for South Vietnam is instructive of his failure to understand the political considerations in Washington that would dictate the conduct of the war.

In 1962 Serong wrote that the most important thing was that there be a strategy, "something we can see as a positive and forward thing." So far so good, but, as we shall see surprisingly difficult to achieve. Then, "there must be a determination to carry the war to North Vietnam, to roll it back on themselves. It is erroneous to believe that if we continue to react the enemy will tire. He will not, because he is being sustained by China. The U.S. will tire before China, although U.S. has the greater strength, and could force China down if the game became build-up versus build up." The American domestic climate was not ripe for the roll-back, he continued, but what could be done was to negotiate with the Laotian government to cut off North Vietnamese access to South Vietnam through Laos, via the Ho Chi Minh trail. The Laotian city of Tchepone could be commercially developed, and so denied to the enemy, and the whole 17th parallel fortified for eventual war, U.S. regiment to Vietnamese regiment, against the North Vietnamese Army. Since Hanoi began to release materials from its archives in 1995, an oft repeated theme has been surprise that the U.S. did not act to cut off the trail through Laos.(9) This surprise may well be feigned, since fortifying the 17th parallel was never an option in Washington. Serong did not realize that W. Averell Harriman, in 1963 undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, whom he regarded for years as his best ally on the National Security Council, would be the strongest opponent to the disruption of the Laos Accords, which he, Harriman, had negotiated in the first place. He understood that the American public might not accept war with China, but not that the Vietnam war itself was of secondary importance to the real issue, which was American relations with Russia. He could not see from his vantage point in South Vietnam that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was the real issue for U.S. foreign policy planners. http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamcenter/events/1996_Symposium/96papers/tenyears.htm

B5N2KATE

09-11-2008, 06:00 AM

Rising Sun*

09-11-2008, 06:37 AM

Auatralian combat cameraman NEIL DAVIS covered the ARVN almost exclusively, because, as he said in Tim Bowden's biography of Davis ("One Crowded Hour")....

"The ARVN were doing the majority of the fighting. It was their war, after all....."

This post-war fiction that U.S. Forces conducted most of the important operations in Indochina is FICTION, propagated to this day as a sop for the lack of victory. ARVN operations were downsized when it became obvious to even the lowest of ARVN recruits that the war was unwinnable as prosecuted. Robert Mason recalls conversing with an SVN citizen recruited for work by the First Air Cavalry Division. This man described Ho Chi Minh is a "Great man, who was going to unify the country one day....."
Bob Mason recalls his disgust at this and other sentiments expressed by the very people that units like "The Cav" were supposed to be fighting FOR.....and further records his indignation at "exactly what they were attempting to achieve here."

That confirms my recollection about ARVN doing the bulk of the fighting, but I can't recall my sources.

In trying to find an internet source (I'm pretty sure there's an ARVN type website somewhere that I've seen), Google threw this up, which illustrates some of the problems ARVN soldiers faced against the wider background of American control of the war.

ARVN: Life and Death in the South Vietnamese Army . By Robert K. Brigham . ( : University of Kansas Press , 2006 . Pp. xiv, 178 . .)

In 1975 one in six able-bodied South Vietnamese males between the ages of sixteen and sixty served in the government's armed forces, and over two hundred thousand men had been lost in combat, but the story of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) soldier remains a black hole in the history of the Vietnam War. Robert K. Brigham's short study, based on interviews with former ARVN veterans and documents in Vietnamese government archives, provides illuminating insights into the lives of the ARVN soldiers.

Brigham confirms established interpretations of the larger causes of ARVN deficiencies and the failures of the Saigon government. However, his three chapters on conscription, training, and morale break new ground with their devastatingly detailed picture of ARVN's inexplicable disregard for the well-being of its men. The unprecedented introduction of universal conscription alienated much of the rural population by denuding the countryside of manpower essential to sustain rural life without providing security or other tangible benefits. Conditions only worsened after conscription. Inadequate political training, shockingly poor combat training, and indifference to the welfare of the soldiers generated feelings of victimization and estrangement. Brigham offers convincing evidence that recruits left boot camp unprepared for combat and convinced that they were inferior to the better-trained Communist forces. Morale was further undermined by low pay, bad food, and an almost nonexistent leave policy. As a result, the basic combat units of ARVN lacked the elemental bonds of solidarity with one another that are the mainstay of any fighting force.

Brigham is especially convincing in showing how individual soldiers adapted to such isolating circumstances. Soldiers brought their families into their barracks and military camps, gave first precedence to family survival, and they fought as members of an extended family. "The focus on families in the absence of any meaningful national program based on the Vietnamese concept of ai quoc (patriotism) meant that ARVN soldiers reverted to the familiar: the comfortable culture-bound dominance of the family in their daily lives." By contrast, "Communists had learned how to transfer filial piety from the family to the village and then to the state" (130).

Misguided American policies contributed to the problems. American advisors first transformed locally based light forces suited for antiguerrilla operations into heavy divisions equipped for conventional war. As ARVN became dependent on American aid, its training and tactics shifted according to ever-changing American preferences. When the U.S. assumed responsibility for major offensive operations in 1967, it relegated ARVN to a secondary role in policing pacified areas. By the time a new strategy of Vietnamization required a more proactive military posture, it was too late to reverse the consequences of long years of neglect and dependency on America.

Brigham's interviews vividly capture the feelings, aspirations, and fears of foot soldiers as they prepared for battle and coped with imminent defeat. ARVN offers thought-provoking insights and raises important questions, but the extreme brevity of the volume imposes significant limits. Although ARVN fought for over fifteen years and suffered very significant casualties, the analysis of its performance on the battlefield is limited to a few battles and a discussion of changing American strategy. Readers learn that some units fought well and others did not, but not why this was the case. The discussion of the Diem regime's approach to political indoctrination and conscription is excellent; by contrast, neither Nguyen Cao Ky nor Nguyen Van Thieu is mentioned by name.

ARVN is a significant contribution that whets our appetite to learn more about ARVN and its soldiers. It also should remind us of pitfalls awaiting American military advisors who want to impose American ways of military organization on allied forces. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119391008/HTMLSTART

B5N2KATE

09-11-2008, 06:59 AM

Here is a direct quote from Tim Bowden's "One Crowded Hour".....Page 93....
There is no question that reporting the ARVN ( Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) activities was tough and dangerous. Yet, Davis preferred to go with them than to go with other forces. It was their war, after all.
"It meant a great deal to them. They didn't have the sophisticated support that the Americans had, but I still thought their activities were a truer reflection of what was really happening in SVN. After the big American build-up in 1965, almost no foreign correspondents went with the South Vietnamese until after the big Tet Offensive in 1968, when they started to go with the ARVN again because the Americans were disengaging from then on.
I went with the ARVN troops because they did the bulk of the fighting. That was what the war was about. I believed it was necessary to emphasize this, particularly as they were getting almost no coverage from the rest of the international media.
It was much more comfortable to go with the Americans. You quite often had your own helicopter, and fresh food and water provided every day. You weren't guaranteed any of those things with the ARVN. You had to drink water from the rivers using tablets to purify it, and you ate their food, which was rice with maybe some vegetables and a small piece of fish."

Page 122....."....I would most likely be in the field and I would stay with a South Vietnamese unit for at least three days. There was no re-supply in the field like the pizza helicopters for the American troops. They really had pizzas and ice-cream helicoptered out to them - which was wonderful intelligence for the Viet Cong. Apart from the helicopters buzzing around and giving away their position, they could smell the pizzas!
Some American soldiers used to walk with transistor radios playing through earpieces - while they were allegedly on patrol in the jungle looking for the VC. Unfortunately they also carried too much gear, at least 30kgs of equipment, including very heavy flak jackets and armour....."

The U.S. media did not bother, in the main, to cover the ARVN in the same manner as they did their "own" forces, resulting in a lobsided journalistic picture developing, a situation only made worse by the continued and worsening situation on the ground. U.S. soldiers looked for a scapegoat, and found it in the ARVN. More than one account I've read of soldiery in Vietnam condemns the number of "Vietnamese draft dodgers" on the streets of Saigon after dark.
The sentiment seemed to be that ordinary folk in SVN would not fight for their own independence, which adversly affected American morale in all quarters of their effort. This is yet another failure by the media of the day to come to grips with the real picture of the situation in SVN....one that ALL Vietnamese were convinced would only end with the EXIT of U.S. Forces....

More quotes from "One Crowded Hour"....Page 121....
"From his earliest days in Vietnam in 1964, Neil Davis determined to film the Vietnam War from the perspective of the South Vietnamese infantryman. By doing so, he hoped to become familiar with the realities of the war in Vietnam, and although he was often a lone figure, he could give television viewers throughout the world a partial idea of what it was like to be a South Vietnamese soldier.
"I didn't have strong anti-communist feelings although a lot of my friends were on the anti-communist side. I just thought the Vietnamese people needed to work it out for themselves, and it was the responsibility of the foreign correspondants - who are allegedly non-aligned and absolutely neutral - to report fairly and accurately."
The unfair thing was that from the time the Americans came into SVN in force in 1965 until they announced a limited withdrawl in 1968, the impression given to the world was that the Americans were doing most of the fighting, while the inefficient and cowardly ARVN were sitting back and doing nothing.
That was not true, and the international press should accept responsibility for not telling the truth. It was innaccuracy by omission. The figures were available all the time, and clearly show that the South Vietnamese army lost at least 50% more men from 1965 to 1968 than the Americans, and it was constant, week after week.
I used to follow the figures constantly, and only in three weeks in three years did the Americans have more soldiers killled than the South Vietnamese. That is why I was determined to cover the ARVN fighting effort."

Page 123-124....
"In contrast to the Barnum and Bailey Circus, the average VC soldier carried very little equipment. He had his weapon, a sock of rice, and his ammunition. He had no flak jacket, no helmet or big boots, and was dressed in black pyjamas with rubber Ho Chi Minh sandals on his feet, enabling him to move quickly through a countryside he knew intimately."
After three days of slogging across paddies or through the jungle, the Americans were usually exhausted and easy prey for fresh communist troops.
The lightly equipped ARVN soldiers could cover from 8 to 15 miles in one day. The Americans woould be lucky to manage 4 (miles per day).
The VC had no respect for the Americans as soldiers. There were one or two American units - Special Forces, for instance - who were very good, and of course they respected them. But the average American units were treated with contempt because the men had no real jungle craft or sense of survival in the field. They used to call them "Elephants" because they would blunder around the jungle, and the VC could smell Americans literally a mile away - their toothpaste, cigarettes and shaving cream.
But the ARVN troops were also Vietnamese, and many of the soldiers were peasant boys like the VC. Sometimes it was brother against brother.
Actions speak louder than words, and in the Tet offensive of '68, when the NVA and VC launched nationwide attacks and captured many towns and villages, it was the South Vietnamese who did not break, who held on and won back territory.
For the first time, Americans at a high level realised that the ARVN troops could "do it". That was the beginning of the policy of "Vietnamization", but they had left it too late. Before that, they made it clear that they thought the South Vietnamese were the worst soldiers in Vietnam."

Rising Sun*

09-11-2008, 07:34 AM

Here is a direct quote from Tim Bowden's "One Crowded Hour".....Page 93....

There is no question that reporting the ARVN ( Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) activities was tough and dangerous. Yet, Davis preferred to go with them than to go with other forces. It was their war, after all.
"It meant a great deal to them. They didn't have the sophisticated support that the Americans had, but I still thought their activities were a truer reflection of what was really happening in SVN. After the big American build-up in 1965, almost no foreign correspondents went with the South Vietnamese until after the big Tet Offensive in 1968, when they started to go with the ARVN again because the Americans were disengaging from then on.
I went with the ARVN troops because they did the bulk of the fighting. That was what the war was about. I believed it was necessary to emphasize this, particularly as they were getting almost no coverage from the rest of the international media.
It was much more comfortable to go with the Americans. You quite often had your own helicopter, and fresh food and water provided every day. You weren't guaranteed any of those things with the ARVN. You had to drink water from the rivers using tablets to purify it, and you ate their food, which was rice with maybe some vegetables and a small piece of fish.

The U.S. media did not bother, in the main, to cover the ARVN in the same manner as they did their "own" forces, resulting in a lobsided journalistic picture developed, a situation only made worse by the continued and worsening situation on the ground. U.S. soldiers looked for a scapegoat, and found it in the ARVN. More than one account I've read of soldiery in Vietnam condemns the number of "Vietnamese draft dodgers" on the streets of Saigon after dark.
The sentiment seemed to be that ordinary folk in SVN would not fight for their own independence, which adversly affected American morale in all quarters of their effort. This is yet another failure by the media of the day to come to grips with the real picture of the situation in SVN....one that ALL Vietnamese were convinced would only end with the EXIT of U.S. Forces....

Thanks for that, and your earlier post.

The marvels of Google have thrown up some stuff that I'm pretty sure isn't what I saw a few years ago but it's to the same effect. It referred to and reminded me of Lewis Sorley's work to give the ARVN proper credit which, thanks again to Google, is easier to find than the ARVN (or maybe pro-SVN) website I was looking for, so I'll post quotes from those sources.

To establish Sorley's credentials:

Lewis Sorley served in Vietnam as executive officer of a tank battalion operating in the Central Highlands. A third-generation graduate of the United States Military Academy, he also holds a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. During two decades of military service he led tank and armored cavalry units in the United States and Germany as well as Vietnam, served in staff assignments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Army Chief of Staff, and was on the faculties at West Point and the Army War College.

He is the author of two biographies, Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times and Honorable Warrior: General Harold K. Johnson and the Ethics of Command, and a history entitled A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. He has also transcribed and edited Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes, 1968-1972. http://members.tripod.com/~nguyentin/arvn-sorley-2.htm

I'll post the full article later that this quote comes from, but the quote goes a long way to demonstrating that the ARVN could and did handle themselves well even in major formation battles, and how that's been forgotten.

Sorley writes movingly about Brigadier General Le Minh Dao, commanding the 18th Infantry Division ARVN, and the valiant resistance he mounted at Xuan Loc. Attacked by first three and then four divisions, the 18th held out for a month, destroying three North Vietnamese divisions before succumbing. The American advisor, Colonel Ray Battreall, said of this action :

That magnificent last stand deserves to live on in military history, if we can overcome the bias,
even in our own ranks, that ARVN was never capable of doing anything right.

But, of course, we've long forgotten this valiant stand, as we've forgotten so much else about the War, a War that officially ended with the South's surrender at 10:25 on April 30, 1975. http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/829

Rising Sun*

09-11-2008, 07:37 AM

Reassessing the ARVN

Americans know very little about the Vietnam War, even though it ended just over a quarter century ago. That is in part because those who opposed the war have seen it as in their interests to portray every aspect of the long struggle in the worst possible light, and indeed in some cases to falsify what they have had to say about it. This extends from wholesale defamation of the South Vietnamese and their conduct throughout a long and difficult struggle, to Jane Fonda's infamous claim that repatriated American prisoners of war who reported systematic abuse and torture by their captors were "liars" and "hypocrites."

I would like to speak to selected aspects of the war primarily having to do with the South Vietnamese, beginning with some of the many contrasts between the earlier and later years of major American involvement in the Vietnam War. In shorthand terms, the earlier years began with the introduction of American ground forces in 1965 and continued through a change of command not long after Tet 1968. The later period stretched from then through withdrawal of the last American forces in March 1973.

During the earlier years, with General William C. Westmoreland in command, the American approach was basically to take over the war from the South Vietnamese and try to win it militarily by conducting a war of attrition. The theory was that killing as many of the enemy as possible would eventually cause him to lose heart and cease aggression against the South. This earlier period was also characterized by recurring requests for more American troops to be dispatched to Vietnam, resulting in a peak commitment there of some 543,400.

In prosecuting this kind of war, General Westmoreland relied on search-and-destroy tactics carried out by large-scale forces, primarily in the deep jungles. Those tactics succeeded in their own terms--over the course of several years the enemy did suffer large numbers of casualties, horrifying numbers, really--but the expected result was not achieved. Meanwhile, given his single-minded devotion to a self-selected war of attrition, Westmoreland pretty much ignored two other key aspects of the war--pacification, and improvement of South Vietnam's armed forces.

Following the enemy's offensive at the time of Tet 1968, General Creighton W. Abrams replaced Westmoreland and brought to bear a much different outlook on the nature of the war and how it should be prosecuted. Abrams stressed "one war" of combat operations, pacification, and upgrading South Vietnam's armed forces, giving those latter two long-neglected tasks equal importance and priority with military operations.

Operations themselves also underwent a dramatic change. In place of "search and destroy" there was now "clear and hold," meaning that when Communist forces had been driven from populated areas, those areas were then permanently garrisoned by allied forces, not abandoned to be reoccupied by the enemy at some later date. Greatly expanded South Vietnamese Territorial Forces took on that security mission. Major General Nguyen Duy Hinh said that "expansion and upgrading of the Regional and Popular Forces" was "by far