Vietnam War was unwinnable

[harmonica]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Evidently you never heard of SEATO....look it up!

what's your point?

 

[elektra]

..so we commit to total war on North Vietnam for WHAT reason???!!!!!

Total war? Again you prove you know nothing. Here you exaggerate our involvement. We did not use our nuclear bombs. We did not bomb Hanoi. We did not follow the Weapons Supply Chain to it's source. You can not describe Vietnam as total war. It was not. That you do shows you only have your opinion.

 

[rightwinger]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Yes, and no.

Obviously if you put in place all of the restrictions on how to win the war.... then yes, you can't win the war.

It's like going into a boxing match, and saying

"You can't move from the spot you start on, and you can only hit back, if you have been hit yourself."

If you put those restrictions on yourself in a boxing match, you are going to lose the boxing match.

If the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

As soon as Nixon in 1972, ordered a theater wide unrestricted war on North Vietnam, the N.Vet came to the negotiating table. Nixon approved of the mass offensive in February. Intensified the attack in May. By October, the North Vietnamese were the ones asking for negotiations.

If we had done that in 1965, we would have ended the war.

There is not a single time, at any point in the entire Vietnam war, where enemy troops confronted US troops directly, and did not lose. The US military was better trained, better supplied, better equipped, had better air and ground support, artillery support, navel support, and so on.

Every time we confronted enemy troops, they folded... even when they out numbered US troops, and sometimes by a wide margin.

We could have gone straight to Hanoi, and won the war.

Instead we put restrictions on ourselves, that made it impossible to win. You can't win a war, by not attacking the enemy. You can't win a war, by only playing defense.

Think about it like Football. Can you ever win a game of football without offense? Can you ever win the game, without ever going on the other teams side of the field?

But that is exactly how we played the Vietnam war. We stayed on our side of the field, and marched around, expecting... what? The enemy to all commit suicide? Of course you can't win, without ever going at the enemy.

you--like a lot of people--think unrealistically and like it's a board game--this is a common problem with people--and you don't know history:
--so, to very easily refute your post---we go ''flatten North Korea and then we are at TOTAL war with China!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

..so Mr Genius--please tell me how do we defeat China?

Are you kidding? China didn't barely have jack. In fact, having read about this, China was begging Stalin to let them drop the Vietnam war. It was draining their resources, and killing them economically.

Remember China just had the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 to 1960. The first half the 1960s of China was barely making a recovery.

And just by 1965, when things were almost at least back to where they were before the 1958 'leap to hell', then they engaged in the cultural revolution.

One of the idiotic things they did during the cultural revolution, was place all the factories and manufacturing plants, under the control of the revolutionary army. The managers and operators and knowledgeable people, were all replaced with military people. And unlike the US, these were not West Point trained officers, but rather just any idiot that was loyal to the communist party.

The people who knew how the factories worked, were sent to work the fields in the rural countryside.

In 1967 alone, production dropped 14%. That's insane. And keep in mind, China wasn't even a fraction as advanced as the US was, at that time. To lose 14% production in one year, when they didn't have that much production to begin with, was devastating.

And remember, in 1958, the entire Chinese arm was made up of peasants.

Again, if we had simply pushed to Hanoi in 1965, this would have been over. China could not have stopped us. Not even come close. Waves of peasants, would not have stopped fully supported US military advances.

And honestly, based on the huge critical issues throughout the China economy, they really would not have tried to stop us. If we had absolutely rolled in mass, towards Hanoi, they would have stepped back and let us go.

It is that arrogant dismissal of the capabilities of our adversaries that led to so many US deaths in Korea and Vietnam.

 

[Andylusion]

f the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

That is what Gen MacArthur said.
In a matter of about a month, his forces swept north of the 39 th parallel and chased the N Koreans all the way to the Yalu River.

That is when the Chinese forces came in and swarmed our unsuspecting forces and drove us back south of the 39th parallel. Ended up killing 50,000 American forces.

We wanted to avoid the same mistake in Vietnam

Which is only because they retreated. If you follow up on what happened after this, every time the UN forces stood their ground, and fought, they slaughtered the Chinese.

Especially the Chinese of army of the 1950s, was in fact a peasant army. They were not hardly trained at all.

 

[harmonica]

..the US was involved with Vietnam for over 7 years!!!!!

Yes you are right, but 7 years is so short of the actual years of our involvement you prove you know nothing about Vietnam.

hahahahhahah???!!!!!!! are you shitting me?
you don't see the word OVER ??!!!

 

[rightwinger]

..so we commit to total war on North Vietnam for WHAT reason???!!!!!

Total war? Again you prove you know nothing. Here you exaggerate our involvement. We did not use our nuclear bombs. We did not bomb Hanoi. We did not follow the Weapons Supply Chain to it's source. You can not describe Vietnam as total war. It was not. That you do shows you only have your opinion.

You didn’t answer his question.

What do you think total war would have achieved?

 

[elektra]

ending the war in 1965 with bombing!!!!!!!?????????????
..this proves you don't know history--and you haven't followed the thread or don't understand:
we destroyed all of Japan's major cities---and bombed the shit out of Germany--they did not surrender until the Allies were in Berlin and we used the Abombs---even after the Abombs, the vote for surrender was TIED 3-3 !!
.....wrong and double wrong--the war would not have been war by bombing...please read some history

Vietnam was not Germany, equating the two simply shows you really, really, don't know anything about Vietnam.

 

[harmonica]

..so we commit to total war on North Vietnam for WHAT reason???!!!!!

Total war? Again you prove you know nothing. Here you exaggerate our involvement. We did not use our nuclear bombs. We did not bomb Hanoi. We did not follow the Weapons Supply Chain to it's source. You can not describe Vietnam as total war. It was not. That you do shows you only have your opinion.

hahahhahahah---troller? I did not say it was a total war----you said you wanted the US to commit to total war
..do you have a hangover? durgs?

 

[rightwinger]

f the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

That is what Gen MacArthur said.
In a matter of about a month, his forces swept north of the 39 th parallel and chased the N Koreans all the way to the Yalu River.

That is when the Chinese forces came in and swarmed our unsuspecting forces and drove us back south of the 39th parallel. Ended up killing 50,000 American forces.

We wanted to avoid the same mistake in Vietnam

Which is only because they retreated. If you follow up on what happened after this, every time the UN forces stood their ground, and fought, they slaughtered the Chinese.

Especially the Chinese of army of the 1950s, was in fact a peasant army. They were not hardly trained at all.

Damn boy, are you ever ignorant of history.

The Chinese forces overwhelmed us. We ran for our lives

 

[harmonica]

ending the war in 1965 with bombing!!!!!!!?????????????
..this proves you don't know history--and you haven't followed the thread or don't understand:
we destroyed all of Japan's major cities---and bombed the shit out of Germany--they did not surrender until the Allies were in Berlin and we used the Abombs---even after the Abombs, the vote for surrender was TIED 3-3 !!
.....wrong and double wrong--the war would not have been war by bombing...please read some history

Vietnam was not Germany, equating the two simply shows you really, really, don't know anything about Vietnam.

..in fact, Germany was much more industrious/etc than Vietnam----so bombing the crap out of Vietnam was even LESS effective

 

[harmonica]

ending the war in 1965 with bombing!!!!!!!?????????????
..this proves you don't know history--and you haven't followed the thread or don't understand:
we destroyed all of Japan's major cities---and bombed the shit out of Germany--they did not surrender until the Allies were in Berlin and we used the Abombs---even after the Abombs, the vote for surrender was TIED 3-3 !!
.....wrong and double wrong--the war would not have been war by bombing...please read some history

Vietnam was not Germany, equating the two simply shows you really, really, don't know anything about Vietnam.

..what were we going to flatten?? a bunch of grass huts? they were getting a lot of their weapons from China and Russia
woooooohooooo

 

[elektra]

hahahahhahah???!!!!!!! are you shitting me?
you don't see the word OVER ??!!!

We were involved in Vietnam over 20 years, that is why your comment is so ridiculous. You could of said, "we were involved in Vietnam over 1 year", you would be right but it proves you have no concept of what you are talking about. You have no idea how long we were involved hence you low ball the amount of time without realizing your 1st grade mistake. Now you defend it? Without even thinking it is time to pull your head out of your ass?

 

[Andylusion]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Yes, and no.

Obviously if you put in place all of the restrictions on how to win the war.... then yes, you can't win the war.

It's like going into a boxing match, and saying

"You can't move from the spot you start on, and you can only hit back, if you have been hit yourself."

If you put those restrictions on yourself in a boxing match, you are going to lose the boxing match.

If the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

As soon as Nixon in 1972, ordered a theater wide unrestricted war on North Vietnam, the N.Vet came to the negotiating table. Nixon approved of the mass offensive in February. Intensified the attack in May. By October, the North Vietnamese were the ones asking for negotiations.

If we had done that in 1965, we would have ended the war.

There is not a single time, at any point in the entire Vietnam war, where enemy troops confronted US troops directly, and did not lose. The US military was better trained, better supplied, better equipped, had better air and ground support, artillery support, navel support, and so on.

Every time we confronted enemy troops, they folded... even when they out numbered US troops, and sometimes by a wide margin.

We could have gone straight to Hanoi, and won the war.

Instead we put restrictions on ourselves, that made it impossible to win. You can't win a war, by not attacking the enemy. You can't win a war, by only playing defense.

Think about it like Football. Can you ever win a game of football without offense? Can you ever win the game, without ever going on the other teams side of the field?

But that is exactly how we played the Vietnam war. We stayed on our side of the field, and marched around, expecting... what? The enemy to all commit suicide? Of course you can't win, without ever going at the enemy.

you--like a lot of people--think unrealistically and like it's a board game--this is a common problem with people--and you don't know history:
--so, to very easily refute your post---we go ''flatten North Korea and then we are at TOTAL war with China!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

..so Mr Genius--please tell me how do we defeat China?

Are you kidding? China didn't barely have jack. In fact, having read about this, China was begging Stalin to let them drop the Vietnam war. It was draining their resources, and killing them economically.

Remember China just had the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 to 1960. The first half the 1960s of China was barely making a recovery.

And just by 1965, when things were almost at least back to where they were before the 1958 'leap to hell', then they engaged in the cultural revolution.

One of the idiotic things they did during the cultural revolution, was place all the factories and manufacturing plants, under the control of the revolutionary army. The managers and operators and knowledgeable people, were all replaced with military people. And unlike the US, these were not West Point trained officers, but rather just any idiot that was loyal to the communist party.

The people who knew how the factories worked, were sent to work the fields in the rural countryside.

In 1967 alone, production dropped 14%. That's insane. And keep in mind, China wasn't even a fraction as advanced as the US was, at that time. To lose 14% production in one year, when they didn't have that much production to begin with, was devastating.

And remember, in 1958, the entire Chinese arm was made up of peasants.

Again, if we had simply pushed to Hanoi in 1965, this would have been over. China could not have stopped us. Not even come close. Waves of peasants, would not have stopped fully supported US military advances.

And honestly, based on the huge critical issues throughout the China economy, they really would not have tried to stop us. If we had absolutely rolled in mass, towards Hanoi, they would have stepped back and let us go.

It is that arrogant dismissal of the capabilities of our adversaries that led to so many US deaths in Korea and Vietnam.

No it's a fact. That's just a fact. The Tet Offensive is a perfect example. The North Vietnamese specifically picked targets where there were few American Troops present, because they knew they would get slaughtered.

Not only that, but despite being a surprise attack, that focused on the least risky targets, it actually was a massive defeat for the North Vietnamese.

No, what killed our troops, was making it impossible for them to kill the enemy.

One particularly devastating story from a officer, was him recounting watching the enemy build a fire base to attack his base from, and not being allowed to call in an air strike, until they were actually being attacked, and men were actually dying.

Then after destroying the fire base, they wouldn't be allowed to go and finish off the people at the base. So they would watch them rebuild the base again, and still not be allowed to order an air strike, until once again they were being attacked and men were dying.

This is why our military personnel were killed. And that was due to left-wingers. No right-wing person believes that you can win a boxing match by not being allowed to move, and not being allowed to attack.

Left-wingers killed those troops.

 

[harmonica]

hahahahhahah???!!!!!!! are you shitting me?
you don't see the word OVER ??!!!

We were involved in Vietnam over 20 years, that is why your comment is so ridiculous. You could of said, "we were involved in Vietnam over 1 year", you would be right but it proves you have no concept of what you are talking about. You have no idea how long we were involved hence you low ball the amount of time without realizing your 1st grade mistake. Now you defend it? Without even thinking it is time to pull your head out of your ass?

..not only do you not know history, you don't understand basic English

 

[elektra]

..in fact, Germany was much more industrious/etc than Vietnam----so bombing the crap out of Vietnam was even LESS effective

And that is your logic? Why do you not go out and get educated on this subject before you start posting your opinion? You know absolutely nothing about Vietnam other than what you are learning with your google searches as you put your foot in your mouth.

 

[harmonica]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Yes, and no.

Obviously if you put in place all of the restrictions on how to win the war.... then yes, you can't win the war.

It's like going into a boxing match, and saying

"You can't move from the spot you start on, and you can only hit back, if you have been hit yourself."

If you put those restrictions on yourself in a boxing match, you are going to lose the boxing match.

If the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

As soon as Nixon in 1972, ordered a theater wide unrestricted war on North Vietnam, the N.Vet came to the negotiating table. Nixon approved of the mass offensive in February. Intensified the attack in May. By October, the North Vietnamese were the ones asking for negotiations.

If we had done that in 1965, we would have ended the war.

There is not a single time, at any point in the entire Vietnam war, where enemy troops confronted US troops directly, and did not lose. The US military was better trained, better supplied, better equipped, had better air and ground support, artillery support, navel support, and so on.

Every time we confronted enemy troops, they folded... even when they out numbered US troops, and sometimes by a wide margin.

We could have gone straight to Hanoi, and won the war.

Instead we put restrictions on ourselves, that made it impossible to win. You can't win a war, by not attacking the enemy. You can't win a war, by only playing defense.

Think about it like Football. Can you ever win a game of football without offense? Can you ever win the game, without ever going on the other teams side of the field?

But that is exactly how we played the Vietnam war. We stayed on our side of the field, and marched around, expecting... what? The enemy to all commit suicide? Of course you can't win, without ever going at the enemy.

you--like a lot of people--think unrealistically and like it's a board game--this is a common problem with people--and you don't know history:
--so, to very easily refute your post---we go ''flatten North Korea and then we are at TOTAL war with China!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

..so Mr Genius--please tell me how do we defeat China?

Are you kidding? China didn't barely have jack. In fact, having read about this, China was begging Stalin to let them drop the Vietnam war. It was draining their resources, and killing them economically.

Remember China just had the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 to 1960. The first half the 1960s of China was barely making a recovery.

And just by 1965, when things were almost at least back to where they were before the 1958 'leap to hell', then they engaged in the cultural revolution.

One of the idiotic things they did during the cultural revolution, was place all the factories and manufacturing plants, under the control of the revolutionary army. The managers and operators and knowledgeable people, were all replaced with military people. And unlike the US, these were not West Point trained officers, but rather just any idiot that was loyal to the communist party.

The people who knew how the factories worked, were sent to work the fields in the rural countryside.

In 1967 alone, production dropped 14%. That's insane. And keep in mind, China wasn't even a fraction as advanced as the US was, at that time. To lose 14% production in one year, when they didn't have that much production to begin with, was devastating.

And remember, in 1958, the entire Chinese arm was made up of peasants.

Again, if we had simply pushed to Hanoi in 1965, this would have been over. China could not have stopped us. Not even come close. Waves of peasants, would not have stopped fully supported US military advances.

And honestly, based on the huge critical issues throughout the China economy, they really would not have tried to stop us. If we had absolutely rolled in mass, towards Hanoi, they would have stepped back and let us go.

It is that arrogant dismissal of the capabilities of our adversaries that led to so many US deaths in Korea and Vietnam.

No it's a fact. That's just a fact. The Tet Offensive is a perfect example. The North Vietnamese specifically picked targets where there were few American Troops present, because they knew they would get slaughtered.

Not only that, but despite being a surprise attack, that focused on the least risky targets, it actually was a massive defeat for the North Vietnamese.

No, what killed our troops, was making it impossible for them to kill the enemy.

One particularly devastating story from a officer, was him recounting watching the enemy build a fire base to attack his base from, and not being allowed to call in an air strike, until they were actually being attacked, and men were actually dying.

Then after destroying the fire base, they wouldn't be allowed to go and finish off the people at the base. So they would watch them rebuild the base again, and still not be allowed to order an air strike, until once again they were being attacked and men were dying.

This is why our military personnel were killed. And that was due to left-wingers. No right-wing person believes that you can win a boxing match by not being allowed to move, and not being allowed to attack.

Left-wingers killed those troops.

..so we finish the people off at the base? then what? how do we win?

..we finished off the base at Hamburger Hill--then we left!!! in a lot of battles we had a greater body count......

 

[harmonica]

..in fact, Germany was much more industrious/etc than Vietnam----so bombing the crap out of Vietnam was even LESS effective

And that is your logic? Why do you not go out and get educated on this subject before you start posting your opinion? You know absolutely nothing about Vietnam other than what you are learning with your google searches as you put your foot in your mouth.

hahahhahahahah...ok
you STILL have not posted any proof = just babble

 

[elektra]

..not only do you not know history, you don't understand basic English

That is not an educated reply to what I posted. It stands as fact and shows you have not the education to discuss Vietnam with me. We were involved over 20 years in Vietnam. By far a much longer time than the 7 years you think we were involved.

 

[Andylusion]

f the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

That is what Gen MacArthur said.
In a matter of about a month, his forces swept north of the 39 th parallel and chased the N Koreans all the way to the Yalu River.

That is when the Chinese forces came in and swarmed our unsuspecting forces and drove us back south of the 39th parallel. Ended up killing 50,000 American forces.

We wanted to avoid the same mistake in Vietnam

Which is only because they retreated. If you follow up on what happened after this, every time the UN forces stood their ground, and fought, they slaughtered the Chinese.

Especially the Chinese of army of the 1950s, was in fact a peasant army. They were not hardly trained at all.

Damn boy, are you ever ignorant of history.

The Chinese forces overwhelmed us. We ran for our lives

Allies remember Jipyeong-ri victory

With the battlefield silent for 60 years, and the fighting positions nearly overgrown by the country’s economic growth, Korean, American and French military leaders paid homage to the service members who fought in a key victory during the Korean War – the Battle of Jipyeong-ri (Chipyong-ni).

www.dvidshub.net

Surrounded on all sides, the Warrior Division’s 23rd Regimental Combat Team with an attached French Battalion was hemmed in by roughly 25,000 Chinese Communist Forces around Jipyeong-ri. United Nations Forces had previously retreated in the face of the CCF instead of getting cut off, but this time they stood and fought.

“A relatively small force of 5,600 allied soldiers of the 23rd Regimental Combat Team and a partnering French Army Battalion under the command of Col. Paul L. Freeman formed a defensive perimeter on this ground in February of 1951,” said Maj. Gen. Michael S. Tucker, the 2nd ID commander. “Jipyeong-ri was an important transportation and communication hub, and therefore very prominent on the list of enemy targets.”

U.N. Forces were outnumbered but fought hard, Tucker added.

“All told, the allies fought at odds of roughly 15 to one,” he said. “For two horrific, bloody, frigid nights, the American and French soldiers held against impossible odds.”
============================
So let's review:

25,000 Chinese
5,600 French and US troops.

We won.

Explains?

 

[elektra]

hahahhahahahah...ok
you STILL have not posted any proof = just babble

I do not need to prove my facts. It is your OP, your thread. You have babbled, as you call it, over and over. You are actually babbling to me. Proving you are a hypocrite, because you have not sourced nor linked nor offered anything counter to what I have stated. You are simply proving you have to run to google and try to pull your foot out of your mouth.