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At 8/31/10 08:33 PM, Cootie wrote: Simple question.

I think it's quite a naive, and non serving question. Wars aren't games of sport, or quiz shows, they're not simply "won". I think "winning" in a war, has little to do with who has the best military, it has little to do with who has the best strategists. "WInning" in a war, has little to do with anything.

I actually don't think we really lost. We just withdrew.

Surely this is a contradiction of terms. If an invading force withdraws, it tends to suggest that the defending forces have bested them. Let's look at an alternative example, me and you are engaged in a fist fight. It's been going on for quite some time, theres no clearly better fighter. I stop fighting and walk away. If I were to latter try and say, oh no I didn't surrender, I was just withdrawing, you'd think I was being silly. That seems quite similar to what your implying.

Plenty of people think that we were afraid an totally defeated by the Vietnamese. This isn't true at all. It wasn't "Please spare us North Vietnam. We will never mess with you again". It was "We are tired of the media fussing and you really aren't worth our time."

Have you ever spoken with a Vietnam war veteran? I haven't, I have read a few accounts of the war though. The impression that I was given? That generally speaking, the American forces were scared out their pants (and rightly so). They had no way to know when the next surprise attack would be launched, no way to measure how many traps had been planted, or where, no way to know which of the local people they could trust, no way to know if the nearest village was going to sell their position to the guerillas, no way to know quite what they were facing. As far as I can tell, Americans were very very afraid. This is in no way a negative, just a fact of warfare.

I think we could have easily beaten them if we weren't so afraid to use our full military might. Pressure from the citizens is what made the USA decide to quit and leave.

We will never be able to confirm the extent to which this is true/iuntrue.

People seem to think that we were unable to defeat them.

Guerrilla warfare is practically impossible to fight against in the conventional means. Look at the conflict in Afghanistan, how much real progress do you think has been made in the last 6 years? I think very, very little.

The Afghans have an unsurpassable knowledge of their local geography. They know which spots to hide from, which spots to keep their stockpiles on, which points to cut off, which routes to use as transport etc. etc. They don't really "hold" any territory, but launch endless hit and run attacks against the invading forces. They can't really be beaten. It was a widely similar situation in Vietnam.

I believe that we could have turned North Vietnam into pure fertile soil for the South Vietnamese farmers. If we had wanted to we could have left it in a state where there were no buildings, towns, people, or trees.

What purpose would this have served?

I just thought it was silly when the Vietnam team on Deadliest Warrior claimed that they had defeated the USA and taunted the Nazi solider with this.

Do you think that we were really defeated in Vietnam and they outclassed us?

Yes. But war is a silly expensive game to play with anyway.

At 8/31/10 08:33 PM, Cootie wrote: Simple question.

I actually don't think we really lost. We just withdrew. Plenty of people think that we were afraid an totally defeated by the Vietnamese. This isn't true at all. It wasn't "Please spare us North Vietnam. We will never mess with you again". It was "We are tired of the media fussing and you really aren't worth our time."

I think we could have easily beaten them if we weren't so afraid to use our full military might. Pressure from the citizens is what made the USA decide to quit and leave. People seem to think that we were unable to defeat them. I believe that we could have turned North Vietnam into pure fertile soil for the South Vietnamese farmers. If we had wanted to we could have left it in a state where there were no buildings, towns, people, or trees.

I just thought it was silly when the Vietnam team on Deadliest Warrior claimed that they had defeated the USA and taunted the Nazi solider with this.

Do you think that we were really defeated in Vietnam and they outclassed us?

We could've won if we killed every single non-white mother fucker in French Indo-China, but thats not a good idea.

Ignore Deadliest Warrior talks about history, they just consider soldier on soldier tactics, not army tactics or strategic decisions but they still use those as examples.

They were in their own environment that they were used to and they were using guerrilla tactics against us. If we had continued to fight by using guns, we might have eventually lost. But we had the power of the nuke that Vietnam lacked. Sure we could have won.

What a redundant question.

The Germans could have won both world wars if they, you know, didn't lose them.

At 9/1/10 12:28 AM, Saxturbation wrote: But we had the power of the nuke that Vietnam lacked. Sure we could have won.

Because China would have accepted the use of nuclear weapons on its neighbour without retaliation, of course.

Which, by the way, is the major argument against an invasion of North Vietnam. Johnson feared, with justification, that the Chinese would not accept US action so close to its borders and respond with force. Considering the firepower both sides possessed by this time, that was a pretty frightening prospect.

We won the war but not the politics.

At 9/1/10 12:02 AM, VladimirLenin wrote: Cause and effect. America withdrew because it was losing the war.

Seeing that you're "VladimirLenin", I cans see why.

My woodshop teacher was one of the first navy Seals in the veitnam war before they were well known. They don't tell you alot of the darker stuff that happened during that war he told be they could of won the war but they pulled them out. They had them rigged to be killing machines he's told me all kinds of crazy war stories. He's like my personal hero in a way.

At 9/1/10 10:32 AM, smeagol1 wrote: My woodshop teacher was one of the first navy Seals in the veitnam war before they were well known. They don't tell you alot of the darker stuff that happened during that war he told be they could of won the war but they pulled them out. They had them rigged to be killing machines he's told me all kinds of crazy war stories. He's like my personal hero in a way.

War is hell alright.

Though in M*A*S*H they came up with a more accurate description, in a way it's worse than hell.

America lost the war and it was kinda humiliating. So, there are still people who can't believe the USA lost the battle agains Vietnam... Don't guide yourself by movies. Better read articles and other stuff about the real historical facts.

At 9/1/10 11:11 AM, Jagll wrote: Better read articles and other stuff about the real historical facts.

Which is how it is possible to win majority of the battles and still lose the war. The North Vietnamese and the Vietcongs never won any major battle against the U.S. What they did is by using unconventional warfare, they stretched it where as time goes by, it led to the reason why the U.S. left.

We lost. Why else would they not teach it in schools here?

Just like how Germany doesn't teach about WWII

The main factor that made us lose the war was that the Vietnamese would simply not give up, no matter what we did. They lost nearly every battle against us, but they simply would not stop fighting (at least that is what my history teacher said) so the only way to permanently get rid of them would probably to use something drastic, like nuclear weapons on the capital building of theirs, or something like that.

At 9/1/10 11:40 AM, Ericho wrote: The main factor that made us lose the war was that the Vietnamese would simply not give up, no matter what we did. They lost nearly every battle against us, but they simply would not stop fighting (at least that is what my history teacher said) so the only way to permanently get rid of them would probably to use something drastic, like nuclear weapons on the capital building of theirs, or something like that.

Yeah, it's been said many times but I'm not sure people will read it. Only thing we do know is that the war is still debatable.

Where is cellardoor6 when you need him?

no, we were following traditional warfare in their land and they were hiding in trees and taking out americans 3 or 4 times faster than we were taking them out. We were doomed from the start

We pulled out to be honest. If they so to speak, followed us back to america to war with us, we would have turned them into mushed meat. I still support the poisoning of crop feilds, but thats just me.

Yes, we lost. We can't beat guerilla warfare.

He once showed me a hand to hand combat tech where you literally split a persons hand down to the arm in half by grabbing the four fingers on the hand with both hands (two in each) and just rip them in half. He also said they had made necklaces of ears from the veitcong they killed.

Yeah alot of history is lies btw they don't tell the real stories for a reason. they are brutal.

i agree, but even past using our full military, it'd help if we didnt take a villiage over, then leave and let charlie retake it, and hell, if we can agent orange them, why cant we neuk them? and you ever notice that charlie sheen and martin sheen are both in vietnam movies.

I'll fucking defeat you if you don't stop making threads.

Quit trying to sugar coat it Private Soft Nuts. You lost fair and square!

Despite it's ruthlessness and brutality, the Vietnam war definitely gave us some very cool, iconic images.

We (America) lost the war in Vietnam. Why? Because we had failed to do our job. Our job? To protect South Vietnam. South Vietnam no longer exists.

The US was forced to fight a defensive war. No large-scale offensives were made by the US into North Vietnam. That being said, our mission was not to conquer the North Vietnamese, but to simply protect South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese forces. It is foolish to think that North Vietnamese militiamen "beat" the US. As far as the daily fighting, the US was winning its battles. The US was inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy due to the US's far more superior military.

To answer the OP's question: No. We could not have "won" the war, because it was not our goal to win the war. Our goal was to assist South Vietnam win the war.

REASON WHY WE DIDNT WIN

We did not have air superiority. Russian migs fucked up our air force.

At 9/1/10 02:18 PM, SymbolCymbal wrote: REASON WHY WE DIDNT WIN

We did not have air superiority. Russian migs fucked up our air force.

Partially correct.

In the beginning of the war, we had lost touch with traditional air fighting tactics and instead relied on new missile technology. This lead to lower quality pilots. The early missiles failed to do their job, and the pilots did not know how to handle the Russian aircraft (and the Russian pilots). The old methods were brought back fairly quickly and complete air superiority was established.

Throughout the entire war we had air superiority, but it wasn't until after the beginning period of the war did we gain complete, unchallenged air superiority.

The US air combat kill ratio was 12:1 (For every 12 of their aircraft destroyed, we lost one).

At 9/1/10 10:25 AM, Idiot-Finder wrote: Seeing that you're "VladimirLenin", I cans see why.

Try and address the points I actually made rather than trying to discredit them with reference to my alias.

Also, this argument about the USA winning ever major battle ignores the reality of guerrilla warfare. The fact is that there were few major, set-piece battles as the Vietcong knew the USA would have the advantage. They knew that major battles favoured the USA's superior firepower, and so tried to avoid them. Every time the US helis dropped their massive noisy bombs in an area, the Vietcong knew an attack was coming and so could melt away into the jungle, thus avoiding a direct confrontation, before returning later when the Americans left. It was in the use of ambushes and rapid, unexpected attacks that they held the upper hand, and these were the sort of brutal, brief confrontations that characterised the war.

This comes from personal experience with the RAND Corporation (see: Pentagon Papers) and a pretty good understanding of military history.

Here were the options the United States had, as they presented themselves in the late 60's:

A. Pull out
B. Kill everyone in Vietnam with communist sympathies and burn down all of the region's forests, using gunship brigades and missile cruisers to rain down holy hell on everyone within a hundred miles of Tôn %u0110%u1EE9c Th%u1EAFng

A guerrilla war can only be won by killing all of the guerrillas.

At 9/1/10 02:38 PM, RWT wrote:

A guerrilla war can only be won by killing all of the guerrillas.

Well said though Waggs made a better point but still, you got it as well.

Too bad for John Lenin though...

At 9/1/10 08:22 PM, Dannyx28 wrote: You just gotta...

It's going to haunt me in my dreams for the rest of my life.