Vietnam War---alternative strategy

I wonder if US did not use the stupid old tactics in Vietnam, and instead use the famous Blitzkrieg invented by hitler, deploy massive air force control over all Vietnam, send elite mobile army force, special force, and seige the shore by submarines in a few days, like what hitler did to Poland, then US probably wouldn't lose Vietnam War. What do you think?

 

i think it was a stupid fucking war that should never have happened
win or not

 

yes, that may have worked. but the u.s. did not want to win vietnam. often times soldiers would move forward, take some areas, and then fall back. they wouldn't try to retain anything they took. it was a war meant to feed the military machine. but, in the end, it doesn't really matter, i agree with indian~summer, it was a stupid fucking war that should never have happened.

 

I dont see why it was dumber than any other war...

 

it was dumber (lol, i don't think that is a word, but, meh) because it had no point. the intention was not to win. it was to feed the military machine. the way america went about it ensured that the war was un-winnable. it's just sickening to think of all the unnecisary deaths.

 

Not too mention the consequences of the American bombings in the rest of Indochina...Khmer Rogue in Cambodia...I will never ever forget my visit to S-21 in Phnom Pehn and the Killing fields...

 

and not just the casualties of the war over seas there were casualties in america too
it should never have happened

 

well i think if US used Blitzkrieg we would win it in 10 days at most. Johnson is a domb rogue.

 

^^ No chance. Guerrilla warfare, the North Vietnamese had the backing from most the countryside, they outnumbered the US/Australian forces by at least 10 to 1...The terrain played probably the biggest factor...Have you ever been to Vietnam? If so you'll know what I mean.

 

The US lost Vietnam on the public relations end, not a military one. People we're realising how stupid it was to be there, and how many more people would need to die to win.

We could have won in Vietnam, but we decided that it wasn't worth it. Probably for the best, although I would contend that just because we should have withdrawn from Vietnam, we shouldn't have let the Chinese instill the Cambodian government.

 

And although Peterness 10-1 figure is way off base, I do agree that the terrain made a blitzkrieg type of strategy inneffective, as did the governments heavy political funding from China and to a lesser extent the soviets.

It was essentially more of a proxy war then a battle to capture land. Also blitzkrieg was a somewhat outdatted strategy by the end of World War 2, due to increases in allied air power, and the fact that most important targets in Vietnam were covered by a forest level impenetrable to heavy artillery.

 

How about this for a stradegy; we sided with ho chi mihn when he asked for our help, and told the French to get the fuck out or we'd let the Germans back into their country? The result; a unified socialist democracy in Vietnam with a pro-western oreintation.

 

kennedy called it an unwinnable war and was trying not to get involved. unfortunately the american coup de tete of 1963 saw the death of kennedy and the never ending violence that has stayed since his death to present day. there are no patriots in the american government and they certainly aren't faithful to the constitution nor to human rights.

 

Apart from the appaling cost of human misery;this was a massive failure of U.S. foreign policy/strategy although millitarily the U.S. never lost the war at all.They crushed The 'Tet Offensive' but the media reported it as a victory for the Viet-Cong.
When you say "Use Blitzkrieg tactics" that was pretty much what the U.S. was doing with 'rolling thunder' blanket bombing of North Vietnam in the 'scorched earth' policy.
The U.S. dropped everything they had on the North Vietnamese except the kitchen sink.
The problem was that the U.S. were fighting a land war,a conventional war when they should have been fighting a jungle guerrilla war.
The British had the right idea in Malaya where they succeeded in a total victory over the communists in the 1950s.
Wasn't there a huge court case involving the CBS '60 Minutes' documentary news programme that accused of General Westmoreland of 'deliberately distorting the successes of engagements to President Johnson-creating a false sense of victory'.
I don't really want to even think about this war: - it left more than two million vietnamese civillians & combatants dead & 60,000 U.S. servicemen dead.

 

I believe that it left 2.4 million Vietnamese dead.

 

Sorry to nit-pick but the Chinese didn't 'install' Pol Pot and the Khmer Rogue.

They may have supplied them with weapons and supplies but they certainly didn't install them. The KR came to power on their own accord taking advantage of the American bombardment and the anger this generated in combination with the US backed military regieme at the time that controlled the Khmer state.

 

Maybe, maybe not...It depends how you define a 'soldier'...if you count a angry villager with a grenade looking for revenge then its probably not such a wild figure.

 

Not too mention the post-war death toll caused by 'agent orange' and unexploded ordinance.
And also , something that historians almost always ignore, the massive destruction to Vietnams natural environment.

US presence in Vietnam , Cambodia and Lao only lead to more support for the NVA, Khmer Rogue and Pathet Lao and lead to all of those ceasing power of those countries in quick succession...Only a matter of weeks after Saigon fell so did Phnom Penh and Vientiane. This lead to the Cambodian holocaust, a mass exodus in Lao and another 2 conflicts for Vietnam (the invasion and occupation of Cambodia and the short Chinese 'invasion' of the north)...The loss of life in the Cambodian holocaust was bad enough, some estimate it goes into the millions (of a country of only something like 6 million at the time), but the consequences of that lead to the Khmer Rogue continuing to terrorise the nation from there jungle strongholds planting mines all across the countryside to 'demmoralise' the government (twisted logic indeed) up until the turn of the century. Cambodia remains one of the heaviest mined countries in the world and if you go to any city in Cambodia you'll see amputees begging on the streets, just one of many grim reminders of the nightmares Khmer people have been through (and continue to some extent to go through). The other eerie reminder is the fact that an entire generation is missing, I saw very few old people...

Anyway, enough of the ranting...Just it really hits you when you actually spend time in these countries and talk to the people on the 'other side' who lived through it.

 

If Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur was in Vietnam, it would be totally different, look what he did in Japan.

 

The US should have invaded the North. That was where all their resources were located. Top former North Vietnamese generals have admitted that if such an attack had came, they might had very well lost.

Of course, there was the fear of retaliation from the USSR that held us back. If Reagan or Bush had been president then, we would had faced down the Soviets and won the war in Vietnam, because either man would have thought we SHOULD have won it.