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I sentence you to a pot of day old, cold coffee as punishment for your crime. My $0.02 Mike |
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The impact of the Vietnam War on Europe is always misunderstood. Many of the divisions in West Germany were significantly undermanned and had critical shortages in NCOs and officers. According to the Congressional Records, on average, these units ran as much as 25-30% understrength in the key leadership positions.
Critical communications equipment and spares were stripped to support the Vietnam War, when the AN/PRC-77 radio entered service, it was deployed to SE Asia, US Army Europe maintained PRC-25s for almost three years after their replacement. Artillery ammunition was removed in such large amounts that there were critical shortages in heavy artillery ammunition. Shortly after the Tet Offensive, stocks of 155mm+ was reduced to less than seven days stocks as part of a rush to restock the heavy usage in Vietnam. While the National Guard/Army Reserve did enjoy an increase in personnel, many of whom did enlist in order to not see service in Vietnam, their equipment levels, in 1968, was poor. Many NG units were still equipped with WWII/Korean War-era M-1 Garands and M-191A4 machine guns, and this was as late as 1972! The Guard was still operating M-46/47 tanks and was just starting to be equipped with M-48s as the new M-60 tanks were coming into service. Would the US have been able to maintain a major conflict in SE Asia and stop a Soviet attack into Europe? It's an intresting what if.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis. |
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And, if you believe some authors, someone in the KGB sent the K-129 to launch a nuke at Hawaii, pretending to be the lone Chinese SSBN. That would have gone off 5 days before my birthday-- that was chilling to realize, let me tell you.
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988. |
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BUT when it comes time for war, this changes. The government has more stuff in storage then any of us could ever imagine. When my national guard unit was deployed in 2004, suddenly all new small arms, machine guns and so on appeared. I agree with many of the comments mentioned above, but I still think you undervalue the role of the national guard in a total war, especially prior to 1993, when the guard was HUGE in manpower, and before the army reserve was decimated. |
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Believe me, the government has stockpiles that NOONE can ever believe!!!
But perhaps the worst part of Vietnam was that it was not a total war. LBJ, among others, made the decision not to approach Congress for a decleration of war and refused to call up the National Guard/Reserves. This kept the Gaurds and Reserves out of the war (expect for those personnel who did volunteer) and led to the ruthless stripping of equipment and munitions from around the world.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis. |
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I am reading "The Generals" by Thomas E. Ricks now and just worked my way through Vietnam and into the 1980's.
It's really worth a read, particularly on Vietnam and the aftermath. It made me want to throw the book at the wall...I though I knew how much of a dumba$$ LBJ and Westie were....I had no idea. -Dave |
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Last edited by NelsonFoster; 07-08-2023 at 04:32 AM. |
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Last edited by CharlieAnderson; 01-23-2021 at 03:51 AM. |
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I did some work on the origins of the Vietnam war when I was in grad school. Could it have been avoided? Probably not for political inertia reasons. The first advisers actually deployed to South Vietnam shortly after its creation in the mid-fifties, it wasn't until Kennedy that the deployment became "official" though.
At the time the Soviet politicians were emphasizing the spread of communism through insurgency. This factored heavily into Kennedy's decision making around strategy. He wanted to show the Soviets that the United States could stop at the counter-insurgency level, hence, the creation of the Special Forces. Sort of a "whatever you got, we got better" kind of an approach. The US Army, however, had a different vision though. At the time they did not see counter-insurgency as we see it today, they simply viewed it as a "smaller conventional war" and that is how they approached it. So when Truman became President their recommendations were along conventional lines. Truman also suffered from a sort of "little man" syndrome as well. He never really took well to being surrounded by Kennedy's "Best and Brightest" Cabinet Secretaries and advisers. Some say that this played a part in him escalating the war, he needed to show that he was tough. As far as Kennedy's thinking about ending the war and any action Truman may have taken is still a mystery. There are interesting arguments on both sides around that, not sure if we will ever find out what truly happened. On National Guard equipment, I can remember going to the NY State Fair in the early eighties. The Guard troops were there with a M48 tank that had a M60 machine gun mounted on top. I thought the whole display was real cool, especially since they had a zip-line set up to replicate parachutes. The kids were all over that thing. What stands out the most was that they were regularly firing blanks through the M60 to entertain the crowd... that would not go over well these days. Different times.
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Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum Europae vincendarum |
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Last edited by nexum81; 03-04-2022 at 12:51 AM. |
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This 'ell getting old!!!! All well, I content myself in the knowledge that I may not be the fastest, anymore, but I have the wisdom and treachery to keep the young'ins in line!!!!
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis. |
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So yes, wisdom and treachery are great tools....just don't piss off the young guy who will out draw you... So, shoot first.... My $0.02 Mike |
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis. |
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Perhaps the major impact on the Army in Vietnam was the one year (13 months for the Marines!). As soon as that 11-B begins to become an effective jungle-fighter, BAM! He's back in the states. There are numerous stories of as much as HALF (and there are accounts of at least 2 companies losing 2/3 of their men?!?!) of a rifle company rotating home at the same time.
So while the NVA/VC stayed in the field for years, the GIs were often kids straight out of Basic. And to add insult to injury, MACV/DOD adopted the policy of assigning a officer to 6 months in a combat position and then 6 months in a staff position. The official reason was to allow as many officers as possible to get combat experience... There are numerous words that can discribe the impact of these two policies...most of them are four letter and insult the intelligence of the high ranking officers and civilian leadership!
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis. |
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Jesus Christ, and I thought I was old (born 1962)...you're older than my big sister (born 1959).
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War is the absence of reason. But then, life often demands unreasonable responses. - Lucian Soulban, Warhammer 40000 series, Necromunda Book 6, Fleshworks Entirely too much T2K stuff here: www.pmulcahy.com |
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The Infantry Battalion in Vietnam
The modified TO&E for an Infantry Battalion in SE Asia is of intrest:
Headquarters and Headquarters Company with 15 officers, 2 warrant officers and 147 enlisted men. With 9 2.5-ton truck; 4 3/4-ton trucks; 9 jeeps. Small arms included 2 M-60 GPMGs, 8 M-79 GLs, 15 pistols and 149 M-16s. Company A, B, C & D, each with 6 officers and 158 enlisted men. With 5 jeeps. Small arms included 6 M-60 GPMGs, 24 M-79 GLs, 9 pistols, 149 M-16s, 3 81mm mortars and 3 90mm recoilless rifles. Company E (Combat Support Company) with 4 officers and 96 enlisted men. With 4 3/4-ton trucks, 4 jeeps. Small arms included 6 M-79 GLs, 4 pistols, 96 M-16s, 4 4.2-inch mortars and 12 flamethrowers. The Rifle Company headquarters consisted of two officers and two enlisted men, with three rifle platoons (one officer and 41 enlisted men) and one mortar platoon (one officer and 25 enlisted men). Each rifle platoon had a platoon headquarters (one officer and 2 enlisted men), three rifle squads (10 men each) and one weapons squad (9 men). The weapons squad would leave their recoilless rifles back in the base camp and function was a fourth maneuver squad. The mortar platoon had a headquarters (one officer and 7 men) and three mortar squads (6 men). The 81mm mortars were often left back in the base camp and the platoon used was a fourth maneuver platoon.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis. |
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