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South Vietnam lacked the ability to refine jet fuel. America refused to sell them and pressured other countries not to either. If they could of actually used their airforce the North Vietnam invasion would of been in for a lot of trouble. I really suspect the whole thing was just to break the will of the American population. The same party that got us into the war was really thorough at making certain the war was lost. It is fishy. View Quote Jetfuel is basically kerosene. Very simple and common to refine. It is widely available throughout the world and the Americans' didn't pressure other countries not to sell JetFuel to the South Vietnamese... The South Vietnamese Air Force was at best a ground support tactical air force, helicopters (UH-1 Hueys, Few CH-47s), fixed wings props like O-1 & O-2 Cessna spotter planes, A-1 Skyraiders, AC-47 twins. Jets were all "light jets" like the A-37 Cessna Tweets, and F-5 tiger light jet fighters. No Bombers, no Tankers, no ECM or AWACS... The North Vietnamese Air Force was well armed with ample Mig 21s, along with Mig-19s & Mig 17s, and a considerable SAM & AAA capability (many said the fiercest at the time anywhere in the world). The introduction of the SA-7 MANPAD took a lot of the ability away from the South Vietnamese, as Helicopters, Prop Planes, and even jets like the A-37 were all vulnerable to foot soldiers at any time of day or night. The South Vietnamese Air Force was not a threat in any way to the North. The North's mechanized forces would be vulnerable to US F-4s, A-6 & A-7s with smart bombs and guided ATG missiles, not to mention B-52 Bombings of the invading Mechanized North Vietnamese Armies, but Washington was OUT of the fight and without US Air Power, the South was finished... |
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We could have fought Vietnam with WW2 tech, and with better leadership would have won.
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Would the outcome be different? Discuss! View Quote The tech had nothing to do with it. Both conflicts came down to traitorous domestic leftists. |
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We could have fought Vietnam with WW2 tech, and with better leadership would have won. View Quote Worked for Italy, Germany & Japan. Wasn't easy, but it does the trick. As Curtis LeMay said, "I'll tell you what war is about, you've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting" & "Actually I think it's more immoral to use less force than necessary than it is to use more. If you use less force, you kill off more of humanity in the long run, because you are merely protracting the struggle." My favorite and the truth... ...Native annalists may look sadly back from the future on that period when we had the atomic bomb and the Russians didn't. Or when the Russians had aquired (through connivance and treachery of Westerns with warped minds) the atomic bomb - and yet still didn't have any stockpile of the weapons. That was the era when we might have destroyed Russia completely and not even skinned our elbows doing it. Mission with LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 560-561. |
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No. The problem with much of the Vietnam war was the complete dumpster fire of strategic policy. Rolling Thunder and the whole incremental bombing campaign/limited targetting was just about the dumbest way to wage a bombing campaign. Many a Vietnamese person had a good laugh about how many times we blew up the same bridges, IIRC they thought we had some kind of bridge fetish. We had no problem at all finding targets to hit, we just couldn't hit the best ones because DC said so. You can have the absolute best equipment available but if DC/politicians that don't know anything other than efficiency reports and not scaring the Russians control everything then you're pissing in the wind. View Quote Linebacker I & II combined with Operation Pocket Money showed how quickly the North could be beat down if we took the gloves off (we still were fighting with one hand behind our back because of Russia and China but at least not both). With the harbors shut down (Haiphong harbor handled 85% of the supplies coming into North Vietnam) and an aggressive bombing campaign the North couldn't resupply SAM and fighters fast enough to keep up with their losses. |
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No. Look at Afghanistan. We've been there for 17yrs? How's that modern warfare working out for us?
As others said you'd definitely have less casualties but the end result would still be the same. |
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Far fewer casualties, and fewer numbers of aircraft shot down due to AAA or SAM's. The real question is, how well could (or would) either China or Russia support North Vietnam? I'm sure the current China is better equipped than Russia, but would they even want to? Without that support, and with full backing to the South Vietnamese, things would look a lot differently.
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technology was never the problem for us in vietnam, military doctrine, ROE and political meddling was the problem from the get go.
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If we had to fight it again today? With potus Trump and Secretary of war Mattis? Yes we win handily. Cambodia gets fucked up too. Moab production would be 24/7. Drone striking would be 24/7. No reporters allowed either.
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Would the outcome be different? No. Guided weapons don't do much good if you can't find targets. We literally developed guided munitions during our escapade in Vietnam. I know dudes who carried a device called a "Mini-ponder" into the DMZ and staged them around a bridge so the Air Force could drop hard-bombs on it. The device used a guidance system which locked onto the bombs and directed them onto the target. Of course there were growing pains... I guess we could spy the Ho Chi Minh trail with drones and harass the shit out of them with Hellfires. MACV-SOG had eyes on the Trail as early as 1964. Would taking hills and defending firebases and such be all that much different? No. We did not fight a war for territory. We fought a war of attrition. This was done because Vietnam was an unconventional war and planners had to essentially redefine winning. Look where that got us, lessons that apparently weren't learned as we're still fully committed to the NEWOT: Never Ending War on Terror. The AH-64 would for sure be feared by the enemy more that the UH-1. AH-1G Cobra gunships were plenty feared during Vietnam. So much so that they're still in use today. Abrams and Bradley would likeky make very little difference. Armor typically has minimal impact against hit-and-run tactics such as those employed by irregular guerrilla forces ensconced in dense jungle, mountainous terrain, and indistinguishable among the populace. Body armor would *greatly* reduce WIA and KIA. Plausibly, but there were early iterations of body armor and flak vests being used by Marine and Army infantry. Definitely nothing like what we use today, though. Small arms improvements? I guess marginal. None noteworthy outside ammunition, and the knowledge that the M16 actually needed to be cleaned. Yea, I know that there is no trail today, all hypothetical here. A collection of random thoughts on the topic here. Discuss! View Quote Wanna see a modern day Vietnam? Take a look at Afghanistan; certainly not a perfectly congruent comparison, but there are some sobering parallels to be examined, nonetheless. |
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If we had to fight it again today? With potus Trump and Secretary of war Mattis? Yes we win handily. Cambodia gets fucked up too. Moab production would be 24/7. Drone striking would be 24/7. No reporters allowed either. View Quote mattis would bring the hurt with a vengeance though. |
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Maybe so, but I am 101% sure I would not want to be in a cell of BUFFS flying into a gaggle of S-300, S-350 & S-400's... View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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All I know is Linebacker II with JDAM's would have been impressive. https://www.ar15.com/images/smilies/icon_smile_clown.gif |
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Also OP, don't forget, the enemy gets a vote too. Our tech might be better now but so is theirs.
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I wouldn't want to take that ride either! View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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All I know is Linebacker II with JDAM's would have been impressive. https://www.ar15.com/images/smilies/icon_smile_clown.gif |
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We could have told the French to eat shit and die, built a port in Hanoi, and SEATO could have actually been legitimate with a unified Vietnam as a member. We went full retard instead.
If you want to be red pilled, read up on Deer Team. |
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No difference whatsoever the political will to win just didn’t exist.The US military was asked to do the impossible by an idot of a SECDEF and POTUS that then told commanders how to do their jobs
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We would be too busy trying to get DCGS-A working and attending sharp and resiliency training.
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Quoted: oh please, if the public was calling for his head on a plate in the numbers and with the ferocity that people were for LBJ and nixon trump would roll over like a bitch in heat. mattis would bring the hurt with a vengeance though. View Quote |
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Which modern day weapons system would have changed the mindset of the S. Vietnamese people from complete disinterest in fighting and winning the war?
And which modern day weapons system would have prevented Watergate, which resulted in the third-column liberal Democrats taking congress in a wave election in 1974 and tying Gerald Ford's hands in '75 by cutting off all assistance to the S. Vietnamese military? No, the war was unwinnable from the start if Nixon's Vietnamization strategy was ever going to be a part of it. |
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We fought Al-Qaeda and ISIS with today's military technology.
We doin' a'ight (ain't cheap, doe), but there's a part of me that wonders how much politics matters, more than tech. |
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A balls to the wall effort would have won it with 40s tech. That said, IMO, yes, with todays tech we probably would have. Way better medical, drones, real night vision / thermal, cruise missile / drone strikes on NVA leadership etc. We'd also have ARs that worked better...
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we were fighting a people who were willing to sacrifice and fight every man, and woman and child...to the bitter end, live in caves and do anything to resist us.
The only "winning" possible when fighting an adversary like that would be extermination and genocide... take a look at Afghanistan right now. so will technology overcome that? No, might expedite the extermination, but I don't think that is what we would want to call "winning" |
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We'd hashtag them back to the stone age.
Our greatly superior satellite intelligence, communication systems, long-range missiles, and mature maneuver warfare would dominate. |
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We could have told the French to eat shit and die, built a port in Hanoi, and SEATO could have actually been legitimate with a unified Vietnam as a member. We went full retard instead. If you want to be red pilled, read up on Deer Team. View Quote |
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Which is the whole point of taking ground and killing the enemy...
The Japanese figured going in they had 6 months to a year tops to knock the US out of the war and try to get a peace treaty while the Allies (USA, British, Dutch) were down. After Midway, and especially after the island hop campaign moved forward to Saipan (bases within flying distance of B-29s) recapture of the Philipines (cut off the flow of oil & rice) that the war was as good as over unless they could grind us down to lose the will to fight by bloody attrition (thus the kamikaze and fight to the last man battles of Iwo Jima & Okinawa - Their only way to an honorable peace (as the Japanese saw it) was to make the war so bloody the USA would lose heart and want to settle it short of "Unconditional Surrender" as the allies called for ... Which is what happened to a degree in Vietnam. The American Public was reeling from the brutality of war coming in on TV news, and when the Tet offensive showed how the Communist Vietnamese were NOT acting like they were "the crippled and defeated losers", it took the war to Washington (LBJ Announced he wouldn't run again), and the airwaves with Walter Cronkite announced on TV that the war was "unwinnable" as Washington had promised. The North Vietnamese were fought to a standstill prior to Tet, but Westmoreland and LBJ had sold the Public the communist were licked and ready to fold any day now - victory was just around the corner - the light at the end of the tunnel, ect.... Tet was a communist masterstroke, born of utter desperation, that broke the American Public from the Leadership who had lied about the progress of the war. Imagine if Hitler has launched the last ditch gasp of Battle of the Bulge, and the fact that Germans were still attacking and suddenly beating the American Army (whom the public had been told may be home for Christmas of 1944), including over running the US Embassy in London, and with swarms of enemy troops making corridinated attacks in the "occupied cities of Paris, Nice, Birmingham, Glasgow, Brussels, ect... made it look like IKE & FDR had lied to the American public to the point that FDR decided to quit the presidency & get out of the White House... |
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Just Sentinels and Avengers would make a big difference. A B-1 with a Sniper pod would wreck shop as well. F-22s would be knocking down enemy fighters left and right and B-2s would be killing strategic targets 24/7.
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Just Sentinels and Avengers would make a big difference. A B-1 with a Sniper pod would wreck shop as well. F-22s would be knocking down enemy fighters left and right and B-2s would be killing strategic targets 24/7. View Quote We've now been at war there for how many years? How close are we to "Victory'? |
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That could work. Also, use timetravel to replace Westmoreland with a seasoned 1991 era Schwarzkopf, and don't let politicians make him stop short of the objective this time. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Would modern entail Mattis replacing McNamarra as SecDef? Also, use timetravel to replace Westmoreland with a seasoned 1991 era Schwarzkopf, and don't let politicians make him stop short of the objective this time. We are experts at Kicking Ass & Blowing Up Stuff, but the whole "Nation Building" thing is something else... Vietnam - fell to communist - now we trade and visit with them. Somalia - shithole of anarchy - still an epicenter of insane African violence. Balkans - nominally "at peace", but really the dysfunctional crime center of Europe. Haiti - corrupt shithole anyway you look at it... Georgia - got feisty with the Russians as if they were already a part of NATO. They were not and the Russians then pushed their sh!t WAY in and made them toe the Moscow line. Ukraine - see Georgia above, except the Russians also sliced off huge chunks of their land (Crimea & the industrial Eastern Ukraine) Korea was the last sure "win" I could call in that category for sure... but we are still dealing with Nutty North Korea, which now has Nukes so the whole "Korean Thing" is still up in the air (but hooray for South Korea!!) Could call Panama a win because we removed Noriega. (but then some folks think we put him in power there sooooo....) O.K. - Grenada for a sure win!! |
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We have had total Air Supremacy over Afghanistan since Day 1 of the war there. We've now been at war there for how many years? How close are we to "Victory'? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Just Sentinels and Avengers would make a big difference. A B-1 with a Sniper pod would wreck shop as well. F-22s would be knocking down enemy fighters left and right and B-2s would be killing strategic targets 24/7. We've now been at war there for how many years? How close are we to "Victory'? Or in Vietnam. |
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We'll never "win" Afghanistan and shouldn't have been there in the first place. Or in Vietnam. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Just Sentinels and Avengers would make a big difference. A B-1 with a Sniper pod would wreck shop as well. F-22s would be knocking down enemy fighters left and right and B-2s would be killing strategic targets 24/7. We've now been at war there for how many years? How close are we to "Victory'? Or in Vietnam. The whole Sun-Zu "Art of War" thing... |
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All that would have changed is a drastic drop of KIAs due to advances in medical tech/knowledge.
The nation’s will to fight was never there. |
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Abrams and Bradley would likeky make very little difference. View Quote Quoted:
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We'll never "win" Afghanistan and shouldn't have been there in the first place. Or in Vietnam. View Quote The whole Sun-Zu "Art of War" thing... View Quote |
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Public didn't have the stomach to do wants needed then and even less so today. War is hell.
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Quoted: Canister rounds on human wave attacks, though. Abrams would probably be sunk in mud half the time and make zero difference on a strategic level, but shit like that would probably take our already lopsided casualty ratio and turn it up to 11. The Romans solved those kinds of enemies a couple millennia ago. Nobody has the stomach for modernizing Roman strategic thinking though, because while effective it's pretty fucking ugly. View Quote |
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