This is an important question.

The Vietnamese were Experienced, and learned what worked and didn't over decades of fighting.  They made mistakes when they first encountered new situations and technologies.  The Easter Offensive in 1972 got smashed by US air power, after running over the S. Vietnamese defenders in the first real use of North Vietnamese Armor & Mech Infantry...   When the invaded again in 1975, they learned the lessons they suffered in 1972 and made sure US airforce wasn't going to be in the fight, and had SAM & AAA roll along with them to deny enemy aircraft the opportunity to attack.    TET as planned was to be a "General Uprising" to bring the South Vietnamese Pheasants and Soldiers to turn on Saigon and rise up in revolution completely failed (Viet Cong were slaughtered so badly they were never really again a major force for the rest of the war), but it succeeded in the US Press to break the American resolve to Stay until Victory with the Light at the end of the tunnel...

China was sort of a weird state at the time.   Convulsed by the Red Guards & Mao's purges of the Military & any critics.   China has the bomb, but their delivery systems against the USA were primitive at best.  Liquid fueled missiles that took time to fuel & prepare, bomber aircraft TU-16 that might make a one way trip to Hawaii or Guam, but not reach the mainland USA.  Their subs were pretty much a joke at that time.

We and the Soviets had fleets of bombers, ICBM & SLBM that could wipe out the Chinese bases and cities.   Leaving a lot of angry Maoist peasants armed, but starving in a radioactive wasteland.   The Chinese couldn't do much to the USA, but they shared a border with Russia and their shorter range nuclear missiles could do considerable damage there.

If the US or USSR launched a pre-emptive 1st strike against the Chinese, they may have well wiped out their strategic nuclear forces on the ground.   But the US couldn't do it against China without the USSR getting involved (to support their fellow Communists even as they Sino-Soviet Split became a series of bloody border battles.   The USA wanted China as a counterbalance against the strengthening of the USSR.

The Chinese could be impressive in a conventional battle due to staggering manpower quantity, but from a techincal standpoint, (Aviation, Armor, Naval, Nuclear) they were far inferior in quality.

Johnson was scared that if Soviet Advisors were killed at Air Bases, SAM & Radar Sites, along with Haiphong Harbor it would draw them in - possibly leading to WWIII

Johnson was scared that if the Chinese were accidentally attacked (bomb airfield on wrong side of border or shoot down Chinese Migs) that the Chinese would come into the war for the Communist and steamroller down Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, S. Vietnam and maybe further to Burma and or Malaysia in a mega Domino Effect.  The Chinese had the basics (Troops & Tanks & Jets) to do it if unopposed by the USA airpower or nuclear deterent.

Another "war" we should not have participated in... If our politicians, at the time, had understood Vietnamese history we would not have gone to war. The Vietnamese had been occupied by the French for the last 100 years and wanted freedom. In order to oust the French, the Vietnamese turned to Communist China. We should have understood what they wanted (i.e. freedom) and helped them; thereby neutralizing China's influence. It would have been the same outcome as today; but without the war. It's our lack of understanding that caused the whole damn mess.

Having lived in Vietnam recently, we are much better off giving people a job (i.e. making our shit) if we want them to adopt our capitalist ways. The Vietnamese people love Americans and it's a great country to visit or stay for awhile.

Accountant

That's what it would come down to

I want to see a MIG 17 kill against an F22.

We do not fight wars to win so same outcome, just less casualties on our side.

OH!!! I thought Sixpack was referring to the Johnson administration! My bad!

Every Company sized US force or larger.  There were some Very small units (SF teams and such) that were defeated. To any SF veterans I’m not disparaging them. 8 guys against a regiment is a losing proposition no matter how tough the 8 guys were.

I don't know shit but that's what I was thinking.  Just the improvement in NVG and thermal would have some impact.

But what I really want to know is, does "today's technology" also include todays tactics?  Or just tactics dependent on our new tech?

Absent the dedicated support of the people of the South, no new tech would have changed the overall outcome.

Far too much focus is being placed on the politicians or the ROE.  Far too little is being placed on the lack of support by the wider segments of the population in the South.  I'm not talking about the army of RVN.  The people.

Nuke the North, and 100's of thousand of sick, hungry, desperate people flood into the South.  Then what?  They have no land, no job, no savings, no food, no rich family members, and overwhelm any existing social support systems.  Most of them have little or no western style education (especially in the North).

We going to shoot these people as they come into the South?  Are we going to create some sort of apartheid state in which the people from the North are serfs for the next 10 to 20 years?  If they get a vote, first chance they get, they are unlikely to support a pro-capitalist regime that maintains the power and control of the ruling class/elites.

All this is a recipe for what?  A Jeffersonian Republic?  Or, quick turn to the easy button in the form of communism?

Same basic problem in Iraq and Afghan.  What is winning?  What is the desired political outcome?  The blowing up shit is the easy part.  Achieving a stable and desirable political outcome is far more difficult.

I think he is saying we get new shit but the enemy doesn't.

We’d have much better intel based on SIGINT collection and exploitation.

Same outcome with less loss of life due to life saving tech. The reason, to quote a line from Platoon, "politics man politics."

Yes, most if not every engagement.  It was a guerilla war we lost the will to keep fighting.  Just like is happening now in Iraq and Afg.

It would still be a huge waste of time and resources.

Best military in the world doesn't mean shit if your people don't believe in what you're doing.    Just send capitalism,  capitalism sells itself as long as you let it.  In fact right now capitalism is slowly doing exactly what the US military couldn't in Vietnam.

We won every battle.  The politicians gave it all away at the negotiating table.

To win Vietnam, all that was needed was to build a gallows on the steps of the Capitol and make the ropes sing the tune of the necks of traitorous politicians.

To read about SOCOM/JSOC incursions along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and Mekong Delta again gives me an incredible boner.

Which is a whole other bag of worms. If we’d backed the Chinese Nationalists like the Russians backed Mao, we’d have had a MAJOR ally on the borders of Russia, North Korea, and Vietnam. Imagine Taiwan, but in control of mainland China. Have the seeds of an Asian version of the United States right there.

Instead, Truman and Marshall screwed the pooch and prevented the Nationalists from finishing off the communists.

FTFY.

This

Viet Nam stopped being a guerilla war when the first NVA units started shooting.  They were conventional forces.

And in the long term what good did it do?  The supplies and men still came down from the north.  The bombing lowed things down and limited the flow but those amazing brave people (I went to school with a guy who was with Project Omega) really did not impact the war very much.  Give me a good infantry brigade any day.

Start the flaming

The Chinese Nationalists were as corrupt as the South Viet Namese politicians.  Asian verion of the United States?  Dream on.

We gifted all the best to the Chinese Nationalist at the end of WWII   We set up and AirForce with  P-40 Warhawks, P-47 Thundebolts, P-51 Mustangs, B-25 Mitchells, C-47s, PBY Catalinas, C-46s, P-61 Black Widows, PB4Y Liberators Tanks, Rifles, Artillery, Uniforms, boots, rations, jeeps, trucks, you name it.  They didn't get B-29s or Atomic Weapons.

The Chinese were all too busy infighting for the spoils of war, to really fight the Red Chinese.    Despite overwhelming Technical & Equipment superiority, the Nationalist Chinese were whipping across the country side, finally holed up trapped inside the cities, and then crushed in each of the major cities by the Reds one by one by one.   The ROC Troops either died, or changed sides and the Reds captures huge quanties of American Arms.

When the Red Chinese went to war in Korea, many of their solders were not armed with Russian Weapons, but with American ones...

Like in Vietnam, the Americans were thinking of the war very differently from our "Asian Allies"...

SOCOM and JSOC wasn't even a dream back in those days.

MACV-SOG and similar units had major impacts during the war. For one, SOG proved the enemy was using neutral countries as sanctuaries and had violated the purpose of the DMZ. Furthermore, its special reconnaissance teams and SLAM companies tied up an estimated 60k + enemy troops in Laos and Cambodia alone just to service the roadway network and to pull security. That's 60k + troops kept from entering the battle space in RVN which translates to an untold number of American, ARVN, civilian lives saved. Beyond that, the PSYOPS programs SOG employed, such as Project Eldest Son (aka: Pole Bean) were so effective, the North Viets practically begged us to shut them down during the Peace Accords in Paris.

It's not that these efforts were ineffective. It's that the intel gleaned wasn't put to the best use.

Are the goat fuckers all that much more advanced than the Viet Cong were? If anything I would say the VC had more going for them than the goat fuckers.

Its like Vietnam already, but in the desert.

You need to recheck your Chinese history, and majorly. The KMT had the communists on the back foot and were ready to push them all the way to the ground when the US pushed Chiang Kai Shek to halt his advance and discuss a coalition government with Mao (lol) or risk losing American support. They were ready to take Harbin, which would have likely been fatal to the Red Army, and had already successfully lobbied the Soviets to pull out of Manchuria. Truman and Marshall fucked up, and badly.

Who cares if they were corrupt, they were winning, and they weren't reds. KMT corruption in republican China sorted itself out over time into a well-developed country that supplies a huge amount of the world's ICs despite them only having an island.

Meanwhile the Chicoms are stronger than they've ever been and they're not our friends, hacking our companies, manipulating them into giving up ownership to Chinese interests, and stealing our technology and IP every damn day.

The Vietnam War is so misunderstood in so many ways. My short answer is that with today's technology the NVA wouldn't have been anywhere near as effective. Even if you control for Vietnam having access to the technology they have today they would still take an absolutely clobbering. The US military was extremely effective, the problem was how the war was conducted. Vietnam is looked at some special unwinnable war that was unlike we had every faced and we lost because of that. This is of course not true.

I'm going to disagree with your assessment of the history of the Chinese Civil War.

Chinese Civil War

The US pushed KMT and Chiang Kai Shek to work a coalition government to fight against the Japanese during the Period of the War Against Japan...

The Russians launched a massive mechanized attack across Manchuria and into Korea at the end of WWII.   They took huge numbers of prisoners and captured equipment in Manchuria and North China. The Russians were providing active support and turning over literally tons of captured Japanese and Soviet Weapons to the Red Chinese, in addition to providing them a base territory that protected then against KMT attack.

When the Japanese surrendered, the Communist filled the power vacuum in the areas of former Japanese Occupation and stocked themselves with Japanese Weapons along with some Japanese Soldiers who stayed and assisted the Red Chinese with Technical support on Captured Aircraft and Tanks.

The KMT launched assaults that would "gain ground", only to peter out as the Reds fell back, regrouped, then surrounded, cut off then cut up the trapped KMT troops again and again and again...

The History of the Chinese Civil war is one long series of battles of which the KMT is holding the Cities, while the Communists hold the countryside (and by extension the food supply).  By isolating the armies trapped inside those cities from mutual support, the Communist then could mass, let hunger and lack of supplies work in their favor (the KMT ranks weakened, while the Reds grew quickly) then take the cities from them one by one by one...

Mao was indeed a Genocidal Mass Murdering Madman, but he clearly understood & executed a successful Guerilla warfare campaign that drove the KMT into the Sea (well really off the mainland in a panic to Taiwan).

That game plan ended up being the same sort of play in the Vietnam war, with the South Vietnamese holding "their" redoubts in the cities, and the Communist controlling ever larger swaths of the countryside.

Taiwan hardly became a "Freedom Loving Paradise" when the KMT took it over (repressive one-party state), but with the economic wealth of an expanding economy, the people there are recently able to enjoy more political freedoms.  We are seeing more of that in both Red China and in Vietnam with the economic prosperity trickling down to the people, and their expectations of a better more free life.

My Dad (Vietnam Recon Marine) and I had this conversation the other day.

His opinion on the modern tech which would have made the biggest difference?

GPS/Accurate maps
Comms that worked
Battery life
Water filtration
Medical
Water resistant material of any type

That's a solid list, particularly the top two. Your old man knows what the fuck's up. Much respect.

I doubt that the people who fought near LZ Albany would agree with you.

/Thread

Yep.  We were technologically superior, but politicians were micromanaging in DC.

My brother spent a lot of time in the air over Laos doing SIGINT.  He still  cannot talk about it.