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Post by hornet32 on Oct 9, 2013 15:25:09 GMT -5
Even a military genius like Giap went into shock when he lost 110.000 of his best soldiers during tet , that's a 110,000 dead , not wounded not captured , dead , even those that wanted to surrender and there wasn't many were dead .
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Post by Swampy on Oct 9, 2013 21:08:59 GMT -5
The VC were wiped out at Tet, and the NVA would get a good beating soon after.
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Post by dontom on Oct 9, 2013 23:43:32 GMT -5
The VC were wiped out at Tet, and the NVA would get a good beating soon after. "We do not have to win any military objectives against the American imperialists--we only have to fight them until they tire and leave." -Ho Chi Minh -Don Quoteman
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Post by Swampy on Oct 9, 2013 23:53:02 GMT -5
The Japanese and Hitler said the same thing. And the NVA can't fight when their supplies have gone out in smoke.
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Post by dontom on Oct 10, 2013 11:07:09 GMT -5
The Japanese and Hitler said the same thing. They were wrong, unlike Uncle Ho. In wars worth fighting, we will not tire and never have. Those we take serious enough to win. And the NVA can't fight when their supplies have gone out in smoke. Sure they can. They can steal whatever they need from the locals, including weapons. One thing I leaned in my army training is that almost any item can be made into weapon. There are many ways to kill people. And food and such usually ain't much of a problem in the jungles of Vietnam if you know what you're doing. -Don- Reno. NV
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Post by jerryfmcompushaft on Oct 10, 2013 12:48:25 GMT -5
That's pretty true, Don- but a bamboo bow and arrow is not a real match against an artillery barrage or a Rolling Thunder strike.... not even very good against a .45 cal side arm....
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Post by dontom on Oct 10, 2013 13:15:46 GMT -5
That's pretty true, Don- but a bamboo bow and arrow is not a real match against an artillery barrage or a Rolling Thunder strike.... not even very good against a .45 cal side arm.... Perhaps not, but I wonder how many in Vietnam were injured by punji sticks, booby traps and such. There are ways to injure and kill the enemy without even seeing them and being far away when it happens. -Don- Reno, NV
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Post by jerryfmcompushaft on Oct 10, 2013 13:25:37 GMT -5
That's pretty true, Don- but a bamboo bow and arrow is not a real match against an artillery barrage or a Rolling Thunder strike.... not even very good against a .45 cal side arm.... Perhaps not, but I wonder how many in Vietnam were injured by punji sticks, booby traps and such. There are ways to injure and kill the enemy without even seeing them and being far away when it happens. -Don- Reno, NV Quite a few, I'd imagine - but not nearly enough to win a war. Had to defeat congress to do that.... Had the Ho Chi Minh trail been successfully interdicted, I would predict a vastly different outcome than what we saw...
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Post by hornet32 on Oct 10, 2013 16:18:01 GMT -5
The 'ho trail was not a single trail but a series of trails .
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Post by Swampy on Oct 10, 2013 20:53:16 GMT -5
That's pretty true, Don- but a bamboo bow and arrow is not a real match against an artillery barrage or a Rolling Thunder strike.... not even very good against a .45 cal side arm.... Perhaps not, but I wonder how many in Vietnam were injured by punji sticks, booby traps and such. There are ways to injure and kill the enemy without even seeing them and being far away when it happens. -Don- Reno, NV The Red Indians and Zulus would tell you that doesn't work.
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Post by jerryfmcompushaft on Oct 11, 2013 9:40:42 GMT -5
The 'ho trail was not a single trail but a series of trails . Yeah, Tet, we all know that. Not a reason for not closing it (them) down. The Germans, in WWII, had multiple supply lines but that didn't stop us from interdicting them.
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Post by Swampy on Oct 11, 2013 10:02:20 GMT -5
Of course the HCM Trial was a series of trails, but that begs the question as to whether we should have cut their supply lines off.
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Post by dontom on Oct 11, 2013 11:24:35 GMT -5
Of course the HCM Trial was a series of trails, but that begs the question as to whether we should have cut their supply lines off. At times, we would bomb the crap out of the HCM Trails. And they would simply make new trails if the others were damaged. BTW, IIRC, they had women and kids help with the trails in some areas. Not all the trail people were NVA and VC. -Don- Reno, NV
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Post by hornet32 on Oct 11, 2013 11:26:19 GMT -5
You want to shut down the supply lines you need to start where they begin NVN , the trails parse were dirt bomb dirt an the NVA like an Army of ants filled the bomb hole right back in and were back in business in a hour .
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Post by dontom on Oct 11, 2013 12:19:23 GMT -5
The Red Indians and Zulus would tell you that doesn't work. And Uncle Ho explained that killing the most people doesn't work in war. And he was proven correct. "You will kill ten of our men and we will kill one of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it." - Ho Chi Minh -Don Quoteman
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