Half a Million not Enough

[hornet32]

1968 Vietnam there were a half a million Americans in Vietnam on a good day there were about 90,000 in the bush all the rest were support and it takes a lot of Support to maintain a modern Army from beans to bullets , 90,000 were enough to maintain status quo not enough for anything else , many of the 90,000 had to protect the support troops , what would it take to bring the war to N.Vietnam with any hope of success in my opinion a half a million in the bush that would mean 4-5 million Americans in S.Vietnam this was unattainable the U.S. could not protect its interests around the world and have this number in South East Asia , even the U.S. had its limits . 

[Swampy]

Half a million could have been enough, if McNamara and his so-called Whiz Kids had fought the war properly. This means sending that half a million to cut the HCM Trail, while the USAF did a Linebacker style campaign to destroy the entire NVA support structure. Meanwhile, it would also be nice to have a Marine Division or two off the coast of North Vietnam, launching the occasional incursion to keep the enemy off balance.

[hornet32]

the U.S. observed borders at least to some degree but the entire Indo - China was in the game Laos and Cambodia , the half a million I mentioned were ground troops grunts not support and you're looking at years maybe decades of involvement much like Afghan the U.S. could not / would not sustain this type of involvement the whole area except for costal was a logistical nightmare poor roads swamps mud snakes an shit .You can bomb , bomb , bomb , bomb 'em back to the caves under the caves they still there , they eat anything the snakes maybe the shit too but they still there , these are very tough people , they have been in some kind of war or another for 3000 years .

[Sir John]

I doubt there was much difference between a Vietnamese and a Japanese.

Both 100% determined, and the ONLY way to defeat either was to kill and keep killing until they "cried uncle". Even that took 2 atomic bombs on Japan. And if you had done that you would have had 1 million or three PLA men in Nth Vietnam the next day.

Stay off the Asian mainland! Let the USAF and USN do the job next time.


JMO



SJ

[Swampy]

Jan 9, 2014 23:08:32 GMT -5 Sir John said:

I doubt there was much difference between a Vietnamese and a Japanese.

Both 100% determined, and the ONLY way to defeat either was to kill and keep killing until they "cried uncle". Even that took 2 atomic bombs on Japan. And if you had done that you would have had 1 million or three PLA men in Nth Vietnam the next day.

I agree that both were relentless, but the Japanese were industrialized and could continue the fight, while the North Vietnamese were not. So the NVA could have been ground to dust, and, if the supplies from the SU were cut off, they would have had to stop simply because they would have had no bullets.

Stay off the Asian mainland! Let the USAF and USN do the job next time.

The US occupied Tokyo, so, if there's no difference between the Japanese and Vietnamese ...

And the US is protecting South Korea.

[hornet32]

Protecting Korea is a bit of a stretch more like a presence a small presence at most 40,000 troops none of them Canadian or Australian .