Vietnam War

Vietnam War

War Tactics
1. The US Tactics
  1. Mass Bombing
    1. Operation Rolling Thunder
      1. Three Years 2nd March 1965- 2nd November 1968
    2. "The Americans thought that the more bombs they dropped, the quicker we would fall to our knees and surrender. But the bombs heightened rather than dampened our spirit.”
  2. Search & Destroy
    1. Quick and quiet destruction of primary targets
    2. "Zippo raids"
      1. Burning of Villages
  3. Chemical Warfare
    1. Napalm
      1. Burning of jungle to eliminate hiding holes used by the Viet Cong top reduce the chance of an ambush
    2. Agent Orange
2. The Vietnamese Tactics
  1. Guerilla warfare
    1. Ambushing large patrols in the jungle
      1. Huge tunnel systems underground
    2. Booby traps
    3. Dressed as peasants so indistinguishable from normal Vietnamese
  2. "Hanging onto the belts"
    1. Staying so close to the US troops that explosives were too dangerous (Artillery and air support)
Was it a win or a loss for the USA?
1. Win
  1. North Vietnam suffered a rough death count of around 1.1 million soldiers compared to South Vietnam and USA's combind death count of 288 thousand soldiers.
2. Loss
  1. Objectively, the USA lost as they failed to contain communism and South Vietnam eventually fell to communism.
    1. The USA most likely lost this war due to the fact that they were very unprepared for this type of warfare and were still locked in the belief that brute force was enough to lead America to victory. when huge sections of the army were destroyed by small clusters of the Vietnamese forces they were didn't know how to react leading to massive morale loss before the government could respond to this action
Why did the USA end their involvement in the war?
1. Media
  1. First televised war
  2. People could see the hardships of the war and the death of soldiers leading to very low morale
2. Lack of support from home
  2. My Lai Massacre
    1. The public were astonished to hear of the atrocity Charlie Company commited when they entered the small village of My Lai and mained, mutilated and slaughtered the innocent people. Only 3 weapons were found in the village.
      1. Any people left supporting the war were now completely against it and the government had no option but to end their involvement.
  3. A lot of the soldiers were just as demoralised as the people leading to many of them deserting. America simply didn't have an army.
Why did the US get involved
1. Fear of Communism
  1. The domino effect
    1. Mass spread of communism worldwide
  2. Very thretened by Russia
2. Vietnamese aggresion
  1. The North Vietnamese had attacked the USS Maddox in August 1964, and then killed US soldiers in February 1965.
3. US arrogance
  1. Believed that a full scale war was a sure victory for the USA with little chance of loss

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	Created by Jason Edwards-Suarez almost 11 years ago