05 Oct 2011, 6:05 pm
Joker
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05 Oct 2011, 6:11 pm
Kraichgauer wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Joker wrote:
Its very simple why we lost the war United States had 58,220 dead soldiers South Vietnam.
had 316,000 dead soldiers Republic of Korea had 5,099 dead 10,962 wounded 4 missing.
Australia 521 dead; 3,000 wounded New Zealand 37 dead; 187 wounded Thailand 1,351 dead.
Kingdom of Laos 30,000 killed.
Total dead for the Anit Communist Forces.
Total dead: 315,384 – 412,000
Total wounded: ~1,490,000+
Compare that to the enemy.
North Vietnam & NLF 1,176,000 dead or missing 600,000+ wounded.
Peoples Repbulic of China 1,446 dead; 4,200 wounded.
Soviet Union 16 dead.
Communist Forces Total dead was.
Total dead: ~1,177,462 (highest est.)
Total wounded: ~604,200+
It was all about the numbers we didnt have the man power to win the war its that simple.
had 316,000 dead soldiers Republic of Korea had 5,099 dead 10,962 wounded 4 missing.
Australia 521 dead; 3,000 wounded New Zealand 37 dead; 187 wounded Thailand 1,351 dead.
Kingdom of Laos 30,000 killed.
Total dead for the Anit Communist Forces.
Total dead: 315,384 – 412,000
Total wounded: ~1,490,000+
Compare that to the enemy.
North Vietnam & NLF 1,176,000 dead or missing 600,000+ wounded.
Peoples Repbulic of China 1,446 dead; 4,200 wounded.
Soviet Union 16 dead.
Communist Forces Total dead was.
Total dead: ~1,177,462 (highest est.)
Total wounded: ~604,200+
It was all about the numbers we didnt have the man power to win the war its that simple.
If its so simple then why do your own figures contradict that?
The trivial number of casualties you list for Russia and China show that those two countries were essentially noncombant nations who only gave material aid to the Vietnamese and not manpower.
Youve shown that in essence it was a war between the USA on one side (population 180 million at the time of the Tonkin Gulf incident), and North Vietnam on the other ( population 17 million), with the 16 million inhabitants of South Vietnam split in loyalty between the Saigon Government and the NLF and contributing fighters to both sides. With all of the North and maybe half of the South - the communist had most the Vietnamese on its side. But not most of the people.
In manpower we had an overwhelming superiority ( 180 plus 8 is alot more than 17 plus
.But Britain had 8 million people at the time of the American Revolution. The American colonies had only 3 million. Of that 3 million it was about a 3 way split between patriots, loyalists, and those who didnt give a damn either way. So Britain had the 8 million inhabitants of Britain plus one million loyal American colonists to draw manpower from- against only one million American "insurgents". And yet the insurgents won the worlds first "war of national liberation" the memory of which would inspire the 20th Centurey Vietnamese nationalist Ho Chi Minh to lead his own people against their French colonial masters in a protracted war that would gradually come to involve the USA.
Just to let you know, there had been plenty of wars of national liberation long before the American Revolution.
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
The enemy used Guerrilla Warfare thats what beat us my friend all the numbers in the world cant stop a enemy willing to do anyting to win
05 Oct 2011, 6:21 pm
MarketAndChurch
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05 Oct 2011, 6:24 pm
91 wrote:
JakobVirgil wrote:
Is there a war since WWII that we can say we won?
We cannot decide what constitutes a war in modern times; how then can we expect to define victory? News is reported multiple times a day, if we covered WW2 like that; people would have been declaring the defeat of the United States at Kasserine Pass. We are both too close and too far from modern conflict to gain anything like an objective perspective. That said, when I saw this image of the former leader of the Soviet Union I was pretty sure the Cold War was decided in our favor and that capitalism had defeated communism..
The international order exists to conventionalize the world, those who cannot compete will do so by non-conventional means, and regardless of what route one chooses, it's the hearts and minds determine the victory or defeat of something. look at Israel when it went after hezbollah, and the hearts and minds of the international community's verdict of those actions.
Joker
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05 Oct 2011, 6:30 pm
simon_says wrote:
Quote:
The Vietnamese have to be the toughest people on the planet.
They beat the French. They beat the Japanese. They beat the Americans. They beat the Chinese. They beat the Cambodians.
The Americans dropped more bombs on Vietnam than they did during all of World War II. They ruthlessly bombed, murdered, and laid waste to the country. Still, the Vietnamese were willing to live in tunnels, fight, and put up with the napalm.
How can you win against people like that?
They beat the French. They beat the Japanese. They beat the Americans. They beat the Chinese. They beat the Cambodians.
The Americans dropped more bombs on Vietnam than they did during all of World War II. They ruthlessly bombed, murdered, and laid waste to the country. Still, the Vietnamese were willing to live in tunnels, fight, and put up with the napalm.
How can you win against people like that?
The Japanese were far more numerous and just as tough.
We never carpet bombed the cities. It was mostly expended on railyards and jungle supply lines. Hanoi was a wooden city. It would have been burned to the ground if we treated them like Japan. And if we'd hit the dikes in force, hundreds of thousands would have drown. So they never experienced a WWII style effort because it was a limited war with limited targets.
The government knew that the US appetite for the war was limited and there were concerns about China coming in. So the Vietnamese benefited from some non-military realities. Even then it took them three years to beat the south after we left and reduced funding.
That is true my granfather once told me we could have won the war if america had a foreign legion like the french do the Irish Republican Army would have helped us beat the enemy
Kraichgauer
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05 Oct 2011, 6:31 pm
Joker
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05 Oct 2011, 6:35 pm
Kraichgauer
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05 Oct 2011, 8:33 pm
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06 Oct 2011, 9:28 am
leejosepho
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06 Oct 2011, 10:26 am
pandabear wrote:
I challenge everyone to find a war with a better soundtrack.
... or a more timeless one ...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXqTf8DU6a0[/youtube]
