AHC: win the Vietnam War for the US

[Otto Kretschmer]

By winning I mean reunifying the country under South Vietnam.

Possible or not?

US already had 500k troops in Vietnam at its peak and engaging evdn more troops may not be feasible.

[stevep]

Mar 14, 2023 10:46:58 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

By winning I mean reunifying the country under South Vietnam.

Possible or not?

US already had 500k troops in Vietnam at its peak and engaging evdn more troops may not be feasible.

  Not sure overrunning the north would be practical.  It would prompt further intervention by both China and the USSR.

  In terms of winning a war to preserve S Vietnam you really need a hearts and minds programme to maintain and increase the support of the population for an independent state.  This will be difficult with the corruption of much of the regime, the terror tactics that the communists were carrying out to murder local leaders who opposed them and the US military's love of sheer firepower rather than actually identifying enemy forces and targeting them.  Given that the US government is aiding an independent state and that it borders an hostile communist one its going to be difficult but not necessarily impossible.

[michelvan]

The US military made allot mistakes in Vietnam War

First they they had no strategy for guerrilla jungle warfare
and took ww2 strategy worsen with swirl around with different strategies or concepts
Ignoring the advice of locals...
also that South Vietnamese were not large help thank to French Colonial rule of "Divide and Conquer"
It went even so far that CIA had to assassinated south Vietnam head of state or help the Military to putsch

IMHO this could have worked
1. From the begin Bomb North Vietnam into Stone age with B-52, special the Rail & Harbour infrastructure, until North surrender.
2. Put North Vietnam under Sea Blockade, until North surrender, no ship can pass even on risk of international incident with USSR!
3. Clean up the political mess the french left behind and build up strong military and police force, even on danger it become a Dictatorship.

[gillan1220]

Mar 14, 2023 12:06:43 GMT stevep said:

This will be difficult with the corruption of much of the regime, the terror tactics that the communists were carrying out to murder local leaders who opposed them and the US military's love of sheer firepower rather than actually identifying enemy forces and targeting them.

The corruption is what made the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong preferred by the people of South Vietnam.

Keep in note the South Vietnamese government was just as corrupt and authoritarian like the KMT under Chiang Kai Shek and South Korea at this period.

Mar 17, 2023 16:17:41 GMT michelvan said:

IMHO this could have worked
1. From the begin Bomb North Vietnam into Stone age with B-52, special the Rail & Harbour infrastructure, until North surrender.
2. Put North Vietnam under Sea Blockade, until North surrender, no ship can pass even on risk of international incident with USSR!
3. Clean up the political mess the french left behind and build up strong military and police force, even on danger it become a Dictatorship.

1. That would risk intervention by China if North Vietnam was bombed. How well the Chinese would perform in Vietnam on the side of Ho Chi Mihn may not be favorable as we saw what happened in 1979 when they fought against their wayward communist revolutionaries.
2. Well, the Soviets didn't have the navy to projected that far. The deployments to the South Pacific and the South China Sea were limited. The area is controlled by the U.S. and their allies. Much more the U.S has Subic Bay in the Philippines for resupply and maritime patrols. Cubi Point hosted P-2 and P-3 MPAs so any submarine might be caught. The Philippine Navy at this period had anti-submarine capabilities.
3. I don't know exactly what the French left, but it did for sure drift the Vietnamese into the anti-colonialist stance. South Vietnam was ruled by a dictator no less.

[michelvan]

Mar 22, 2023 17:08:38 GMT gillan1220 said:

1. That would risk intervention by China if North Vietnam was bombed.

USA bomb North Vietnam on regular basis special under Limbacker I&II China not intervene, they had other problems:
Mao Zedong Cultural Revolution and later serious issue with USSR that almost ended in soviet-china War

Mar 22, 2023 17:08:38 GMT gillan1220 said:

2. Well, the Soviets didn't have the navy to projected that far.

yes, i wonder why had LBJ not take that option of the blockade, majority of goods North Vietnam needed for war effort came by ship.

Mar 22, 2023 17:08:38 GMT gillan1220 said:

3. I don't know exactly what the French left, but it did for sure drift the Vietnamese into the anti-colonialist stance. South Vietnam was ruled by a dictator no less.

It was mess, believe me, after the french leave Vietnam and took entire administration with them,
South Vietnam was left with several fraction like Buddhist, Catholic, former river pirates and others
what let to dictatorship, one of them was a Catholic with nepotism and suppress majority Buddhist in South Vietnam, in end the CIA hat to "remove" him from office...

[diamondstorm]

Mar 14, 2023 10:46:58 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

By winning I mean reunifying the country under South Vietnam.

Possible or not?

US already had 500k troops in Vietnam at its peak and engaging evdn more troops may not be feasible.

I think this would be very difficult since North Vietnam was practically in a state of total war. It would probably come down to how much of a loss it would be for the USA compared to OTL.

[1bigrich]

Mar 14, 2023 10:46:58 GMT Otto Kretschmer said:

By winning I mean reunifying the country under South Vietnam.

Possible or not?

US already had 500k troops in Vietnam at its peak and engaging evdn more troops may not be feasible.

I don't think the US was going invade the North.   Containment was the policy for communism, not invasion.  

I knew a Vietnam Veteran.   He was in country in 1972.   He said at the end of his time in Vietnam, his outfit was up near the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) near North Vietnam.    On their last day, they were to go south for transport home.    He said the road they had to take to the extraction point was known for trouble.    Before departing, everyone was ordered to turn in their weapons.    He said they piled into 2 1/2 ton trucks and went south, and NO ONE had a weapon, not even the men riding in the passenger seat of the trucks as was customary.    He said at that point, he knew the war was won. 


All that said, the Viet Cong would have been an obstacle to unifying the north and the south, in my opinion.   But the Tet offensive effectively destroyed the Viet Cong as a political force in the south and left the war in the hands of the North.  I think the North Vietnamese cleverly used Tet to eliminate their potential political rival, if and when they ever were able to achieve victory.    And while Tet was a huge defeat for the communists, it played out on American television and was a propaganda success.   Prior to Tet, the North was considering giving up, but after Tet, the anti-war movement in the US convinced them to carry on....

My thoughts, 

[miletus12]

Mar 17, 2023 16:17:41 GMT michelvan said:

The US military made allot mistakes in Vietnam War

First they they had no strategy for guerrilla jungle warfare
and took ww2 strategy worsen with swirl around with different strategies or concepts
Ignoring the advice of locals...
also that South Vietnamese were not large help thank to French Colonial rule of "Divide and Conquer"
It went even so far that CIA had to assassinated south Vietnam head of state or help the Military to putsch

IMHO this could have worked
1. From the begin Bomb North Vietnam into Stone age with B-52, special the Rail & Harbour infrastructure, until North surrender.
2. Put North Vietnam under Sea Blockade, until North surrender, no ship can pass even on risk of international incident with USSR!
3. Clean up the political mess the french left behind and build up strong military and police force, even on danger it becomes a Dictatorship.

1. We did have an operational art for COIN. But we had idiots in charge who did not read our successful history of special operations. Just a brief perusal of the Filipino American War would have been illustrative of what worked and did not.
2. OSS operations in WWII were successful. You have to swim with the fish, not against them, as Mao used to say. 
3. We picked the wrong locals. See 2.
4. See 3.
5. See 3 again.

Part 2. 
1. Air campaigns have to support an achievable objective. Most practical applications of airpower have been based on three plainly limited goals,
a. reconnaissance.
b. temporary (note the word "temporary") restriction of land and sea movement and communication.
c. use and denial of the air for a., b., and c,. 
As a remark about bombing the PRVN into the stone age, that "theoretically could work" if they were that far above the "stone age" in relative terms. They were mainly an agrarian society with very little domestic manufacture. Their infrastructure was very limited and oriented to a "service economy" and not a consumer of goods one. Bombing "them" to put them in the dark, freeze them, famish them and terrorize them had been tried in at least 14 different previous iterations before. Douhet does not work. MAHAN works. You need blockade.        
2. Agreed. Mine their harbors and rivers, drop their bridges. Kill their air force. But refer to 1,. in the doing.
3. You could have talked to Ho, when he first wanted to talk to us. Short of that, the DPRVN is not going to talk to the Americans after 1950. Those are the people we have to convince.    
 

[mspence]

Reunification probably isn't possible but the country could have remained as it was before the war.
No military coup or junta, no Thieu.
It's my understanding that the Air Force did have targets that it wanted to attack but weren't allowed to.