Vietnam War Collection: books plus

[Jedburgh]

1st Infantry Division Operational Report-Lessons Learned (1 May - 31 July 1966)

During the period covered by the previous Operational Report-Lessons Learned (1 Jan - 30 Apr 66), the 1st Infantry Division began to conduct major operations outside the assigned tactical areas of responsibility (TAOR) to extend U.S. and GVI influence into previously uncontested areas. The period covered by this report was marked by even deeper penetrations into areas considered as VC dominated territory. Operations were characterized by rapid reaction to Intelligence information and deployment of the bulk of division forces over vast areas of the ll Corps Tactical Zone. There has been a significant increase in the integration of ARVN combat forces into 1st Infantry Division operations. The division initiated its first major pacification operation and results to date have been very encouraging. Operations wore also conducted within base camp TAORs to locate and destroy remaining VC forces aad installations. Three main Force Viet Corg regiments were engaged in five major battles and in each the enemy forces wore decisively defeated. The elite 272d VC Regiment was engaged in battle on two separate occasions, one of which occurred on the 49th Anniversary of the formation of the Big Red One, 3 July 1917.....

[Mike in Hilo]

Thanks for posting, Ted. A look at the OB reminds of the extensive network of enemy base areas (and infiltration routes) within RVN. Which illustrates the oft-discussed conundrum: Hard to see how you could succeed at sustainable pacification without first disrupting the base areas in this phase of the war.

Cheers,
Mike.

[Jedburgh]

MACV Combat Experiences 5-69, 5 Jan 70

This particular issue deals with experiences of Regional and Popular Forces (RF/PF). As part of its territorial security and pacification mission, the RF/PF play an important role in the preemption of enemy preparations for major attacks. In preparing for battle, the enemy customarily uses reconnaissance parties and small groups who prepare food and ammunition caches and build or dig command posts, aid stations and similar installations. During the battle he employs couriers, aid men and ammunition and food resupply porters. During withdrawals he employs other small groups to link and support his major units. His dependence on these techniques of employment of individuals and small groups makes him vulnerable to a programmed coverage of the countryside by RF and PF units. This can be done by the RF becoming heavily engaged in aggressive patrolling and night ambushes. Such actions can preempt surpris- attacks on populated areas and installations. Because of their knowledge of the people and the local area, the PF can be an invaluable asset in preventing acts of terrorism and sabotage by identifying infiltrators into populated areas and by simply being alert to and reporting unusual incidents. MACV Combat Experiences 5-69 highlights a few problems of the RF/PF, describes their great worth in the effort to curb aggression and hopefully will better prepare all recipients of this document to assist the RF/PF in performing their extremely valuable functions.

[AdamG]

While the BBC's pre-existing bias is well-documented, this is still worth reading.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7698055.stm

The singer and soldier Hershel Gober returned to Vietnam in 1969 as a company commander, and knew even then that the war was lost.

He told his men that he did not want any John Waynes in his outfit. He was wounded and sent home.

Many years later, he became acting secretary for veterans' affairs in the Clinton administration. He changed his mind about this war and others; he opposed the war in Iraq.

He believes that in Vietnam the Americans lost not only the war but the opportunity to learn from it.

"Sometimes I think we didn't learn a damn thing from Vietnam," he says, "We didn't learn enough".

[Ken White]

That's the myth that needs to be dispelled and that's a lesson we did not learn in Viet Nam. People will act in their perceived self interest and they will follow their heart -- but they will not let you win that heart. Nor do you need to...

The reason he thinks we didn't learn a thing or enough is 'cause we have foolishly allowed DoD simply because of the money they get and the global presence they have (both of which are necessary but not wisely employed) to assume the de facto lead in our foreign policy. That transcends Viet Nam which was simply a symptom, not the problem.

Congress is mostly to blame; they, after all, are the ones that overfund (for campaign contribution and vote reasons) and micromanage (because they're ignorant) DoD and underfund and do not adequately supervise State (or the Intel community, another story. Both again due to ignorance...).

Gobel, by the way, was slow, took him until '69 to get real. I -- and others -- were saying in '66 that we were going to spend $50B, get 100K US troops killed and give Uncle Ho ten airfields. In the event, we reversed the math, Ho died and the number of airfields rose to 15 or 16...

[William F. Owen]

That's the myth that needs to be dispelled and that's a lesson we did not learn in Viet Nam. .

Dam straight. We need to drop this Hearts and Minds BS once and for all. Templer said that the conflict in Malaya would be won in the "hearts and minds" or the Malayan people. Eventually enough people felt in their hearts and knew in their minds, they could never eject the British by military means. Same deal in Northern Ireland.

Personally, I think anyone who bands about the the words hearts and minds, has the credibility of someone who says "Cho Cho train" when discussing public transport. We need to stop using these words. They are no longer useful.

[Adam L]

Dam straight. We need to drop this Hearts and Minds BS once and for all. Templer said that the conflict in Malaya would be won in the "hearts and minds" or the Malayan people. Eventually enough people felt in their hearts and knew in their minds, they could never eject the British by military means. Same deal in Northern Ireland.

Personally, I think anyone who bands about the the words hearts and minds, has the credibility of someone who says "Cho Cho train" when discussing public transport. We need to stop using these words. They are no longer useful.

Very true, but what sound-bite must we replace it with now? I worry that at this time it is not feasible politically to discard them. I would agree they are not accurate or appropriate anymore, on the other hand I feel they are still very useful. That is, in a PR capacity. The public doesn't repsond well to non-fuzzified language. In many ways the term "hearts and minds" is an absolutely brilliant PR catch phrase. Nobody can say winning "hearts and minds" is a bad idea. Some may feel we should do it without weapons, but the goal is still a "good one." You're 100% correct Wilf. Unfortunately I don't think that will ever happen

Adam L

[John T. Fishel]

as I said on another thread.

What do we call this kind of war - LIC, OOTW, COIN, SASO, MOOTW, CT, or the other hundred names? Each has its partisans and its critics and both have good reasons for their positions. Templar coined a phrase that had real utility at the time but was more simplistic than what the Brits actually did. In fact, they won the hearts and minds of the Malay majority by promising and granting independence, which allowed them to to go after the Chinese insurgents. One might argue that the Brits followed a pop centric strategy toward the non-insurgent population (including many if not most of the Chinese) with the necessary enemy centric components against the insurgents. Thus, perhaps, the term to replace "hearts and minds" when describing a Small Wars or COIN strategy might be Pop Centric. Of course, its critics will attack it on semantic grounds as well.

Cheers

JohnT

[camoguy]

Around 1968 the US stopped trying to deter the North Vietnamese from infiltrating the south by bombing the north. Instead they implemented a plan where they dropped thousands and thousands of sensors on the Ho Chi Minh trail in order to detect when the North Vietnamese were sending supplies and personnel south along the trail. When movement was detected this information was sent to patrolling F-4s who bombed the heck out of the area where the movement was detected. Ultimately the whole plan was a failure as it didn't do a whole lot to prevent the NV from infiltrating the south. Instead of providing a specific alternative possibility wherein the US could have better interdicted the movement south along the trail, I'm curious if anyone can provide a scenario where the US could have better interdicted the movement south. Could the sensor-shooter loop have been better implemented? Could some other plan have better worked? Was McNamara just too enthusiastic about throwing something hi-tech at the problem? Any thoughts? What are the implications of this situation for today?

[reed11b]

I think you may find the answer by looking for historical examples of conflict changing interdiction.
Reed
Hint: I have found none at this point in time, perhaps the council will provide an example I have missed

[Mike in Hilo]

Inter alia, Ending the Vietnam War, Kissinger's effort (Simon and Schuster, 2003) to coalesce material from his other memoirs, posits that Op Lam Son 719 was originally planned as a US led op--until the realities of US domestic politics intervened...

Cheers,
Mike.

[slapout9]

Interesting piece about how the Air Force would have used PGM's on the Ho Chi Trail IF they had been invented back then.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a.../saunders.html

[William F. Owen]

SOG OP-35 did some good work, in that Recon Teams can did have "sensor-shooter" loops that were reactive to target in less than 15 mins.

The most effective method of interdiction seems to have been physically dug in troops with on call CAS. I think the last big "Road Block" was conduct in November 1970.

Contrary to popular belief, the NVA were reliant on trucks routes. That is what they put 90% of their effort into building and maintaining.

[davidbfpo]

An email landed today announcing this panel discussion sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute and by the Reserve Officers Association:http://www.fpri.org/events/2013/02/w...tnam-revisited

Thursday, February 21, 2013
1:45 p.m. Registration; 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Program
ROA, One Constitution Avenue, NE, Washington, DC

Free and open to the public, reservations required:events@fpri.org
Also available via w webcast/teleconference, after registration:https://cc.readytalk.com/r/jm9ayjemevi4

Nearly four decades after the last American soldier left Vietnam, a debate still rages concerning the cause of the American defeat in that war. An influential narrative holds that the United States could never have won in Vietnam given the nature of the war and the commitment on the part of the Vietnamese communists. But over the past 20 years, a number of observers have called this narrative into question. Some military writers have argued that the US defeat in Vietnam can be traced to a flawed national strategy, which they blame mostly on civilian policy makers. But more recently, influential analysts, both military and civilian, have indicted the military itself for the failure, blaming military leadership for adopting a defective operational strategy.

This FPRI/ROA workshop addresses the latter argument by assessing the issue of Army generalship in Vietnam. The four panelists are well equipped to undertake this assessment. Three are soldier-scholars, combat veterans with PhDs who have grappled with this topic for many years: Lewis Sorley, Gian Gentile, and Gregory Daddis. One is a seasoned national security journalist who has spent decades observing the US military during war and peace, Tom Ricks. While the discussion will not resolve the debate, it will certainly enable reasonable observers to refine their own views.

[Bill Moore]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5GL3cJTyUM

Special Forces - LRRPs Vietnam

Excellent history on the LRRPs in Vietnam and the MACV-Recondo School ran by Special Forces. Only U.S. military school where students conducted live patrols in enemy territory. Students interviewed spoke very highly of the course.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of examples of piss poor leadership by the conventional army directed tactical operations from the rear, so some things never change.

Interesting discussion on their transition into the 75th Rangers (pro's and con's). It increased their risk due the Rangers operating in larger size patrols (8 men versus 4), but on the other hand gave them more firepower. Then the program discussed the incurred risk during Vietnamization when Vietnamese Rangers were integrated into U.S. Ranger patrols without being able to train together and learn each others SOPs prior to fighting together.

Overall a very well done documentary.

[davidbfpo]

The actual title of this BBC article is 'Viewpoint: Could one man have shortened the Vietnam War?', but I fear having Vietnam in the title may put (American) readers off:

Konrad Kellen was an unknown defence analyst who might have changed the course of the Vietnam War if only people had listened to him....in the early 1960s, he joined the Rand Corporation, .... And there he faced the greatest challenge of his career - the Vietnam Motivation and Morale Project.

How often do we read and learn this happens?

..the Pentagon didn't know anything about the North Vietnamese. They knew nothing about Vietnamese culture, Vietnamese history, Vietnamese language. It was just this little speck in the world, in their view.

Listening is hard because the more you listen, the more unsettling the world becomes. It's a lot easier just to place your hands over your ears and not listen at all......Kellen said that the Vietcong were not giving up and were not demoralised. It was not, he said, a battle the US could win - not today, not tomorrow and not the day after tomorrow.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23037957

[davidbfpo]

Not a counter-factual, rather a short introduction to a French offensive in northern Vietnam against the Viet Minh, from the newly discovered Defence in Depth, a Kings Defence Studies blogsite:http://defenceindepth.co/2014/11/27/...indochina-war/



The author cites Bernard Fall on Operation Lea:

a wild gamble at finishing the war in one single master stroke.

It is worth reading Fall's commentary on an operation at the same time. minus aircraft, tanks etc that actually had an effect and was led by two local infantry battalions - in the T'ai Highlands (see pg.30):http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=G...page&q&f=false

There is an old thread dedicated to Bernard Fall, after his wife published her own book:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...read.php?t=269

The author, Michael Finch, has a book on French COIN 1885-1900:http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/vie...ilqH5&result=1

Defence in Depth has irregular postings on such battles / operations:

Forgotten Battles is a feature on Defence-in-Depth designed to bring long-lost battles back from the depths of history. Our authors have chosen these engagements because they believe that their significance has been overlooked or overshadowed by better-remembered battles in history. The significance of the chosen battles may have been strategic and influenced greatly a particular war or campaign or may be based on other factors, such as social or cultural impact or the way in which a battle shaped the thinking of future leaders.

[davidbfpo]

Another Defence in Depth piece: 'Nation building a forgotten aspect of the Vietnam War' and asks why study this now?

Simple:

..both historians and theorists of nation-building have neglected one of the most comprehensive attempts at strengthening a foreign government ever undertaken by the United States.....a new generation of Vietnam War scholars is beginning to challenge this endless search for blame and to look at the conflict in a wider historical and theoretical perspective.

Link:http://defenceindepth.co/2014/12/08/...e-vietnam-war/

Alas the first link, a book review is beind a paywall; the second pair of links only take you to author bios, well at least there are starting points for reading identified.

[Bob's World]

Another Defence in Depth piece: 'Nation building a forgotten aspect of the Vietnam War' and asks why study this now?

Simple:

Link:http://defenceindepth.co/2014/12/08/...e-vietnam-war/

Alas the first link, a book review is beind a paywall; the second pair of links only take you to author bios, well at least there are starting points for reading identified.

Of course there were good tactical programs and operations in Vietnam. Likewise in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there is no value in celebrating these meaningless successes unless one does so in the context of the larger issue of the fundamentally flawed strategic context in which we viewed and framed these conflicts, and the infeasible policies we shaped our goals within.

Bottom line, when one creates an impossible problem and defines it in inaccurate terms - no amount of good tactical action, military or otherwise, is going to meet the basic measures of acceptable, suitable, feasible and complete.

At some point the US must step back and be objectively honest about how we have exaggerated our need to intervene in the governance of others in the name of our own security; and have equally assumed that the goodness of the nature of the governance we offered to others would somehow overcome the fundamentally illegitimate character of how that governance was imposed.

[SWJ Blog]

Stories of Grief, Love and Penance Live Among What’s Left at the Vietnam Wall

Entry Excerpt:



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