Panther wrote on Jan 14^th, 2020 at 11:36am:


Winning battles doesn't always win you the war, mate.

The Chinese didn't send any troops to South Vietnam.  Their sole contributions were to the North Vietnamese railways and to their AA defences.   It also depends on when during the war - initially they had 10,000 railway troops in North Vietnam and then, later they had only a smaller number of advisors so I'd take your claim that "200,000 Chinese Regulars were also killed" with a massive handful of salt.  The actual numbers with far, far, fewer.

As for how many South Vietnamese died, your figures are also well, rather rubbery.  The best estimates suggest about 2 million South Vietnamese died during the Vietnam war.  As we know, the US military's "body counts" were rather contested during the war,  based as they were on biased reporting for the most part.

As for the numbers of Americans who died, well, what else do you expect from a military led by incompetents and not trained to fight a proper counter-insurgency campaign?  The US military wasn't interested in the sideshow that Vietnam represented.  They wanted the "war of the big battalions" as Napoleon once called it, on the central European plain against those Communist hordes, poised to invade West Germany.   

The US also believed they were fighting the Kremlin rather than a bunch of peasants in a paddy field.  The interesting thing is that after the collapse of the fUSSR, the Soviet ex-Ambassador to North Vietnam published his memoires.  He described how he was kept waiting outside in the corridor while the North Vietnamese made decisions about the conduct of the war and was then summoned into the Politburo meeting to hear what they wanted the fUSSR to do.  Now compare that with the Republic of Vietnam.  There, the US created a complete shadow government which dictated to the Southerners how they were organise their entire economy, how to fight the war, how to treat their population, everything.  Tsk, tsk. 

Australia knew how to fight a counter-insurgency war and did so.  That is why our casualties were proportionally lower and why we dominated the province, Phuoc Tuy we were assigned to the point that when required, we left it to fight the big war that Westmoreland decreed.   

greggerypeccary wrote on Jan 14^th, 2020 at 12:14pm:

Brian Ross wrote on Jan 14^th, 2020 at 12:12pm:


Unlike you, Panther, I don't hide from facts.  I actively search them out and use them.  Tsk, tsk. 

Panther wrote on Jan 14^th, 2020 at 3:28pm:


Oh, dearie, dearie, me.  Racism?  Tsk, tsk, such a childish reaction simply because the US LOST the Vietnam War.  I think i'll leave your post there, so that everybody can see it for what it is, the over-reaction of a child. 

Panther wrote on Jan 14^th, 2020 at 4:21pm:


I care about facts and their misuse, Panther.  Tsk tsk. 

You appear to care about only one thing - guns.  Tsk, tsk. 

greggerypeccary wrote on Jan 14^th, 2020 at 12:14pm:


And a clown !

Frank wrote on Jan 14^th, 2020 at 5:43pm:


Anything of value to add to the thread, Soren?  Nope, it doesn't appear so.  Look run along back to the little kiddies' playground.   The adults want to have a serious conversation, OK?