CH: Vietcong Win a Single Major Tactical Battle

[ModernKiwi]

Well there you go. A large part of the 173rd goes into a deep valley on a search and destroy mission. The high mountain sides block radio transmissions and the weather closes in preventing helicopters from relaying messages or providing cover.

The cunningly assembled VC forces (amply prepared for this event thanks to foresight from Nostradamus) have many many mortars and large numbers of troops, all well supplied with ammunition.

The attack is bloody, but by cutting off any retreat, the VC are eventually victorious with many US casualties and prisioners...

[Armored Diplomacy]

The only possible way that this happens is if the Vietcong catch the US troops by surprise and/or are in defensive positions, and that they fight the battle in large numbers instead of the usual small-unit tactics.

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by ModernKiwi

Well there you go. A large part of the 173rd goes into a deep valley on a search and destroy mission. The high mountain sides block radio transmissions and the weather closes in preventing helicopters from relaying messages or providing cover.

The cunningly assembled VC forces (amply prepared for this event thanks to foresight from Nostradamus) have many many mortars and large numbers of troops, all well supplied with ammunition.

The attack is bloody, but by cutting off any retreat, the VC are eventually victorious with many US casualties and prisioners...

Perfect! You see, this wasn't so bad after all. It will be public and humiliating, while perfectly fulfilling the requirements of the OP.

[ModernKiwi]

Well while not invoking any alien bats, it certainly does see a number of UFOs...

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by ModernKiwi

Well while not invoking any alien bats, it certainly does see a number of UFOs...

Well, I think we can edit your scenario to get rid of ASB and UFO elements. Additionally, this could be done if the Vietcong somehow tricked US forces into an ambush like event, which certainly isn't impossible.

[ModernKiwi]

Well if you want to tempt US forces into the valley in numbers, you're going to need to give them a reason - ie a large force of VC/NVA.

Even then you're likely to see recon teams sent in beforehand to see just what is in there (and so how much force will be needed), and stop forces positioned at likely exits from the region. The sort of thing you can do when you have that much more force available to you.

SOP from recollection would have been to seize a number of hilltops as well to prevent radio cut off like I described earlier. There is likely to be at least one firebase (possibly) two with the range to provide arty support as well that you'd need to tie up.

You can see how difficult this all is to put together, especially with imperfect and slow communications.

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by ModernKiwi

Well if you want to tempt US forces into the valley in numbers, you're going to need to give them a reason - ie a large force of VC/NVA.

Even then you're likely to see recon teams sent in beforehand to see just what is in there (and so how much force will be needed), and stop forces positioned at likely exits from the region. The sort of thing you can do when you have that much more force available to you.

SOP from recollection would have been to seize a number of hilltops as well to prevent radio cut off like I described earlier. There is likely to be at least one firebase (possibly) two with the range to provide arty support as well that you'd need to tie up.

You can see how difficult this all is to put together, especially with imperfect and slow communications.

Yes, however this is at least within the Vietcong's... normal operations if you will?

Look, it wouldn't be easy, but nothing ever really was for them, all things considered, yet they got their victory.

[ModernKiwi]

Actually the VC got dick all out of it - certainly not victory.

Tet killed off pretty much the entire VC leadership and most of the members and from that point all it was almost entirely a NVA led (and manned) force that operated in the South. It was joked that the VC was 5 men and a dog.

To this day politics in Vietnam are dominated by people from the North - there was no-one left of any significant in the leadership from the south to challenge them. It is fairly certain that this was (at least in large part) deliberate.

[Killer300]

You do realize how utterly incompetent the South Vietnam government was, correct? If not... you need to look up past threads on the Vietnam conflict.

[ModernKiwi]

Yes I am very aware of the various weaknesses and corruptions of the South Vietnamese government. I'm not sure what that has to do with this though?

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by ModernKiwi

Yes I am very aware of the various weaknesses and corruptions of the South Vietnamese government. I'm not sure what that has to do with this though?

My point is the reason why it didn't survive is because it was dependent on a colonial sugar daddy, and really... had no legitimacy. I'm not saying North Vietnam didn't help get rid of it politically, however the real nail in the coffin for it was the first.

[ModernKiwi]

My comments were on the Viet Cong, not the South Vietnamese government and how their leadership was (almost certainly deliberately) removed thanks to suicidal orders from the North to prevent there being any kind of "legitimate" southern leadership.

[Killer300]

Originally Posted by ModernKiwi

My comments were on the Viet Cong, not the South Vietnamese government and how their leadership was (almost certainly deliberately) removed thanks to suicidal orders from the North to prevent there being any kind of "legitimate" southern leadership.

Okay, that is a much more legit complaint, that I'll let others answer, if at all.

[Jello_Biafra]

Originally Posted by unclepatrick

Sorry not going to happen. The VC strength is small hit and run tactics. You can win some small fights again platoon size troops, but once you go for a Major battle, the VC are playing in to the US strength heavy firepower put againt a enemy in the open. No way the VC can win.
They try in the Tet offensive. They Lose.

The PLA's victories, with the exact same kind of odds, in Korea should put paid to that notion.

Light infantry units, if they are clever, mobile, and use the terrain to their advantage, can infiltrate and inflict defeat on larger mechanized formations.

[MacCaulay]

Originally Posted by DValdron

The war was unwinnable. The Vietnam war was lost by 1962, the Saigon government had failed, they had sunk into a sea of corruption and incompetence.

I never thought I'd say this, but you actually just made a statement about the Vietnam War that I actually think is more positive than I would.

As for McNamara, Johnson and the 'political class', well too bad boys and girls. But that political class won the cold war. History vindicated them every step of the way. Get over it.

Take this how you will, but even though I agree with you the general snarky tone of that makes me want to find a way to disagree with you. I know you're a lawyer, and I hope you don't use that tone in the courtroom because if I was a juror it certainly wouldn't win me over.

[aktarian]

Any of these meet your criteria?

[NORGCO]

Originally Posted by aktarian

Any of these meet your criteria?

I have been wondering if it's some kind of semantic issue, since no one is mentioning the NVA, which over time (particularly post-TET Offensive) became the hard centre of the Main Force that fought the major battles.

The question specifically asks about the VC, most of which was not main force but villiage milita at squad to at most company level or regional force in battalion to regiment size. Even then a VC battalion was only 320 men, less than half the size of a western equivalent.

The NVA operated in Regiments to Divisions, with better weapons, training and officers. Over time it became a regular army, though US forces never had to face this. The force that overran the ARVN in 1975 had more tanks then the Nazi's used to take France and more trucks than Patton had supporting the 3rd Army, as well as an integrated air defence system with Sam-2 and Sam- 3 missiles in South Vietnam itself. US forces were facing it when it limited itself to weapons that could be carried on a mans back, 12.7mm machine guns as air defence and its only supply vehicles were bicycles.

The only time United States forces faces NVA tanks in numbers (a battalion of PT-76's) was at Lang Vei special forces camp. Note that the NVA took the camp, the survivors said that when they heard the tank engines at first they thought the camp generator had developed a fault. Yes the defending battalion did have anti-tank defences, LAW's and 106mm recoilless rifles.

[pnyckqx]

Originally Posted by MarshalBraginsky

Would having the US Army do worse at the Tet Offensive actually work?

Not entirely implausible. If General Weyand is not given permission to pull back IIFF from the border area missions after pleading with Westmoreland, then Tet68 does much more damage. It takes the US much longer to get combat troops into the action.

Eventually, the VC still lose, 'eventually' being the operative word. It is a case of quantity taking on it's own quality. The quantity US Firepower will keep various elements alive, but not before having severe casualties inflicted. You can bet that they will be reported by the media.

[Orry]

The problem is defining major....

A few company's is not a major battle in the context of the number of troops in Nam.

Wiping out a Battalion is hard because the Americans trump card is massive fire power and for a Battalion in trouble they can really pour it on.

You are not going to get a Dien Bien Phu situation - Khe Sanh was very different both in ground layout and in the level of firepower the Americans had on hand.

I am also not sure that having a couple of PAVN divisions would get the result you want - they have to lose to what appears to be southern VC units. A regular PAVN division over running an American Battalion 'proves' that the enemy is not indigenous to the south.

There are a whole number of things that have to go wrong to get the result you need. Most of them are possible but its the combination of them that is 'unlikely'. Platoons and companies may go swanning of into the paddies without proper backup plans and in bad weather - Battalions and Brigades tend not to - there is an upside to the inertia their command structures generate.

[Gosing]

Originally Posted by MacCaulay

I think he was looking for one that was a complete and total win for the Viet Cong.

Which brings us to what should probably be the crack of the nut, here: what would (and does) the American public (or the Western world) define and view a defeat as?

What does our culture view a defeat as? Honestly, when you view it that way, it makes the question a lot more interesting to me. Alternate History is alot more interesting to me when it's used as a prism to view our own world than as a world-building exercise.

I think that a medium-to-large-ish force taking casualties (including prisoners lost) of 90+%, including the leader, would do the trick. How the VC would do that is beyond me.