What if the US from 1965 or 66 prioritized ground operations against the HCM trail in Laos?

[raharris1973]

WI the US, without ultimately mobilizing more reserves or deploying more forces than OTL to Southeast Asia, pursued ground operations against the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos south of the 17th parallel? What if the US made ongoing patrols and enduring defensive positions to block infiltration a priority at least equal with holding South Vietnamese major cities?

Would the Americans do better or worse than OTL in the Vietnam War

Defining terms:

Better = changing the outcome, or keeping South Vietnam around longer or suffering fewer casualties than OTL

Worse = suffering more casualties, making more enemies or losing South Vietnam faster than OTL

I encourage you to answer the poll and explain your rationale for your vote.

 

[NORGCO]

Shifting the fighting against the NVA to South Eastern Laos, which is what attacking the trail would involve, changes the dynamics of the rest of the war.

Laos goes from being a sideshow with US support being the CIA and Air America to a far more conventional conflict. That means more supervision and not as much looking the other way as Heroin is shipped out by the C-130 load. That changes the War on Drugs too.

Preventing the NVA from being major players in the RVN means that they cannot soak up forces that should have been fighting the VC. The figures I have seen are that monthly infiltration rates from the North roughly matched body counts in the South. Add in the VC going into full wartime recruitment mode and communist forces actually increased in size as western forces flowed into the country from 65 to 68. So the VC regional forces and local militias will be under a lot more pressure.

So yes the war will be different. Reforming the ARVN is more plausible in this scenario since the argument that doing so would temporarily weaken it and lead to disaster is less plausible. VC losses are not being made up by Northerners. That changes the political dynamic where the VC were politically sidelined and the VC Provisional Revolutionary Government eventually went into exile and met in Paris two weeks after Saigon fell and the North Vietnamese flag was run up over the Presidential Palace.

Throw in a reduced flow of Heroin from Laos, with fewer addicted veterans returning home and a lot of changes result.

 

[Creidiki]

1) In 1965 majority of the fighting was FNL (Viet Cong) against ARVN and ARVN was losing. If US forces go to Laos and Cambodia, they will not be there to stop ARVN disintegrating in 65-66.

2) Cutting the HCM trail will probably not be enough to tip military balance in ARVN favour. Until mid 1965 majority of the materiel came either from inside South Vietnam or infiltrated by sea.

3) Even assuming that cutting land routes starves NLF large unit operations inside Vietnam, PAVN (NVA) will still be able to conduct operations on trail. So 1966 will look like 1969 IOTL but in Laos instead of South Vietnam. Hamburger Hill three years earlier?

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

WI the US, without ultimately mobilizing more reserves or deploying more forces than OTL to Southeast Asia, pursued ground operations against the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos south of the 17th parallel? What if the US made ongoing patrols and enduring defensive positions to block infiltration a priority at least equal with holding South Vietnamese major cities?

Would the Americans do better or worse than OTL in the Vietnam War

Defining terms:

Better = changing the outcome, or keeping South Vietnam around longer or suffering fewer casualties than OTL

Worse = suffering more casualties, making more enemies or losing South Vietnam faster than OTL

I encourage you to answer the poll and explain your rationale for your vote.

It would make no possible difference in the outcome of the war, because nothing could ever make any difference in the outcome of the war. If it had been possible to prevent the Communist conquest of South Vietnam, that would mean the noble, gallant, saintly "war protesters" of the 1960s and 1970s (such as the present U.S. Secretary of State) were wrong, and that is crimethink.

However, assuming that the laws of the universe would actually permit a different outcome...

Suppose the U.S. deployed a line of troops from the Vietnamese coast to the Mekong. Clear-cut a strip across the jungle 5 km wide. Establish blockhouses along the southern side of the cleared strip every 3 km or so, on high ground so that the entire strip is under observation. Put firebases every 10 km or so, so there is artillery covering the entire strip. Nothing is going to get across. If the PAVN masses for an attack in force, airstrikes and airmobile reserves can deal with it. (Have LRRP operating to the north, to provide warning of any such massing.)

(Note: this is not enough; the U.S. also has to shut down Communist supply through Cambodia, which came in through the port of Sihanoukville, and force the Cambodian government to eliminate the Communist bases in eastern Cambodia.)

This protects South Vietnam from the hundreds of thousands of troops and the vast amount of supplies and weapons which North Vietnam sent south.

IMO, at this point North Vietnam gives up. because the U.S. has stopped being mind-boggling stupid. (OTL., the Communists lost nearly every pitched battle, and suffered far greater casualties than the U.S. and ARVN. But the U.S. was being so stupid about the war that the Communists kept on, figuring the U.S. would eventually bungle its way to defeat.)

The Viet Cong insurgency in the South will persist for several years, but ARVN beat the Viet Cong in 1958-1962, and with Green Berate advisors, it can be coped with.

 

[BiteNibbleChomp]

I think that at least slowing the HCM trail would weaken, if not destroy, the possibility for something like Tet. Seeing as Tet was what really turned the American public against the war, the US would last longer, and likely do better as a result. If I was one of the commanding generals, I would have been pestering the Pentagon for a full fledged invasion of North Vietnam as a way to win the war, but smashing the trail would still have a sizeable effect, as well as lower risk.

- BNC