WI tactical nukes were used in Vietnam?

kernals12

Banned
One thing we're forgetting is that the Soviet Union would probably give nukes to the Viet Cong. They would probably be able to wipe out all American and South Vietnamese forces. A squadron of B-52s is no match for a single nuclear tipped SAM. There'd be no siege of Khe Sanh, just a mushroom cloud. The ships transporting troops and supplies would be destroyed.
 
So in essence the US would become the Empire in Star Wars in deciding that the best way to get rid of a small guerrilla fighting force is with horrifying powerful and destructive super weapons.
You think they would learn from history Japan in World War II history. If you're going to invade someone be
sure you can you can win and if you get curb-stomped there's nobody's fault but your own. And the Vietcong is not who they were going to be bombing it would be the country of North Vietnam which made themselves eligible by invading the South and helping gorillas and I think that is not a really good term because I think they were as much soldiers as the North Vietnamese Army but that's a different discussion.
 
So in essence the US would become the Empire in Star Wars in deciding that the best way to get rid of a small guerrilla fighting force is with horrifying powerful and destructive super weapons.
So Star Wars is actually a Vietnam Movie.;)
 

Edward IX

Banned
Well the french were out of Vietnam by 1954 I don't think tactical nukes had been developed by then.

Although I was thinking that if Truman decided to allow nuclear weapons in the Korean War their usage would have been more destigmatized for future conflicts.
There was at least something because the French sure as hell begged for us to use them at Dien Bien Phu.
 
Having the Ho Chi Minh Trail chock-a-block with Fallout products would have made a noticeable difference, when those in the Transport Battalions sicken.

Ah, I see. And the North Vietnamese wouldn't just, you know, switch to using a different area of jungle a few miles away? Or are you going to nuke ALL the possible routes?

Like I said, the problem was never that the US didn't have enough firepower...
 
One thing we're forgetting is that the Soviet Union would probably give nukes to the Viet Cong. They would probably be able to wipe out all American and South Vietnamese forces. A squadron of B-52s is no match for a single nuclear tipped SAM. There'd be no siege of Khe Sanh, just a mushroom cloud. The ships transporting troops and supplies would be destroyed.


The Viet Cong's dispersion makes nukes a lot less useful than you'd think. It would probably result in China and the Soviet Union giving them nukes to use on our military bases and supply lines.

Whoa-a-a-a... there's no way in hell the Russians or the Chinese would be suicidal enough to hand out a pallet of nuclear warheads for the North to use to incinerate thousands of US troops and civilian support staff. That just ain't happening, in any rational scenario.
 

Ian_W

Banned
Whoa-a-a-a... there's no way in hell the Russians or the Chinese would be suicidal enough to hand out a pallet of nuclear warheads for the North to use to incinerate thousands of US troops and civilian support staff. That just ain't happening, in any rational scenario.

If the view is that tac nukes are just another weapon, then I think you're wrong.
 
Whoa-a-a-a... there's no way in hell the Russians or the Chinese would be suicidal enough to hand out a pallet of nuclear warheads for the North to use to incinerate thousands of US troops and civilian support staff. That just ain't happening, in any rational scenario.
China/Russia would have been told in advance, your nukes even if used by the NVA kill US soldiers , China/Russia get hit back hard.
 

Ian_W

Banned
China/Russia would have been told in advance, your nukes even if used by the NVA kill US soldiers , China/Russia get hit back hard.

As was noted on the first page, this was not the conclusion of the study the US military did

"If about 100 weapons of 10-KT yield each could be delivered from base parameters onto all 70 [US] target areas in a coordinated strike," wrote the JASONs, " the U.S. fighting capability in Vietnam would be essentially annihilated [emphasis added]."

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...-weapons-how-america-could-have-won-the-24097
 
As was noted on the first page, this was not the conclusion of the study the US military did

"If about 100 weapons of 10-KT yield each could be delivered from base parameters onto all 70 [US] target areas in a coordinated strike," wrote the JASONs, " the U.S. fighting capability in Vietnam would be essentially annihilated [emphasis added]."

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...-weapons-how-america-could-have-won-the-24097
Not relevant what I was saying, I was pointing out if the US was going nuclear, it would probable warn the Chinese/Russians if the NVA suddenly got nukes, any attack by them would be seen as an attack by Russia/China on the US bringing automatic retaliation.
 

Ian_W

Banned
Not relevant what I was saying, I was pointing out if the US was going nuclear, it would probable warn the Chinese/Russians if the NVA suddenly got nukes, any attack by them would be seen as an attack by Russia/China on the US bringing automatic retaliation.

And if that bluff - and it is a bluff - gets called ?
 
And if that bluff - and it is a bluff - gets called ?

warheads, 1969
USA 27,463
USSR 10,538
China 50

Unlike 1962, the USSR can now deliver many ICBMs to CONUS for MAD to occur, but the USSR is still completely obliterated. USA 'loses' but USSR no longer exists
 
One thing we're forgetting is that the Soviet Union would probably give nukes to the Viet Cong. They would probably be able to wipe out all American and South Vietnamese forces. A squadron of B-52s is no match for a single nuclear tipped SAM. There'd be no siege of Khe Sanh, just a mushroom cloud. The ships transporting troops and supplies would be destroyed.

Highly unlikely that USSR would release control of nuclear weapons to proxies. During the Cuban missile crisis, the control of Soviet nukes remained in Soviet hands and Castro planned to usurp that control from the Soviet garrison in case of US landing and the Soviet refuse to use the nukes.
 
warheads, 1969
USA 27,463
USSR 10,538
China 50

Unlike 1962, the USSR can now deliver many ICBMs to CONUS for MAD to occur, but the USSR is still completely obliterated. USA 'loses' but USSR no longer exists

PRC had no missile capability in 1969, any nuclear attack would be carried out by bomber. Also, the no. of Chinese warheads look way too high. What's your source?
 
PRC had no missile capability in 1969, any nuclear attack would be carried out by bomber. Also, the no. of Chinese warheads look way too high. What's your source?
And some of those bombers would have been the B-29 knockoff, the Tu-4 Bull: frontline service till '71, being replaced by the Hong-5, aka Badgers in 1970 along with some Beagle knockoffs.

Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Energy
- A Study in Global Governance -
Ryukichi Imai
Former Ambassador, Conference on Disarmament, Geneva
 
PRC had no missile capability in 1969, any nuclear attack would be carried out by bomber. Also, the no. of Chinese warheads look way too high. What's your source?
I don't think there are any sources with concrete numbers for Chinese nuclear warheads. 50 doesn't seem impossible, but I have no idea. China's first test was in 1964, but they relied heavily on Soviet assistance, which was withdrawn in 1960.
 
This scenario almost came about in 1973. Russia moved tac nukes into the Middle East during the Yom Kippur war, they probably got wind that Israel had nukes.
In response the United States moved tactical nukes into South East Asia.
If war broke out they planned to nuke their way to Hanoi.
 

iVC

Donor
Highly unlikely that USSR would release control of nuclear weapons to proxies. During the Cuban missile crisis, the control of Soviet nukes remained in Soviet hands and Castro planned to usurp that control from the Soviet garrison in case of US landing and the Soviet refuse to use the nukes.

Most probably it was done because of fear of Cubans using them against Florida and the very USA soil.

There is a big difference between nuking a Florida among the highly-escalated worldwide crisis along with DEFCON II in the air and nuking a shitty airstrip in the South Vietnam by the proxy hands after the USA had already blown out the atomic genie against some partisans (and the world around is crying bloody murder).

p.s. I'm of the opinion that maybe proxy-Soviets and proxy-Americans would be actually allowed to throw a nuke or two against each other in some distant places like Black Africa or jungles of South Asia. These places are not the sacred Europa or sacred West Coast after all.
 
Top