WI: US Army rotated whole units through Vietnam?

No real change, the South's Army is still led by corrupt officers, and new units don't know the terrain and are pulled out just when they finally understand it resulting in the cycle repeating.

In order to run a successful counter insurgency, your troops have to live in the country and stay in it till the fight is done. If you aren't willing to do that, then you should GTFO of that country and not waste your blood and treasure on it.

Really? Seriously? You're an idiot.

Insurgencies last at least 5 years, generally closer to a decade.

You don't want the sort of person who volunteers to fight for a solid decade and survives back in your country after they war.

I'll play the card on this one: 3 tours in Iraq, 1 in Afghanistan. Your credentials in counter-insurgency are?
 
IMHO, the biggest problem of USA in Vietnam War was that they have used draft-soldiers instead of professional soldiers.
If they had put draft soldiers on peace duties in W. Europe, and only professional soldiers in Vietnam, things would be much better all the way.
So for a proffesional battalion- 12 months in 'Nam, 2 months of rest in USA, 2 months training in jungles of Panama, anf so on.
;)

Mistype there.

12 months in 'Nam.
8 months in the States including 30 days of leave.
2 months in Panama
2 months in the States, including 30 days of leave.

And that's not best-case. Best case is 18-24 months between rotations.

You really don't want to do 12 on, 4 off to people. Especially not professional Soldiers that you need to convince to stay in.
 
Then you stay the fuck out of the war. We won WW2 because units were sent for the Duration and did not come back till the war was won.



Uh no it was an utter disaster. The new units that came in had different ideals of fighting the war and in most cases undid the work of their predecessors.

See the book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005 by Thomas E Ricks.

I see where you get your ideas. WW2 was a cakewalk compared to fighting a counter-insurgency. Your average US infantry regiment was in combat for less than 180 days. I saw that in my first tour in Iraq. I'm a volunteer. I've re-enlisted twice and went back to Iraq twice, and Afghanistan once. You keep even trained professionals in combat longer than 12 months, and you end up with mental health cases that you have no frame of reference for comprehending.

And a post-mortem on Iraq written in 2005 is like a post-mortem on the Pacific campaign written in mid-1942.
 
Australia reckons 9 months is the ideal balance, 6 would be better for the troops but too hard for the forces.
 

abc123

Banned
Mistype there.

12 months in 'Nam.
8 months in the States including 30 days of leave.
2 months in Panama
2 months in the States, including 30 days of leave.

And that's not best-case. Best case is 18-24 months between rotations.

You really don't want to do 12 on, 4 off to people. Especially not professional Soldiers that you need to convince to stay in.


Well, if you say so...
;)
 
Rotation of Forces

I believe that the UK is currently operating a six-month rotation in Afghanistan with each deployed member granted two week's leave in the UK during that period. Whole units, or "Battle Groups" (mixtures of Infantry, Engineers, Support etc) are deployed so that would seem to be the "unit" rotation in operation. Beat-up training pre-deployment is intense, with the troops assigned to deploy, working and training together.

However, Afghanistan is some 40-50 years after the Vietnam War and a lot has been learnt since then and much put into practice. It could be argued that the UK Ground Forces (not just Army, but Royal Marines and elements of the RAF Regiment) had the best training in the World for (admittedly lower intensity) "COIN" Operations with Op BANNER in Northern Ireland from 1969 to, arguably, the present day (Army fatalities were incurred in 2009) plus previous deployments in Malaya, Aden, Cyprus and as far back as Palestine and Greece at the end of WWII and so have approached “yet another COIN Op” with a clear mindset; Wars at the “Twilight of Empire” have been their forte since, probably, Suez in 1956.

The benefit here could in some way be down to the fact that since c. 1960(ish) HM Armed Forces have been volunteer only, following the end of National Service (i.e. "The Draft") post WWII and "Institutional Memory" is strong with many soldiers serving 22 years "with the Colours" (longer if you look at "Late Entry" Commissions of WOs to Officers), so lessons and experiences are passed on from one generation to the next. Add to this the fact that HM Armed Forces, whilst not being as lavishly equipped as some forces are without doubt the best trained and amongst the best led on the planet and you can get an idea of how the system works. However, that is “now” and the general thrust of the initial post was how the US could have bettered its performance in Vietnam some 40-odd years ago.

As pervious posters have alluded to, the mind set of politicians and senior military commanders must be taken into consideration. Many “Seniors” (probably from the rank of Lt-Colonel upwards) were WWII veterans and their direct experience coupled with the prevailing Strategic thinking of the time would have influenced how they behaved and indeed viewed the conflict as a whole.

With the exception of the Philippines and some small scales interventions in Latin America, recent (i.e. prior C20) US experience was WWI, WWII and Korea; all three were “classic” wars of army vs. army, ship vs. ship and, latterly air to air combat. Semantics apart, America never had an Empire. The “West” was expanded and settled with a vastly inferior (technology-wise) indigenous population to oppose it. The Spanish-American War of 1898 was a “War of Liberation” with the US (outwardly) fighting FOR the Cubans and Pilipinos AGAINST the Spanish Imperialists and the forays into Latin America were short in duration and limited in aim. In short America, bereft of a “Classic” Empire in the style of Britain or France’s, never had to interact with populations who were, in general, nothing short of ecstatic to see them as they were there to throw out Spaniards / Imperial Germans / Nazi Germans / Communist Koreans…

Vietnam was a shock in the truest sense of the word. Add to the fact that Ho Chi Minh was George Washington (OK; but you see what I mean), that some of the Vietnamese people seemed to openly support him and couple that with flawed military and political policy and the end result was never going to be in doubt.

Full Unit rotation, intense training, calling up reserves and (IMHO) not sending draftees may have helped, but without a change in mind-set, I do not think that it would have been enough. For the reasons I have attempted to set out above, those in the higher levels of command saw nothing wrong with how they were prosecuting the war. How could they, based on all that they had (personally) seen and “knew”?

The fruit of this bitter learning process is only now coming to the fore in Afghanistan with no-one (?) in the US Forces with first hand recollection of Vietnam and a string of recent successes to draw on (Grenada ’83, Panama ’89 GWI ’91 and to a lesser extent Peacekeeping in the Balkans).

The US has always been a “War Fighting” force par excellence, but it has been argued this is based on its ability to fight “Industrialized War” (i.e. WW2.5) and that large scale COIN is “not their thing”. In short they are finally adapting to it, but it could not have happened back in the 60s and certainly not “overnight” once embroiled – after all; Armies fight the last war, don’t they?
 
Vietnam was far higher intensity than Malaya and Borneo, British co-in tactics weren't perfectly suited there and had to be ramped up a fair bit. The Australians, coming straight from Brit co-in wars, deployed tanks in support of their forces, something never considered in Malaya and Borneo. So the US style of war isn't totally out of place in Vietnam.
 

Cook

Banned
Australia reckons 9 months is the ideal balance, 6 would be better for the troops but too hard for the forces.

During Vietnam it was 365 sleeps and a wakie as Riain no doubt knows but has omitted to say here.
 
I know a bloke who did a full 13 months, but he didn't go outside the wire after day 365.

Just as a matter of interest Australia individually rotated personnel through the supporting arms like armour, it was the infantry which were rotated through in btns.
 

Cook

Banned
So the US style of war isn't totally out of place in Vietnam.


It has to be pointed that the US style of war varied considerably during the Vietnam War, as did the NVA methods and strengths.

General Westmorland’s tactics were very different from those adopted by General Abrams, which were far more successful; by the time the American and other allied forces withdrew the fight had gone out of the insurgency.

At that point the North switched to conventional warfare.
 

Cook

Banned
In this scenario I feel that the US army would be more effective, but only if their rotation policy was accompanied by effective training - particularly language and the importance of hearts & minds.

Which had to wait until Abrams took over.
 
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