WI: US resupplies South Vietnam?

Considering South Vietnam held out for quite a while even after they were cut off from supplies it would cost them quite a bit.

19 months is "quite a while" ? more so when you realize that the North never went on a full offensive in December 1974, NV thought it would take them 5 years to over run SV, it took less than 2
 

Japhy

Banned
Considering South Vietnam held out for quite a while even after they were cut off from supplies it would cost them quite a bit.

While this is true the problem still is that the RVN government is still committed to a "Hold Every Inch" policy, and were up until the disastrous evacuation of the Central Highlands. More arms will simply convince them to continue the policy even longer, and that ensures defeat in 1975.

In a perfect scenario, there's an evacuation south and east, away from the Highlands, away from the DMZ, but slowly enough that families of troops can be evacuated in a safe and effective manner--- ARVN troops fought well in the 1970's by and large, so long as they knew their families were safe. There is a reason why the army started to collapse in the Central Highlands and that was precisely due to the Convoy of Tears --- these additional troops with no more Paratroopers or Marines or what have you being held down on DMZ duty means there's effective reserves to hold on further south. With additional arms, the 1975 advance might just be halted, or at least blunted for a considerable period of time.

The problems with that being political. By 1975 Hanoi isn't interested in anything short of unconditional surrender, there can be no Finland peace. On the other hand Thieu was completely disinterested in negotiations, or for that matter anything less than a Hold Every Inch policy. And of course you have the American government which is no longer interested in acting on the behest of Saigon.

In a perfect storm, you can save South Vietnam in 1975, but that just means a repeat in 1976. To actually secure something, anything, you have to go back further. A US refusal to support Thieu making the 1971 election a farce might help, but you would need to have the US Agree to support Duong Van Minh taking over, because he's the only politician Hanoi would have possibly considered some sort of Finlandization with.
 

Japhy

Banned
19 months is "quite a while" ? more so when you realize that the North never went on a full offensive in December 1974, NV thought it would take them 5 years to over run SV, it took less than 2

In modern warfare, yeah, 19 months without resupply is a long time. ARVN's supply situation got so bad they could barely manage to ever use life ammunition in training, and when they did, had to detail people to sweep up to try and find unfired rounds for save.
 
In modern warfare, yeah, 19 months without resupply is a long time. ARVN's supply situation got so bad they could barely manage to ever use life ammunition in training, and when they did, had to detail people to sweep up to try and find unfired rounds for save.

but the US was funding them, a lot, it was like the door closed all at once, for a year between the pull out 1973 and Nixon stepping down in 1974 the US was fixed at a billion a year, in August 1974, Congress voted to reduce that yearly out put to 700 million, the 1974 mid-terms the new congress in early 1975 voted to restrict funding in Phases over 1975 till cut off in 1976

which is all to say that Vietnam had US money, maybe not as much as they thought they'd get under the Paris accords, and Ford failed to get SV the 522 million in emergency military aid in 1975 when it was all coming apart (though he did get 400 million for humanitarian aid) but it would be wrong to say that SV was cut off from US, it hadn't stopped fully, it was due to end totally till 8 months after the fall


the issue was less US aid and more the oil crisis, which burned down the SV economy, when the war restarted in 1975 the South Vietnamese had three times as much artillery and twice the number of tanks and armored cars as the opposition. They also had 1,400 aircraft and a two-to-one numerical superiority in combat troops over the NV army, but they didn't have the gas to run most of it, the US was suffering from the oil crisis, NV had the Soviets to send them oil.
 
19 months is "quite a while" ? more so when you realize that the North never went on a full offensive in December 1974, NV thought it would take them 5 years to over run SV, it took less than 2

Why would it take five years? A little less than two years is quite a while considering the circumstances. One side gets weapons and resupply from a superpower and the other gets very limited supply.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
I would counter the OP by questioning if it was Congress or the Executive Branch that was more responsible for "breaking the American word" toward South Vietnam

On supplies:

There were plenty of supplies delivered to South Vietnam up until the
fall of Saigon, with more in the pipeline. There _had_ been a cut in
military aid. But was Congress to blame?

Here is Doug Muir from the January 2005 thread _A Fish Called Wanda_:

On Blame
=======

"The Class of '74 had nothing to do with the fall of Vietnam. (Among
other things, the final, conventional offensive that destroyed the
South started before the 94th Congress was sworn in. Cripes, the 94th
didn't even cut aid.) But they were liberals, they were standing
nearby, so they must have been guilty. "

And again from the same thread:

"Final point: if any one person's fingerprints are on the knife, it's
R.M. Nixon. IMO the key moment came in 1973, when aid was cut between
FY 1973 and 1974. The _cut_ in aid was about $1.5 billion. South
Vietnam's entire GDP at that time was less than $10 billion. So it's
not surprising that this had fairly godawful effects on their ability
to defend themselves. But Nixon agreed to this with scarcely a
glance
backwards; he had other fish to fry
, and he wanted Vietnam to be
behind
him.

"But note that the budget negotiations for FY 1974 took place in late
'72 and early '73. Watergate was barely a blip on the horizon then,
and Nixon had just won re-election in a landslide. (And gotten a
slightly more conservative and Republican Congress to work with, too.
)
RMN threw the Vietnamese overboard more than a year before his
resignation, many months before Watergate had reached crisis level.
He
did it because he wanted to, not because he had to.
"

On the Quanta of US Aid
==================

"That is so wrong it's not even wrong.

"Correct figures for US aid to the South

"FY 1973 (July 1, 1972 - June 30, 1973) -- $2.5 billion
"FY 1974 (July 1, 1973 - June 30, 1974) -- $1.1 billion
"FY 1975 (July 1, 1974 - June 30, 1975) -- $900 million*

"*700 million appropriated, but went into cost overruns, so a bit more
than $900 million eventually spent

"Now, the 94th Congress -- the very liberal "Class of '74" -- was
elected in November '74 and took office in January '75. They didn't
cut the aid budget to Vietnam; they couldn't. That money had already
been appropriated by the 93rd, and would continue to flow for another
six months, until the end of June '75. By which point the South would
have ceased to exist."
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Why would it take five years? A little less than two years is quite a while considering the circumstances. One side gets weapons and resupply from a superpower and the other gets very limited supply.

This is a wonderful question for somebody to ask Vietnamese military and party historians - what was the rationale for thinking it would take 5 years to defeat South Vietnam sans foreign troops in country?

Maybe there was a bureaucratic interest in high-military budgeting shaping the estimate along with a hyper-abundance of caution.
 
South Vietnam held as well as can be expected after U.S. support was cut. But, it probably needed U.S. air support to survive long term as all North Vietnam's allies need to do is give them enough air support and the bottom would slowly fall out over time with the South.
 
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