After much lurking on this board, and taking much inspiration from a lot of you guys, an idea for a TL is starting to form in my head.
WI the West German government honored a US request for combat troops in Vietnam in the mid-sixties (before OTL's Tet Offensive). The request happened IOTL.
I am aware of the constitutional problems this would pose and which I would have to avoid by giving the *FRG a more lenient Article 87a of the constitution or have the constitutional court judge that out-of-area deployments in the framework of supranational alliances are constitutional (Article 24) about 30 years early (the OTL decision took place 1994).
I am not planning on making this a military-wank, although I think the German troops would perform above average, likely having taken into account the experience of the French in Indochina, interviewing German Indochina veterans of la Legion Étrangère and especially considering that a sizable number of German Bundeswehr officers and NCOs had WWII combat experience.
The troops would conceivably be a mix of Jäger and Fallschirmjäger troops in regiment strength under the leadership of an accomplished officer (light infantry is IMHO the best choice for jungle warfare, artillery support would likely be provided by the Americans). I can imagine this guy being a batallion commander:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Witzig .
However, apart from the fresh influx of combat experience this early in the history of the Bundeswehr, I would like to concentrate mainly on the political fallout of German combat troops in Vietnam.
How would the Warsaw pact react? Would the *GDR increase its agitprop measures inside the *FRG (more clandestine support to leftist groups etc.)?
Would the youth revolt of 1968 happen early (I plan on having the Germans over in Vietnam by mid-1966)? Would there be widespread protest in Germany? Would the ATL government survive the inevitable pictures of German soldiers killing and being killed so soon after WWII?
What would be the long-term effects of the whole scenario?
I am really interested to hear your comments on this.