WW2 USN Strategic Bombing Capability

XBe02Drvr said:

How do you quantify "hearts and minds"??

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I'm not sure, but wasting shitloads of people didn't work short of nuking the place (I'm glad it never came to that)

As far as Johnson and McNamara were concerned, if you couldn't put a number on it, it didn't exist.

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And they were wrong, obviously

McNamara was a whiz-kid from Detroit who made his chops saving a car company from bankruptcy and leading it to market dominance through the power of statistical analysis.

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A car company is not the same as a military

Counter-insurgency? Uncle Sam's Misguided Children?? Don't make me laugh, it hurts too much!! "NVA's are in that treeline, top of the hill. Frontal assault, CHARGE!"

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Actually the USMC did employ both ground-tactics, close air-support tactics, probably generic bomb and strafe tactics in Nicaragua, as well as a COIN manual they developed. They were able to implement them to some degree, though I assume there was more killing than winning hearts and minds, but the fact is they did whip it up.

My ROTC company in college was trained in counter-insurgency operations by our Green Beret Major advisor at a time when Army doctrine and training were all about a tank war in Europe.

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You were in a company lead by smart guys

When the other kids were off watching the football game or going to weekend parties, we were crawling around in the thules doing recon, ambush, booby traps, camouflage, and eating snakes and wild leeks.

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Do snakes taste like chicken?

The Chinese in Korea fit K, J, and M's image of a nation-state committing conventional military aggression against a neighbor.

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They could do conventional tactics but fought through mostly guerilla means as it was far more effective.

The situation in Vietnam of an insurgency of the people, aided and supplied by the "other half" of the people north of the DMZ just didn't fit into their world-view. They never realized how little support the rank and file citizenry had for our "friends" in the RVN government.

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The South had lots of sympathizers?

Zipper730 said:

I'm not sure, but wasting shitloads of people didn't work short of nuking the place (I'm glad it never came to that)

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Nuking the place would have accomplished nothing besides poisoning the landscape and turning us into international pariahs.

Zipper 730 said:

And they were wrong, obviously
A car company is not the same as a military

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As McNamara eventually came to realize, and publicly admitted late in life. If he were anywhere else than within the borders of the US, he would have been executed for the war criminal he was.

Zipper 730 said:

Actually the USMC did employ both ground-tactics, close air-support tactics, probably generic bomb and strafe tactics in Nicaragua, as well as a COIN manual they developed. They were able to implement them to some degree, though I assume there was more killing than winning hearts and minds, but the fact is they did whip it up.

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If they had COIN in VN other than the LRRPs (hats off to them - the ultimate "snake eaters"), they didn't seem to be much in evidence, according to my many friends and acquaintances who were there. Mikewint, you were there, what's your take on this?

Zipper 730 said:

You were in a company lead by smart guys

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Roger that! Of the guys in my company who earned their commissions and went to the Nam, all came back alive, which is more than you can say for the rest of the ROTC graduating class. Thanks to the Major, I learned early the shortcomings of the Army and determined to do my service a different way.

Zipper 730 said:

Do snakes taste like chicken?

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If you're hungry enough, they taste like ambrosia! Our ubiquitous garter snake emits a foul tasting and smelling secretion if he panics before you get a chance to kill him. You gotta make it swift and sure.

Zipper 730 said:

The South had lots of sympathizers?

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Not as many as we thought they did! There were lots of "yes men" in the South who would have preferred not to live under Hi Chi Minh, but had been through the Viet Minh and Dien Bin Phu experience, and needed to keep their options open in case RVN caved, which it eventually did. This resulted in a kind of "conditional loyalty" to the US war effort and the RVN government.

XBe02Drvr said:

Nuking the place would have accomplished nothing besides poisoning the landscape and turning us into international pariahs.

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It would probably have defeated them, but the costs are just not worth it. The way we fought the war was idiotic and for most purpose, we should have just sat on the sidelines with our thumbs up our butts.

As McNamara eventually came to realize, and publicly admitted late in life. If he were anywhere else than within the borders of the US, he would have been executed for the war criminal he was.

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It's nice he finally realized the error of his ways, but it would have been a lot better had he used more common sense at the time. I suppose it's better than some, some people never express any regret for their actions, even when they should.

If they had COIN in VN other than the LRRPs (hats off to them - the ultimate "snake eaters"), they didn't seem to be much in evidence, according to my many friends and acquaintances who were there.

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I'm not saying the USMC used COIN much in the conflict, merely that they developed the ability earlier. My point was we had knowledge of how to employ COIN tactics, but did not have the willingness to do so.

Roger that! Of the guys in my company who earned their commissions and went to the Nam, all came back alive

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Wow, that's quite impressive.

If you're hungry enough, they taste like ambrosia!

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Isn't ambrosia that stuff with peaches and sour-cream and stuff?

Our ubiquitous garter snake emits a foul tasting and smelling secretion if he panics before you get a chance to kill him.

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I guess to deter predators...

You gotta make it swift and sure.

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How do you kill a snake actually?

Not as many as we thought they did! There were lots of "yes men" in the South who would have preferred not to live under Hi Chi Minh, but had been through the Viet Minh and Dien Bin Phu experience, and needed to keep their options open in case RVN caved, which it eventually did. This resulted in a kind of "conditional loyalty" to the US war effort and the RVN government.

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So the yes men is what did it?

Zipper730 said:

Isn't ambrosia that stuff with peaches and sour-cream and stuff?

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Ambrosia - Wikipedia

Zipper730 said:

How do you kill a snake actually?

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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22aYCoTe-0I

Yep, the internet has only so many bytes and then its over

Zipper730 said:

So the yes men is what did it?

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Jees, man, get a clue!! A disaster on the scale of the Nam can never be attributed to any single cause. You sound like the old-time NTSB: "THE Probable Cause of the accident was....."! The stupidity in Washington, the "yes" men in Saigon, our ignorance and lack of cultural sensitivity towards the Vietnamese, Charlie's highly effective intelligence network, our racial prejudices, the unsuitability of our doctrine, training, and weapons for the type of warfare required, the micromanaging of the war from the Pentagon and the White House, the lack of commitment of the American people to the cause, and a host of other causes ad infinitum.
Now if you go trying to assign percentages of causality to these factors, I swear I'll start calling you "McNamara"!!