[GZG] Colonies cooling down :)

> From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@gmail.com>

> 1) At no time did any Vietnamese unit defeat any American unit on the

See later

> 2) The PAVN was well-trained and equipped with artillery and armor by

You mean that being trained by a Third World army whose war
experience (in a conventional war, at that) was 15-20 years old and
whose equipment was, at the time, among the worst, was enough to confront a
First World army and his technological edge? That such units equipped exactly
like the UNITA or FRELIMO from Mozambico or Angola could fight, and even
locally win, against American line, elite or even Special Forces? Then, I
think, you have proven my point efficiently.

To complete the explanation, my idea of militia is a part-time
military organization whose members get a modicum of training, from time to
time, during their musters, and differences in equipment between elite
invaders and local forces would not be more radical than what was seen in
Vietnam, not Zulu against British regulars (which, by the way, is an instance
of a radically challenged defender winning and overwhelming locally a more
advanced invader by numbers and maneuver).

> Besides which, the strategic and political failures in Vietnam had a

From "The Rise and Fall of an American Army by Shelby L. Stanton (usually
regarded as a good and informed source, last I heard):
page 166 - "a company of the 2d Battalion, 503d Infntry (Airborne),
clashed with the 6th Battalion,24th NVA Regiment in one of the most violent
battles of the Vietnam War. That morning, Company A left its night positions
in the triple canopy jungle and began threading its way down a steep
ridgeline.... The point squad collided with a North Vietnamese Army force and
the battle quickly engulfed the
parachutists. Artillery fire crashed down and helicopter-delivered
rockets pierced the green foliage. All failed to check the assault... At
eleven o'clock all contact was lost with the forward platoons. Then a band of
disheveled, wounded troopers stumbled in the company
line..."
page 172 - "Company A was in reserve at the bottom of the hill
cutting a landing zone out of the jungle. Waves of screaming North Vietnamese
Army regulars charged through its positions in such a force that two platoons
simply evaporated. Now split and under fierce assault, the battalion's reserve
was in imminent danger of being overrun as well"
page 178 - "Lieutnant Colonel Ohanesian's column was beset by a thick
snarl of jungle and began moving down a trail just beyond Company L's lines,
confident the NVA forces had departed. The North Vietnamese triggered a
massive ambush along the trail, showering the Marines with a hail of grenades
and machinegun fir which tore the entire column in shreds and killed both lt.
col. Ohanesian and his sergent major... the Marines crawled over abandoned
equipment and dozens of dead comrades, dragging their wonded back to company
L. The North Vietnamese then kept the armor supported perimeter under such
devastating rifle and grenade fire that medical evacuation helicopters were
unable to land."

> Again, name an instance of a battlefield defeat. Come with date,

I would defer to your reading of the above book, but if you prefer, in due
time I'll gladly comply with your request.

> But like you said (and I snipped), the real questions behind it have a

That was my point.

> Here's a novel one I doubt anyone's asked yet: Will the occupied

And that's definitely realistic (as both you and Eli suggested) Even if it
tells more about what the majority of the population would react, while local
representatives of the central government (or veterans, or some minority of
motivated people) could still oppose the invasion. But, without a large
commitment from the local, their resistance would be very limited, I imagine.

> We are also presuming that the campaigns will be conducted in full

No, I talked about real setbacks in the military program, not the political
home front problems. I suppose that (as somebody reflected recently) in the
GZG universe, far off, possibly low key, wars would be accepted.

Best wishes to you all

> At 10:26 PM +0200 5/14/08, Enzo de Ianni wrote:

Except in this case, you're not quite getting the defeat meant. It's a short
term victory over a partial US unit. Platoons of a larger force. The main
position was not budged. Were this a WWII battle defeat would lie in the
principle that the US position would be over run in toto.

There were no parallel examples in Vietna, to any sort of Iswhandallah or
utter losses of an entire defended position of note.

> From "The Rise and Fall of an American Army by Shelby L. Stanton

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Enzo de Ianni <enzodeianni@tiscali.it> wrote:

> 2) The PAVN was well-trained and equipped with artillery and armor by

The PAVN's cadre had experience in conventional warfare--Dien Bein Phu
was NOT overrun by black-pajama'd guerillas, but besieged and torn
apart by artillery. The Soviets had experience in conventional warfare, and
remained a credible threat for decades. China's "guerilla" war in the latter
stages was a conventional military conflict in which the PLA won, decisively.

UNITA and FRELIMO are insurgents.  PAVN was a light-infantry dominant
conventional army that fought using infiltration tactics not THAT much
different from those of any other light infantry and most notably used by
German infantry in WWI (cf a certain major who used a battalion of light
infantry to capture half an Italian corps). But they were not a militia.

> To complete the explanation, my idea of militia is a part-time

Again, this does not describe the PAVN or NLF Main Force battalions.

> Name an instance.

Are you speaking of the Battle of the Slopes, fought near Dak To 18-22
June 1966?

Found the AAR online. Primary Sources For The Win.

http://www.skysoldier.org/BattleofSlopesAfterAction1.php

By this standard the Germans won the Battle of the Bulge when the 106th
Infantry Division was overrun. At the end of the day, doesn't sound much like
a defeat to me. Especially not if you strip a lot of the slanted language your
source uses.

You're also kind of missing the point in that the action was against a regular
regiment of the PAVN, not militias or guerillas.

The second snippet has not enough identifying information to be useful.

In regards to Prarie II, the fight you give a snippet of as well, a MAJ
Sheridan, who took command after LTC Orhanesian was killed, is
quoted as saying he, "encountering large numbers of well-equipped NVA
troops. In my year in Vietnam, I had never seen this number of NVA troops in
the open"

He also states that, "The enemy continued to alternately shell and
[attempt to] overrun our small position the remainder of the night.
Lieutenant Colonel Ohanesian died around midnight as it was impossible to
secure a landing zone. Sergeant Major Wayne N. Hayes died about the
same time of wounds suffered in hand-to-hand combat and grenade and
mortar blasts. Constant artillery, night air strikes within 50 meters of our
position and the courage of the Marines on the ground finally took their toll
and the NVA withdrew."

http://www.echo23marines6569.org/OperationPrairie2.html