CMBN: Dien Bien Phu!

[John Kettler]

LongLeftFlank,

You're welcome, but I'm a bit confused. If you had F8Fs based at DBP, as the pictures seem to indicate, why wouldn't they figure in the fight, unless shut down by weather? I believe there's at least one pic of a Bearcat broken in half, and I think that was from Viet Minh shellfire. Are all your scenarios set after April 13 when the VM destroyed five of eight Bearcats and forced three others to flee? If so, then my comments are moot.

Oh, and if they are in, napalm was most definitely carried. Here are the pics and discussion of the weapon used (Post 1). For sure, the photographic evidence so far confirms 1000 lb. bombs and napalm.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=60058

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sublime]

The bearcat's armament wasn't the only consideration when it was developed. IIRC it also had a lot to do with it's role as a carrier fighter, engine, etc.

And yes, napalm was definitely used. I can cite examples.

Also LLF Im reading Roys book and it does have some interesting policy things, in fact the US Aid comment on dollars stemmed directly from Roy's comment that by September 53 the war had actually become profitable (in a sense) to the French. The whole question Im adressing is my belief (among other people) that the French (and US later) focussed entirely too much on set piece battles when the war was really lost by thousands of mini firefights, and the war at home. DBP was important, I think the French would have lost and pulled out anyways. That being said, I want to find out more about how much US Aid was going there, and pressure as well, because I may rethink my argument following more information. Still, even by 50 the French passed a law where drafted troops could only serve in Metropolitan France... Just like later with the US, to the French it was a dirty little war no one wanted to be in, while to the Vietnamese it was a struggle for national survival.

The book that was released recently you're thinking of is Embers of War by Fredrik Logevall. By all accounts it's fantastic. I read his Choosing War and it was really well done. However I dont have the money for it. Im waiting to see if interlibrary loan can come through on it...

[LongLeftFlank]

Your comments are moot -- wrong month. As one might expect, by day 2 of the bombardment (Mar 14), the Bearcats had been destroyed or evacuated. I think one of the Morane (Storch) spotters managed to last about 5 more days.

Sublime - try a Barnes & Noble. Even if you can't afford it, you can browse a few quick refs to bulk out the ol' bibliography and ensure your A+. This better be a seminar paper or something (i.e. most of the course grade) for all the effort you're putting in.

[Sublime]

Well yeah, its the one paper we have for this class. We've had other exams that I've done really well on. But the teacher knows his stuff, he's been teaching since 1969 for christs sake. He's a tough grader. Luckily the library loan worked and next time Im over there Im gonna be able to pick it up =)

[LongLeftFlank]

Perfect. Those guys are thrilled to get a student with genuine passion for their subject. As long as you footnote properly and thoroughly using mainstream sources (sounds like you know that already); there's a lot of wiki stuff out there and even old school profs are good at sniffing out original thought from plagiarism.

[JonS]

The whole question Im adressing is my belief (among other people) that the French (and US later) focussed entirely too much on set piece battles when the war was really lost by thousands of mini firefights, and the war at home. DBP was important, [but?] I think the French would have lost and pulled out anyways.

True but I think that DBP, and especially the G.M.100 debacle a month later, showed that the French weren't able to win the big set pieces either. Since they were losing both the big and the small fights ... they really had no hope.

[LongLeftFlank]

IMHO it was the emergence of Red China that really sealed it more than anything the French did or didn't do. Even after DBP the PAVN was not capable of overrunning the lowlands absent Chinese intervention. Massacring strung-out GM columns in the highlands was one thing, and DBP was conducted 200 miles from the French air bases. The next sieges wouldn't have been so easy. Kind of like the American revolution; Saratoga 1777 was the British DBP but Washington still couldn't eject them from the coastal cities until the French intervened at Yorktown in 1781.

Stalemate can cut both ways. As Mao himself recognized (see that lessons learned paper), if a movement is forced totally underground and cannot show progress toward "liberation", the people will eventually weary of ongoing violence and back the powers that be, however corrupt. That's what largely happened in Latin America. And a semi-competent republican regime and army could certainly have been brought into being over time in an unpartitioned Vietnam, with massive US backing.

But since the VM were able to maintain a Chinese-protected and sustained buffer zone in the Vietbac, it didn't matter how competent the ANV became -- they simply couldn't deliver the knockout blow either and drive the VM totally underground. Uprooting the VM infrastructure in the villages, which had effectively become a parallel government, was still not impossible but required far more resources and patience than either the French or the Americans after them were willing to commit.

[Sublime]

thats actually a brilliant point, and one I'd like to add to my paper with your permission..?

[John Kettler]

LongLeftFlank,

This vid has interviews with both Giap and one of his colonels, interviews two French survivors, has some good footage from both sides and completely muddies our film analysis waters. Seems a Russian film director shot/reshot some of the famous scenes, and the idiot VO writers didn't bother to say what was what in this vid. I still remain of the opinion the French attack across the airfield was not a reshoot, but Viet Minh combat cinematography. Don't know whether you ever played AH's Up Front, but if you did, you'll come away from watching this with a whole new perspective on Entrenchment Attempts!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Combatintman]

Not necessarily directed at LLF but does anyone have any good info on the French decisions to withdraw from Indochina, US to French aid (specifically money, etc), and other political level information? Well, anyone besides Kettler? Kettler no offense, but almost all the links you get me are useless in a scholarly atmosphere. there are no citations or proof added, and if the info I wanted could be gleaned from a 2 second google search I wouldnt be asking. Also someones opinion on a message board isnt going to help me either, unless they back it up with factual information. I.e. proof.

Thx in advance.

Also LLF - it just occured to me. Maybe a good way to offset the Brit 2lber being substituted - if you could edit the ammo levels (if you're doing a scenario) perhaps you could only provide the gun with HE. Then it would have no penetrative effect...?

Not sure if it has been linked to already on this thread but if not this document may prove useful:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/2008/RM4618.pdf

I'm not convinced it directly addresses your questions but it will at least give you an angle or two to pursue.

[Sublime]

No I hadnt known about this. Thanks for that. The document actually is perfect for my uses and I'll get brownie points since the Professor based his own research for his book Path to Revolution in the South (about the NLF) on RAND interviews in My Tho until early 68..

[LongLeftFlank]

Not sure if it has been linked to already on this thread but if not this document may prove useful:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/2008/RM4618.pdf

I'm not convinced it directly addresses your questions but it will at least give you an angle or two to pursue.

Great find -- Sublime should find that one pretty useful. S, you should also definitely get hold of Giap's classic "People's War, People's Army" -- it should be in your library. Your prof will likely expect a cite or two from it.

[LongLeftFlank]

John, I'm trying hard to be patient with you, but please stop spamming this thread with Mil Channel stuff unless you have a specific (30 second or less clip) of specific interest -- in which case you should tell us what it is we're supposed to be seeing and why we should care. In general though, offering this stuff is like using Readers Digest Condensed Books to footnote a literature paper.

Once again, it seems like you're just tossing (poor quality) links at us "for interest" without participating in a conversation or taking a point of view... footnoting someone else's conversation. For the umpteenth time, we aren't stupid -- we KNOW there's lots of stuff on the internet. Copy-pasting it here is useless to us unless you have a reputation for choosing wisely -- which you frankly don't.

You have a strangely medieval relationship with information -- kind of like those monks pre-Nostradamus who believed Virgil had magical properties and would open to random pages of the Aeneid and then muse on what it portended about the future (Sorties Virgiliani). It would be almost charming if it weren't so prolific.

Like the professor says in Aronosky's classic film "Pi", if you start seeking patterns in numbers you can always find some, but if you don't bother to probe for an underlying mathematical law, you cease to be a mathematician and become a numerologist.

[John Kettler]

LongLeftFlank,

I provided a link, together with what I believed was ample explanation as to its significance. I don't, therefore, understand what you're on about. I viewed it as a continuation of our prior discussion over the true nature of the French counterattack still from the likely real, in my view, Viet Minh DBP footage. I thought the confirmed involvement of a Russian film director in reshooting at least some of the battle scenes was good cause to bring up the matter. Instead, I somehow rubbed you the wrong way. Color me baffled! Is it that you have already seen everything of any worth in video, text and stills? Am beginning to think you expect me to magically know what you already know and have also grokked.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Combatintman]

Different take on the BEP:

Bataillon Etrangers de Parachutistes (BEP ; Foreign Legion Parachute Battalion ; 1951 - 1954)

1 x poste de commandement (PC ; Headquarters)

1 x compagnie Opérationnelle de Commandement du Bataillon (CCOB ; more commonly called « Compagnie de Commandement du Bataillon », CCB ; Command Company of the Battalion)

• Section de transmissions (Signal platoon)

• Section médicale (Medical platoon)

• Section de services (Administrative platoon)

• Section de pionniers (Pioneers platoon ; with 4 x 57 mm M18A1 ?)

• 1 x section de mitrailleuses (Machine gun platoons)

2 x groupes de mitrailleuses (Machine gun squads ; 2 x MMGs each)

• 1 x section de mortiers (Mortar platoons)

3 x groupes de mortiers (Mortar squads ; 2 x 81 mm mortars each)

4 x compagnies de fusiliers-voltigeurs parachutistes (Rifle parachute companies)

• 1 x section de commandement (Command platoon)

• 4 x sections de fusiliers-voltigeurs parachutistes (Parachute platoons)

1 x groupe de commandement (Command platoon ; 1 x 50 mm mortar)

1 x groupe de fusiliers-voltigeurs parachutistes (Parachute automatic squad ; 15 x men each ; around 6 x SMGs, carbines, 1 x sniper rifle, rifles, 1 x rifle with grenade discharger, 1 x SAW)

1 x groupe de fusiliers parachutistes (Parachute squad ; 12 x men each ; at least 1 x SMG, some

carbines, 1 x sniper rifle, rifles, 1 x rifle with grenade discharger, 1 x SAW)

• 1 x section de mitrailleuses et d’engins (SME ; weapons platoon)

1 x canon sans-recul (RR ; 1 x 57 mm M18A1)

1 x groupe de mitrailleuses (Machine gun squad ; 2 x MMGs)

1 x groupe de mortiers (Mortar squad ; 2 x 60 mm mortars)

This was sourced from the Yahoo TO&E group, I can't vouch for its accuracy but the whole document is pretty comprehensive and therefore appears thoroughly researched to me.

Given the structure of the rifle platoons in particular, I wish you the very best of luck in making this work with the TO&Es in the game!!

[LongLeftFlank]

No John, contrast your post to the one Combatintman just provided. One is directly useful to me in designing for CMBN, one is not. One I can establish the usefulness of at a glance, the other I have to watch an entire f**king video to maybe get one or two items of visual interest (never named by you) that are probably available in more useful form elsewhere.

John, consider that nobody has spoken up here yet and said "Gosh, John, what a great link." Quit pouting and stop spamming. Or do it somewhere else.

[para]

This is quite amusing watching LLF going mad

[Sublime]

No I think he.s been extremely patient with Kettler. Everything he said is true, even Kettler's posts are bordering on the exact same nonsense. I think he's literally said 'color me...xxx' 4 or 5 times in this thread alone. Nearly every single post now he uses the phrase, which is stupid to begin with (IMO)

Plus this is Kettler vs the Learning curve or whatever. This is LLF's thread, his work, and he's asked Kettler nicely and repeatedly to stop doing this.

I honestly thought people were being *******s when I first saw Kettler come back. I really didnt remember him being like this. Well I didnt remember him at all, except the name. But now I get it, really I do.

Btw LLF I got Embers of War through my school library. Its all I was hoping for for what I needed. and COMBATINTMAN thank you again, I plan to use that RAND document heavily for my paper. You guys have been great.

[John Kettler]

LongLeftFlank,

I, too, think CombatIntMan's post is great, but I have zero expertise on what he presented. We did have a discussion on whether or not certain images were to be trusted. I did say what interviews were in the relatively short (9 minutes) video, and I particularly noted the issue of the Russian film director. Toward the end, the video even shows the director, whom I didn't recognize, and camera towers. I then went on to lament that, of the clips they showed, the narration failed to say which was real and which wasn't. I can't provide what I don't have.

In deference to your concerns, I think I'll shift to a run it by you mode, rather than simply presenting something and hoping you don't have it already.

Sublime,

It's much easier for you to be a critic than it is for me to find something useful, especially given LLF seems to have almost intimate knowledge of virtually every aspect of the DBP situation. Consequently, what may be new to me, generally isn't to him. And it's not sitting well at all, to the point where he's now, vis a vis me, already just short of boil.

I do, at times, get into an expressive rut, something I shall endeavor to correct. Since I was last here, I have been to hell and back, in every area of my life, so many times I have a superhighway running from me to it. Let's just say this hasn't improved my functionality in the short term, nor does accidentally slamming my head into a wall corner (contre coup brain injury, hospitalized and barely avoided neurosurgery), unexpectedly in the dark (roomie turned off light while I was in the toilet), on night two in the then new place, while still recovering from utter exhaustion, crash move in a terrible heat wave, and pesticide poisoning. This was the first week of July this year. I therefore beg leave of all concerned, but I am trying to help, I am getting better, and I am beginning to get my CMBN legs, too.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

LLF,

I have found something called Moise's Bibliography, covering Indochina for WW II through the end of the French control there. It features both English and French works which appear both interesting and pertinent to your work.

Sublime,

Your disdain for me not withstanding, I believe it'd be useful to you to have a peek at same. But then again, I might be wrong.

Regards,

John Kettler

[LongLeftFlank]

John, I am sad to hear about your health problems and I truly hope you get better soon. At the end of the day, you seem like a decent fellow.

PS I thin this is John's link. A little too high level for my purposes but may be of some interest to Sublime. More specifically, the online document on the Geneva Conference although I haven't looked at it myself.

[John Kettler]

LongLeftFlank,

I am, I thank you for your support (though I've inadvertently been a huge thorn in your side), and I am genuinely seeking to advance yet another of your remarkable projects. Was the bibliography I mentioned of any interest to you?

Regards,

John Kettler

[LongLeftFlank]

Sublime

This is interesting... (Page 4 of 1979 DoD paper on Geneva Conference). "Massive retaliation" thinking in fill swing here....

On 20 May the JCS sent a memorandum to the Secretary of Defense entitled "U.S. Military Participation in Indochina." .... They noted the "limited availability of US forces for military action in Indochina" and the "current numerical advantage of French Union forces over the enemy, i.e. approximately 5 to 3." Pointing out the disadvantages of either stationing large numbers of US troops in Indochina or of basing US aircraft on Indochina's limited facilities, the Chiefs considered "the greatest need" to be an expanded, intensified training program for indigenous troops. The JCS observed, moreover, that they were guided in their comments by the likely reaction of the CPR to US involvement, as well as by the prescription "Atomic weapons will be used whenever it is to our military advantage."

[Sublime]

Thx. you know reading Logevall's book it's apparent to me the French really screwed themselves by a combination of their arrogance and continual perfidy in regards to their negotiatons with the Viet Minh. Any moderate elements among the Vietnamese were basically forced by French actions into a hardline independence or nothing stance. Starting with the violation of the March 6 accords very early on. Also the degree of autonomy in Indochina from Paris is startling. The 6 March accords were violated without consulting Paris, later Navarre launched Op Castor without informing Paris until after the fact. It seems even if Paris had decided on peace, someone in Saigon would have screwed it up, perhaps on purpose. A state dept fact finding mission noticed this around '47-'48, so I think the issue must have been pretty glaring. To quote Logevall page 187, Caffery said there was a lack of understanding, more in Saigon than in Paris, of the other sides.

This was fatal IMO, as the French after 2 world wars started the war weary (they couldn't even really equip their men, all their equipment and arms were a polyglot of surplus US, Brit, German weapons) and never were willing or able to put the at least half a million men they'd need to hold Indochina. This means that sooner or later, diplomacy would be key for any sort of 'victory' for the French, and by the above mentioned perfidy, and moves like installing Bao Dai and continually eroding his power and making it obvious he was a puppet they all but forced the Viet Minh into the path they took. Of course hindsight is 20/20 but this is where I'm at right now =)

[LongLeftFlank]

I suppose I agree (being nowhere close to an expert on this topic), but something seems off in your characterizations. I guess I'm skeptical that anything much was gained or lost at Geneca that hadn't already been effectively decided on the ground.

First, having won such important victories, the Communists were not about to share power and all parties knew it. Yet they also weren't in a position to overrun the country (or even the Delta) absent a Chinese invasion or a unilateral Western abandonment. So some for of partition was what was going to happen no matter what -- reflecting the military stalemate.

Second, the "French" forces by 1954 were largely manned by Vietnamese and other Asian minorities; that was true even in the elite parachute and Etranger formations. They fought well and loyally when well led even under difficult conditions. The native leadership component was what was lacking, but that might have been developed over time (several years). Later the Americans came pretty close to building a higher quality ARVN -- by 1972 the regime had already taken over the "dirty war" of uprooting the VC underground infrastructure (read: killing or imprisoning local VC leaders) and establishing its own network of informants much as the Brits and Malays had done.

Had the Coms walked away from the table, I'd guess the French would have stayed in a diminishing form while US engagement ramped up earlier than it did. But Hanoi might have remained nonCommunist. Ok my daughter wants my attention -- bye