Advantage of having numerous Vietnam veterans in US forces in timeframe of CM:CW

[Sequoia]

In my time in the US Army 1977 to 1980 (except for training, all in Germany) virtually every NCO above E-6 and officer above Captain was a Vietnam veteran (along with a few E-6s and Captains as well). I always reasoned this would have been a significant factor had the balloon went up. Of course after 1979 Soviet forces would start receiving Afghanistan veterans. I want to ask those who have lower rank combat experience, how they believe that experience would have assisted them in another war at higher rank?

[Sequoia]

Okay, well then, anyone have any comments?

[G.I. Joe]

I think it would definitely have been a factor. In particular, the "how not to" aspects of the lessons of Vietnam were keenly felt among the U.S. officer and NCO corps. I recall General Schwarzkopf's autobiography It Doesn't Take a Hero had a lot of good first person insight into what that era was like for U.S. Army officers (also a good firsthand account of Operation Urgent Fury), but it has been ages since I read it. Over on the Air Force side of things, I highly recommend C. R. Anderegg's book Sierra Hotel: Flying Air Force Fighters in the Decade After Vietnam. Being in federal copyright, Sierra Hotel is legally available for free online if you don't mind an ebook in PDF format.

Edited June 19, 2022 by G.I. Joe

[IICptMillerII]

On 6/18/2022 at 12:45 AM, Sequoia said:

In my time in the US Army 1977 to 1980 (except for training, all in Germany) virtually every NCO above E-6 and officer above Captain was a Vietnam veteran (along with a few E-6s and Captains as well). I always reasoned this would have been a significant factor had the balloon went up. Of course after 1979 Soviet forces would start receiving Afghanistan veterans. I want to ask those who have lower rank combat experience, how they believe that experience would have assisted them in another war at higher rank?

I definitely think it would have mattered. Yes, they would have been drastically different wars, and it is very true that wars like the one in Vietnam tend to teach bad lessons (as we are currently seeing now after 20 years of counter insurgency operations negatively impacting institutions, training, doctrine and equipment) to the organization as a whole. That said, combat experience, no matter where its from, is invaluable on the small unit level. IIRC a well known cliche from WW2 was the most prized skillset or attribute was prior combat experience. I also seem to recall some mention of if a WW2 replacement could survive his first combat encounter, he was much more likely to keep surviving going forwards. 

[Centurian52]

On 6/19/2022 at 4:04 PM, IICptMillerII said:

I definitely think it would have mattered. Yes, they would have been drastically different wars, and it is very true that wars like the one in Vietnam tend to teach bad lessons (as we are currently seeing now after 20 years of counter insurgency operations negatively impacting institutions, training, doctrine and equipment) to the organization as a whole. That said, combat experience, no matter where its from, is invaluable on the small unit level. IIRC a well known cliche from WW2 was the most prized skillset or attribute was prior combat experience. I also seem to recall some mention of if a WW2 replacement could survive his first combat encounter, he was much more likely to keep surviving going forwards. 

Yes, I have frequently heard the British experience in the 2nd Boer War being credited for the unusually high performance of the BEF in 1914, with experience in colonial warfare in general being highly valued. Despite colonial warfare, even the 2nd Boer War, being vastly different from WW1. It seems that any combat experience at all, even if it is very different from the current conditions, is significantly better than no combat experience. I have no doubt the same is true in Ukraine. The foreign volunteers who have experience in the low intensity wars of the last 20 years are certainly facing a steep learning curve, but are still probably performing much better than the ones with no combat experience at all. And if the Soviets had caused trouble in 1979, a US NCO corps stacked with Vietnam veterans absolutely would have boosted US performance in WW3.

I think it might make a degree of sense to give US forces a Vietnam veterancy leadership bonus, that diminishes (or moves up the ranks) for scenarios set later into the 80s (slight leadership bonus in scenarios set in 1979 over scenarios set in 1982), while the Soviets gain an increasing Afghanistan veterancy bonus as we move later into the 80s (slight experience bonus in 1982 scenarios over 1979 scenarios). 

edit: All of this assuming the scenario is set towards the beginning of the war, and no one has any WW3 combat experience yet.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Centurian52