I've heard people repeating this and this is still just so false.
Ok link a battle that the United States lost.
Maybe if you redefine "battle" as "large scale unit engagement that was primarily American and not primarily South Vietnamese
No, that isn't "redefining". If the South Vietnamese lost a battle, that is irrelevant to the question of whether the United States lost a battle. The United States is a different country with different soldiers than South Vietnam. Similarly, some small skirmish or raid is not a BATTLE. A BATTLE means a large engagement of forces.
like at LZ Albany 1965
LZ Albany was not a "battle" it is part of the greater Battle of Ia Drang, which the United States won despite being placed in a terrible position effectively in a trap and being outnumbered. And la Drang was part of a larger operation that was a complete success.
At LZ Albany, the United States also won. A small American force was ambushed by a much larger NVA force. The Americans held their positions and it was the NVA who were driven off and forced to retreat. The NVA has several major units in the area, all of which were badly mauled and forced to retreat back into Cambodia.
Not really sure how you call that a defeat unless you define defeat as "the US K:D ratio wasn't as high as usual", which is stupid.
almost all of our guys were killed and wounded before the enemy regiment withdrew
lol, nope. also, since when does a victorious enemy withdraw? why wouldn't the enemy try to exploit its "victory" by completely overrunning the American position and killing/capturing the entire American force? Obvious answer: because the American units were never broken, put up solid defensive perimeters, and successfully fought off the NVA attacks until the NVA units were so depleted and suffered such severe losses that they were forced to retreat. Then, in retreat, many NVA were further killed by US air power, forcing them to flee with all their units to Cambodia.
You must be possessed by a vengeful ghost of a French Union officer.
No, and it's a dumb comment. The French were incompetent and bad at fighting, just like WW2. The Americans were far superior and would have easily conquered North Vietnam. Without the NVA having a large power base to draw from, its capacity to wage guerilla warfare would have been an insignificant fraction of what it was in the actual war.
It was utterly foolish to not invade and conquer North Vietnam & execute all the communist leaders. If we did so, Vietnam would be a rich allied country today similar to South Korea or Taiwan.
I just did link you. They werent "forced to retreat", what was there to hold, a random patch of jungle around a clearing? They were supposed to be obliterated by the B-52s before this even happened, then you mention they escaped to Cambodia.
Why not? Let's say the ARVN Rangers units are fucking massacred, the ARVN Marines reinforcements are massacred even more, the ARVN paratroopers coming to the rescue are massacred somewhat less relatively, their American advisors are killed, multiple American helicopters are shot down, VC losses are something silly like few dozen, and it doesn't count because reasons?
A small group of VC Sappers blows the fuck up half of a major American airbase, but it doesn't matter, because some kind of excuse?
The French were incompetent and bad at fighting, just like WW2. The Americans were far superior and would have easily conquered North Vietnam.
This is what the Americans thought before going to Vietnam too, but even they weren't stupid enough to repeat the same French strategy (taking Hanoi and other cities, which the French did take and held then Hanoi right to the end, and it just didn't matter).
That's hilarious how some Americans can still write "Vietnam" and "easy" in the same sequence.
It was utterly foolish to not invade and conquer North Vietnam
Because it worked for them superbly in North Korea just a decade earlier.
Yes, they were. The NVA units made numerous attacks on the American perimeters over the course of 7 hours or so, and gave up / retreated because after the early shock of the ambush when US troops were caught in the open, the NVA attacks were total failures which were only getting them killed. Plus, they feared US air support, so they ran away.
Anyway, the context was that the NVA had recently besieged Plei Me and been defeated and driven back. In response, the NVA brought up reinforcements and prepared to launch a new, larger attack on Plei Me. Operation Silver Bayonet I (la Drang's LZs) was intended to disrupt and spoil this new offensive, and it was successful in doing so. The NVA units were located (LZ Albany on accident), brought into combat, defeated, and forced to flee to Cambodia instead of pressing on to attack Plei Me.
what was there to hold, a random patch of jungle around a clearing?
Irrelevant. It wasn't about holding a patch of land, it was about overrunning an American unit. The NVA units tried and failed, then ran away and got bombed during their escape. Also, since the LZ area was in the NVA units HQ area, which is how the fight happened to begin with: the American units stumbled into a large NVA force, being forced to abandon the area they had been occupying when the Americans showed up instead of driving the Americans away is another defeat.
They were supposed to be obliterated by the B-52s before this even happened
Completely different units. The B52s were heading to blow up the NVA units which had been occupying the Chu Pong Massif near LZ X-Ray. The NVA units near LZ Albany were different units. "PAVN troops in the area consisted of elements the 8th Battalion, 66th Regiment, 1st Battalion, 33rd Regiment and the headquarters of the 3rd Battalion, 33rd Regiment."
Why not? Let's say the ARVN Rangers ... ARVN Marines ... ARVN paratroopers ... American advisors are killed... and it doesn't count because reasons?
It doesn't count as a defeat of the US military, it counts as a defeat of the ARVN. The US military was much stronger than the ARVN. If the Italians were defeated in a battle in WW2, people don't bend over backwards to claim it was a German defeat, do they? Saying that the US military was defeated on the battlefield, and then pointing to ARVN units getting defeated, is highly dishonest. Why is it so psychologically important to you to believe that the US military were losers when the objective and indisputable facts flatly contradict the Narrative you want to believe?
A small group of VC Sappers blows the fuck up half of a major American airbase, but it doesn't matter, because some kind of excuse?
This is what the Americans thought before going to Vietnam too, but even they weren't stupid enough to repeat the same French strategy (taking Hanoi and other cities, which the French did take and held then Hanoi right to the end, and it just didn't matter).
Incorrect. The French failure was because of Dien Bien Phu, where the French intentionally put themselves in a horrible isolated position deep in enemy controlled territory with no logistics by land, thinking that they would bait the enemy into an attack. The French were overconfident that the communists would stupidly just human wave them and die instead of besieging them with artillery. The communists had a 5:1 advantage in men, and total control of the area outside the French perimeter. The French had 0 logistics except by air, and the airfield could be easily shut down by artillery.
The French ended up losing the whole base because they were idiots and bad at war & military strategy. Had the French remained close to their centers of power and logistics hubs and not gone deep into the jungle where they could be cut off, things would have been very different.
The only reason holding Hanoi "didn't matter" was that the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu immediately led the French to lose all support for the war and bow down to peace on communist terms.
And, for the record, the US would have won at Dien Bien Phu, even given the extraordinarily weak position. US air power - which France lacked - would have made easy work of the communist artillery positions through repeated strikes. Communist zig zagging trench lines, critical to their siege and unassailable by the French, would have been easy kills from the air. American soldiers are also simply superior in skill and doctrine, and would have been able to execute sallies and win at artillery duels where the French failed.
That's hilarious how some Americans can still write "Vietnam" and "easy" in the same sequence.
People like you give the NVA a mythical, magical quality that didn't exist in real life. At the end of the day, the NVA only had huge advantages because of the shackles that had been placed on the US military to fight with both hands tied behind its back. Had the US been free to fight a proper war like it had in WW2, the NVA would not have stood a chance. All that was needed was to conquer the major cities of the North and cut off supply from China. Those 2 things being done, the NVA would no longer have any resource base upon which to sustain any serious war effort.
Even with all the advantages the NVA had, it still tended to get absolutely crushed whenever it dared to fight the US out in the open. Your citation of LZ Albany was the only time where the KD ratio wasn't quite as extreme in favor of the US. The Tet Offensive resulted in the annihilation of the Viet Cong, for example. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was annihilated with heavy losses for the NVA, and the US accomplished this even after having withdrawn the vast majority of our troops.
The NVA units were located (LZ Albany on accident), brought into combat
That's a really funny way to describe being ambushed while waiting for helicopters to get them out of there.
That never happened
What else caused Operation Rolling Thunder in your very spinning world?
In the real world, the VC inflcited over 100 losses, destroyed or damaged 25 aircraft (6 bombers destroyed), and lost virtually 0 people (and aircraft, of course) doing this.
The Americans were so smug about the French too, and thought they would be so smart with using helicopters in their in and out adventures and holding no ground like that.
All that was needed was to conquer the major cities of the North and cut off supply from China.
Ans now you're possessed by General MacArthur whose mind is stuck in about the same period, and precisely early 1950. He doesn't know he's dead.
Here's a few more sample "links" of this "easy" war:
Try to restrain yourself to lying about my words and straw manning me. I know it's difficult since I'm clearly right and you're wrong, and you want to save face. I never said the actual Vietnam War was "easy". I said it would have been easy if the US Military had been allowed to invade and conquer North Vietnam along the coastal plain.
"On the night of 22–23 August 1968, as part of their Phase III Offensive, a company from the Viet Cong (VC) R20 Battalion and a sapper platoon infiltrated the base, killing 17 Special Forces soldiers. Thirty-two VC were killed."
A single small scale raid with only 17 kills is not a battle. The battle at issue was the Phase III Tet Offensive which was an absolutely crushing defeat for the communists. "The US claimed that the PAVN/VC lost 16,578 soldiers in August and a further 13,163 in September, while U.S. losses over the same period were over 700 dead."
An indecisive skirmish where a small unit of grossly outnumbered US troops on patrol walked into an ambush. The Americans sure did suffer heavy casualties, but ultimately the Viet Cong withdrew out of exhaustion and fear of US air/artillery reprisals. Did the US get the worse end of this skrimish? Sure. Does this invalidate my statement that the US "still won every battle under those conditions." Nope. It was too small and too indecisive. The larger battle this skirmish was a part of was also a US victory.
again, sappers killed some people in a small raid on a small firebase, not a battle, just a small sneak attack that killed a small number of people (about 10% killed) and didn't result in the loss of the base.
Just admit that you can't find any real battle where the US lost. All you've been able to do is produce a few small ambushes and sapper raids. The large scale ones, the US won easily. The actual battles, the US won. You're just bending over backwards trying to paint the US as losers when they weren't.
No, "only 17" were the absolute elite of American special forces caught in an attack by literally almost naked guys. It doesn't count all the locals who were trained, armed, and led (and clothed) by them and also died in the same attack by those almost naked guys.
Ignore the almost 100 wounded in the FB. After, again, they were attacked by only 50 literally almost naked guys.
I don't include any terrorist/sabotage style bombings (and mine explosions, and just shelling).
And btw the survivor of the Black Lions told you how the Main Force VC were the "best infantry in the world", while their attack special forces (suicide commandos) were the best of their kind in the world too, just the Americans had better and more arty, and of course the air power. Without heavy weapons on either side, the Vietnamese would win absolutely routinely in any large battle.
Yeah, the other side "claimed" wild enemy losses too. You should really know the problems with the Vietnam bodycount by now.
Just admit that you can't find any real battle where the US lost.
That's especially funny since just read about an example of the battle that the Americans lost (and could be been literally all slaughtered but by some miracle that the survivors couldn't explain it just ended before this could happen) but was presented at the time as a ("real") battle won in American propaganda.
"Spin doctors" doing the "spinning", as to quote.
actual battles
There were barely any "actual battles" between forces larger than battalions and regiments due to how this war was fought. Great most engagements for regular GIs involved being fired on by unseen snipers and stepping on mines and traps planted by peasants, and only rarely they could face "the best infantry in the world" (VC Main Force in particular, but also "the NVA are all hardcore" as the song goes) in a unit of any size.
But actually even in Ukraine, where it's a large conventional war, they fight with battalions on both sides. They don't go whole brigades, not to mention divisions, wholesale in contact. Even in Mariupol it was only elements.
Ok link a battle that the United States lost.
No, that isn't "redefining". If the South Vietnamese lost a battle, that is irrelevant to the question of whether the United States lost a battle. The United States is a different country with different soldiers than South Vietnam. Similarly, some small skirmish or raid is not a BATTLE. A BATTLE means a large engagement of forces.
LZ Albany was not a "battle" it is part of the greater Battle of Ia Drang, which the United States won despite being placed in a terrible position effectively in a trap and being outnumbered. And la Drang was part of a larger operation that was a complete success.
At LZ Albany, the United States also won. A small American force was ambushed by a much larger NVA force. The Americans held their positions and it was the NVA who were driven off and forced to retreat. The NVA has several major units in the area, all of which were badly mauled and forced to retreat back into Cambodia.
Not really sure how you call that a defeat unless you define defeat as "the US K:D ratio wasn't as high as usual", which is stupid.
lol, nope. also, since when does a victorious enemy withdraw? why wouldn't the enemy try to exploit its "victory" by completely overrunning the American position and killing/capturing the entire American force? Obvious answer: because the American units were never broken, put up solid defensive perimeters, and successfully fought off the NVA attacks until the NVA units were so depleted and suffered such severe losses that they were forced to retreat. Then, in retreat, many NVA were further killed by US air power, forcing them to flee with all their units to Cambodia.
No, and it's a dumb comment. The French were incompetent and bad at fighting, just like WW2. The Americans were far superior and would have easily conquered North Vietnam. Without the NVA having a large power base to draw from, its capacity to wage guerilla warfare would have been an insignificant fraction of what it was in the actual war.
It was utterly foolish to not invade and conquer North Vietnam & execute all the communist leaders. If we did so, Vietnam would be a rich allied country today similar to South Korea or Taiwan.
I just did link you. They werent "forced to retreat", what was there to hold, a random patch of jungle around a clearing? They were supposed to be obliterated by the B-52s before this even happened, then you mention they escaped to Cambodia.
Why not? Let's say the ARVN Rangers units are fucking massacred, the ARVN Marines reinforcements are massacred even more, the ARVN paratroopers coming to the rescue are massacred somewhat less relatively, their American advisors are killed, multiple American helicopters are shot down, VC losses are something silly like few dozen, and it doesn't count because reasons?
A small group of VC Sappers blows the fuck up half of a major American airbase, but it doesn't matter, because some kind of excuse?
This is what the Americans thought before going to Vietnam too, but even they weren't stupid enough to repeat the same French strategy (taking Hanoi and other cities, which the French did take and held then Hanoi right to the end, and it just didn't matter).
That's hilarious how some Americans can still write "Vietnam" and "easy" in the same sequence.
Because it worked for them superbly in North Korea just a decade earlier.
Yes, they were. The NVA units made numerous attacks on the American perimeters over the course of 7 hours or so, and gave up / retreated because after the early shock of the ambush when US troops were caught in the open, the NVA attacks were total failures which were only getting them killed. Plus, they feared US air support, so they ran away.
Anyway, the context was that the NVA had recently besieged Plei Me and been defeated and driven back. In response, the NVA brought up reinforcements and prepared to launch a new, larger attack on Plei Me. Operation Silver Bayonet I (la Drang's LZs) was intended to disrupt and spoil this new offensive, and it was successful in doing so. The NVA units were located (LZ Albany on accident), brought into combat, defeated, and forced to flee to Cambodia instead of pressing on to attack Plei Me.
Irrelevant. It wasn't about holding a patch of land, it was about overrunning an American unit. The NVA units tried and failed, then ran away and got bombed during their escape. Also, since the LZ area was in the NVA units HQ area, which is how the fight happened to begin with: the American units stumbled into a large NVA force, being forced to abandon the area they had been occupying when the Americans showed up instead of driving the Americans away is another defeat.
Completely different units. The B52s were heading to blow up the NVA units which had been occupying the Chu Pong Massif near LZ X-Ray. The NVA units near LZ Albany were different units. "PAVN troops in the area consisted of elements the 8th Battalion, 66th Regiment, 1st Battalion, 33rd Regiment and the headquarters of the 3rd Battalion, 33rd Regiment."
It doesn't count as a defeat of the US military, it counts as a defeat of the ARVN. The US military was much stronger than the ARVN. If the Italians were defeated in a battle in WW2, people don't bend over backwards to claim it was a German defeat, do they? Saying that the US military was defeated on the battlefield, and then pointing to ARVN units getting defeated, is highly dishonest. Why is it so psychologically important to you to believe that the US military were losers when the objective and indisputable facts flatly contradict the Narrative you want to believe?
That never happened, though. Here is an example where the communists tried to do so in a maximum effort attack and got annihilated.
Incorrect. The French failure was because of Dien Bien Phu, where the French intentionally put themselves in a horrible isolated position deep in enemy controlled territory with no logistics by land, thinking that they would bait the enemy into an attack. The French were overconfident that the communists would stupidly just human wave them and die instead of besieging them with artillery. The communists had a 5:1 advantage in men, and total control of the area outside the French perimeter. The French had 0 logistics except by air, and the airfield could be easily shut down by artillery.
The French ended up losing the whole base because they were idiots and bad at war & military strategy. Had the French remained close to their centers of power and logistics hubs and not gone deep into the jungle where they could be cut off, things would have been very different.
The only reason holding Hanoi "didn't matter" was that the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu immediately led the French to lose all support for the war and bow down to peace on communist terms.
And, for the record, the US would have won at Dien Bien Phu, even given the extraordinarily weak position. US air power - which France lacked - would have made easy work of the communist artillery positions through repeated strikes. Communist zig zagging trench lines, critical to their siege and unassailable by the French, would have been easy kills from the air. American soldiers are also simply superior in skill and doctrine, and would have been able to execute sallies and win at artillery duels where the French failed.
People like you give the NVA a mythical, magical quality that didn't exist in real life. At the end of the day, the NVA only had huge advantages because of the shackles that had been placed on the US military to fight with both hands tied behind its back. Had the US been free to fight a proper war like it had in WW2, the NVA would not have stood a chance. All that was needed was to conquer the major cities of the North and cut off supply from China. Those 2 things being done, the NVA would no longer have any resource base upon which to sustain any serious war effort.
Even with all the advantages the NVA had, it still tended to get absolutely crushed whenever it dared to fight the US out in the open. Your citation of LZ Albany was the only time where the KD ratio wasn't quite as extreme in favor of the US. The Tet Offensive resulted in the annihilation of the Viet Cong, for example. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was annihilated with heavy losses for the NVA, and the US accomplished this even after having withdrawn the vast majority of our troops.
And if there were German (or American) dead fighting alongside the Italians, of course it would be also a German (or American) defeat.
That's a really funny way to describe being ambushed while waiting for helicopters to get them out of there.
What else caused Operation Rolling Thunder in your very spinning world?
In the real world, the VC inflcited over 100 losses, destroyed or damaged 25 aircraft (6 bombers destroyed), and lost virtually 0 people (and aircraft, of course) doing this.
The Americans were so smug about the French too, and thought they would be so smart with using helicopters in their in and out adventures and holding no ground like that.
Ans now you're possessed by General MacArthur whose mind is stuck in about the same period, and precisely early 1950. He doesn't know he's dead.
Here's a few more sample "links" of this "easy" war:
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/attack-on-fob-4-the-worst-day-in-us-army-special-forces-history/
https://donmooreswartales.com/2010/06/28/james-shelton/
https://blog.togetherweserved.com/2021/11/24/fire-base-mary-ann/
Try to restrain yourself to lying about my words and straw manning me. I know it's difficult since I'm clearly right and you're wrong, and you want to save face. I never said the actual Vietnam War was "easy". I said it would have been easy if the US Military had been allowed to invade and conquer North Vietnam along the coastal plain.
"On the night of 22–23 August 1968, as part of their Phase III Offensive, a company from the Viet Cong (VC) R20 Battalion and a sapper platoon infiltrated the base, killing 17 Special Forces soldiers. Thirty-two VC were killed."
A single small scale raid with only 17 kills is not a battle. The battle at issue was the Phase III Tet Offensive which was an absolutely crushing defeat for the communists. "The US claimed that the PAVN/VC lost 16,578 soldiers in August and a further 13,163 in September, while U.S. losses over the same period were over 700 dead."
An indecisive skirmish where a small unit of grossly outnumbered US troops on patrol walked into an ambush. The Americans sure did suffer heavy casualties, but ultimately the Viet Cong withdrew out of exhaustion and fear of US air/artillery reprisals. Did the US get the worse end of this skrimish? Sure. Does this invalidate my statement that the US "still won every battle under those conditions." Nope. It was too small and too indecisive. The larger battle this skirmish was a part of was also a US victory.
again, sappers killed some people in a small raid on a small firebase, not a battle, just a small sneak attack that killed a small number of people (about 10% killed) and didn't result in the loss of the base.
Just admit that you can't find any real battle where the US lost. All you've been able to do is produce a few small ambushes and sapper raids. The large scale ones, the US won easily. The actual battles, the US won. You're just bending over backwards trying to paint the US as losers when they weren't.
I find it hilarious especially since, by your standards, the US lost a "battle" in Afghanistan when 13 us troops died to a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in August 2021.
No, "only 17" were the absolute elite of American special forces caught in an attack by literally almost naked guys. It doesn't count all the locals who were trained, armed, and led (and clothed) by them and also died in the same attack by those almost naked guys.
Ignore the almost 100 wounded in the FB. After, again, they were attacked by only 50 literally almost naked guys.
I don't include any terrorist/sabotage style bombings (and mine explosions, and just shelling).
And btw the survivor of the Black Lions told you how the Main Force VC were the "best infantry in the world", while their attack special forces (suicide commandos) were the best of their kind in the world too, just the Americans had better and more arty, and of course the air power. Without heavy weapons on either side, the Vietnamese would win absolutely routinely in any large battle.
Also,
Yeah, the other side "claimed" wild enemy losses too. You should really know the problems with the Vietnam bodycount by now.
That's especially funny since just read about an example of the battle that the Americans lost (and could be been literally all slaughtered but by some miracle that the survivors couldn't explain it just ended before this could happen) but was presented at the time as a ("real") battle won in American propaganda.
"Spin doctors" doing the "spinning", as to quote.
There were barely any "actual battles" between forces larger than battalions and regiments due to how this war was fought. Great most engagements for regular GIs involved being fired on by unseen snipers and stepping on mines and traps planted by peasants, and only rarely they could face "the best infantry in the world" (VC Main Force in particular, but also "the NVA are all hardcore" as the song goes) in a unit of any size.
But actually even in Ukraine, where it's a large conventional war, they fight with battalions on both sides. They don't go whole brigades, not to mention divisions, wholesale in contact. Even in Mariupol it was only elements.