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[mainiac]

To be fair, if you include South Vietnam as a US ally for casualty figures, the numbers start to balance out,

Before you say that, make sure that you are comparing for equal time frames.  I.E. dont just count the communist casualties for the years of peak american involvement but count the South Vietnamese casualties for a twenty five year time frame.

[Sheb]

From the numbers I'm seeing, 68, which had peak US death of around 16,000 also had ~28,000 South Vietnamese death for ~200,000 North Vietnamese/VC death.

[mainiac]

From the numbers I'm seeing, 68, which had peak US death of around 16,000 also had ~28,000 South Vietnamese death for ~200,000 North Vietnamese/VC death.

So is that enough to sustain my statement that artillery >>> assault rifles?

[birdy51]

Mike Pence officially accepted the VP bid.

My fear of the political situation continues to rise.

[mainiac]

What is particularly scary about him?

[Sheb]

Are we at the point where 50% of the \{RK,mainiac} thread is posts by RK and mainiac. 

[mainiac]

I'll get to work on getting that up higher.

[Lord Shonus]

From the numbers I'm seeing, 68, which had peak US death of around 16,000 also had ~28,000 South Vietnamese death for ~200,000 North Vietnamese/VC death.

So is that enough to sustain my statement that artillery >>> assault rifles?

No, because the vast majority of the casualties on both sides were inflicted via assault rifle or machine gun. Most of the fighting in Vietnam was skirmishes too short for artillery to be deployed or fought in areas where artillery support beyond organic weapons was unavailable. At this point in the conflict, the rot among US forces hadn't spread to the point it would by the time of pullout, and the fight was very much between well supplied, highly trained soldiers on one side and peasants drafted at gunpoint and given a bare minimum of equipment (the US never managed to stop supply shipments entirely, but ground-pounders hoofing it are no match for a proper logistics system) on the other. Such casualty ratios are to be expected. The biggest thing that lost Vietnam was that the Powers That Be decided (quite probably correctly) that the geopolitical cost of the means needed to win the war was too high, but also decided that the domestic political cost of abandoning it was too high, so they fought it anyway.

Historically speaking, fighting an insurgency requires a ten-to-one force ratio. The power of modern communications and transport likely makes that much higher now.

[birdy51]

What is particularly scary about him?

Mostly due to the fact that his message of potential brinkmanship rings true with anyone, let alone potentially large swathes of Americans. I can respect him somewhat in regards to infrastructure, but holy shit is his social policies dangerously conservative. Guys like him don't give a shit who they have to run over to achieve maximum America.

[mainiac]

No, because the vast majority of the casualties on both sides were inflicted via assault rifle or machine gun.

Could I get some evidence for that assertion please?  Particularly with regards to the communists?  The american statistics are easy enough to find:

http://www.militaryfactory.com/vietnam/casualties.asp

18,518 casualties to small arms.
30,183 casualties to explosives and air crashes

Given the huge advantage that the US had over the communists in terms of heavy weaponry, I imagine that the disparity is far far higher for them but I dont think their records are remotely close to as complete.

[Playergamer]

Charlie loved RPGs, grenades, and IEDs, mainiac. His point still stands, most casualties in Vietnam were sustained in close combat.

[mainiac]

Charlie loved RPGs, grenades, and IEDs, mainiac. His point still stands, most casualties in Vietnam were sustained in close combat.

And again, I'm gonna ask for a little evidence on that point.

[Wolfhunter107]

Charlie loved RPGs, grenades, and IEDs, mainiac. His point still stands, most casualties in Vietnam were sustained in close combat.

And again, I'm gonna ask for a little evidence on that point.

Are you seriously asking why jungle combat took place at close quarters?

[Lord Shonus]

The top five causes of death from your own link:



Guns, Small Arms: 18,518
Multiple Fragmentary Wound: 8456
Air Loss, Crash On Land: 7992
Other Explosive Device: 7450
Artillery, Rocket, Mortar: 4,914


"Air Loss, Crash On Land" refers to aircraft shot down, and has no relevance whatsoever to ground combat. It is possible that some of the "Multiple fragmentary wound" or "Other explosive device" casualties came from artillery instead of grenades and booby traps, but the wounds are fairly distinct.

[mainiac]

Are you seriously asking why jungle combat took place at close quarters?

No I'm not.  What I'm asking about is the causes of death in Vietnam.  I in fact said nothign whatsoever at jungle combat at any point.

You now have two propositions.  One appears to be that jungle combat was most casualties.  The other was that jungle combat was mostly small arms.

and has no relevance whatsoever to ground combat

Could you direct me to the place where we said we were only talking about casualties to troops on the ground?  And the part where that was related back to the assertion that small arms alone wouldn't let you defeat an army with artillery?

The top five causes of death from your own link:

...show that small arms fire was about one third of US casualties.  And that is fighting opponents with tons of reasonable quality small arms and very little heavy weaponry.