The Indian AF beats the USAF: Not ! The Real Story Behind The Cope India Exersize

originally posted by: IamSirDrinksalot
This is an aircraft forum and you have resurrected a 6 year threas to rant anti american garbage.

PS. Americans didnt get slaughtered in Vietnam, they won every single conflict. You might want to read up on your history pal.

no anti americanisn here, just anti imperialism. as for you my dear, from your comment it is obvious you dont know anything about vietnam conflict if your think US won every battle. heres a few clues for you to google : Ia Drang , Dak To, Koh Tang , A Shau, Lam Son , DMZ battles.. just a few pointers to make you realized that american soldiers was slaughtered and defeated in combat by NVA's flanking and maneuver tactics.

as for this thread, it is funny how after all these years some americans never get over the fact that their air force pilot skill are below other nations. Even Kelly Johnson said that line before in front of air force pilots while praising Israeli Air force pilots.

Forgot to add, I am not an American, the name makes me shudder, it reminds me of the worst kind of people, greedy money hungary grabbers who would and do sell their kids to make money.

The salt of the Earth are great, much better that any snackbars, a true united, unfortuntely they cant seem to stop being greedy, its a shame the comon person suffers whilst the likes of bush, rice, rumsfelt, cnutface live it up....

UK isnt any better, I was pro Gulf War 2 at the time, see I was spun a load of #, in hindsight Blair and Bush should be brought on charges, may make the next trigger happy yank and his sidekick think twice.

originally posted by: milomilo

originally posted by: IamSirDrinksalot
This is an aircraft forum and you have resurrected a 6 year threas to rant anti american garbage.

PS. Americans didnt get slaughtered in Vietnam, they won every single conflict. You might want to read up on your history pal.

no anti americanisn here, just anti imperialism. as for you my dear, from your comment it is obvious you dont know anything about vietnam conflict if your think US won every battle. heres a few clues for you to google : Ia Drang , Dak To, Koh Tang , A Shau, Lam Son , DMZ battles.. just a few pointers to make you realized that american soldiers was slaughtered and defeated in combat by NVA's flanking and maneuver tactics.

as for this thread, it is funny how after all these years some americans never get over the fact that their air force pilot skill are below other nations. Even Kelly Johnson said that line before in front of air force pilots while praising Israeli Air force pilots.

One thing that is obvious to me is that you need to do more reading about this war. Ia Drang and A Shau valleys were high traffic area for the NVA to enter SVN from the Ho Chi Min trail. Any US ops in these areas were always costly in men and equipment because of the value of these routes. These ops were area denial in nature to stop the movement of supplies to NVA and Viet Cong units already in country. By 1969, it was evident that the ops in these areas had worked strategically though tactically we took many casualties. Were we defeated on the ground? NO! We lost around 350 soldiers in the Ia Drang but the NVA lost 2300 though the US was ambushed 3 times while moving to their LZ. The ambushes were delaying tactics by the NVA while the body of their remaining regiment disengaged.

A Shau was the same story but I'm not as familiar with this area of operations.

Lam Son was a ARVN operation not an American. Charlie Company of the 2/158 Avn Bde US Army was in a support role carrying South Vietnamese troops into a Cambodian LZ along the Ho Chi Min trail. No one secured the LZ and VNAF was nowhere to be found. This was the first large ARVN operation under the Vietnamization program. Early on, the NVA destroyed the main ARVN supply base requiring multiply trips to a hot LZs by C company. The NVA moved heavy machine guns and AAA into the areas around the LZs to ambush the unarmed Hueys. I'm not sure of the numbers of aircraft lost in the support operation. I heard 10 helicopters and 19 crewmen but I can't confirm that. Any loss is unacceptable but it's not a defeat because it didn't stop Charlie company from completing their mission.

An Loc and Dak To were both during the 1972 Easter Offensive when the NVA invaded out of Cambodia. This was the first large operation by the North since Tet 1968 and the end result was the same. The NVA was hurt badly and retreated by into Cambodia and Laos. They didn't mount another major operation until late 1972 after the US turned over all military ops to the Vietnamese.

Koh Tang, IIRC, was a classified operation where the US was directed to enter Cambodia to hit the NVA in their R&R camps. Richard Nixon limited our forces to 30 miles past the border but no NVA was found in large numbers. I do remember B52's were hitting targets deeper in Cambodia but the results are unknown to me.

The thing that is being missed in this thread is the US politicians always put sometime extreme restrictions on the military when deployed to combat. To many these restrictions (ROE) make the US look weak to it's detractor.
Many have made the mistake in thinking this way. The greatest mistake we make is after the war is we discharge competent soldiers and keep the people who are politically correct not necessarily good soldiers.

Everyone argues over whose pilots are better or which airplane will win. The true key is the country who can keep it's planes flying until the enemy can not. You can shoot down 20 but still have 2000 more to shoot down your 20...you're going to loose. It's a case of your 16 MIG 37s against our 600 F16s or 500 F15s or 200 F22s.

Sadly the bodycount number of dead VC/NVA is inflated by the US military , because it is a number created out of thin air by guessing the number of death incurred to VC/NVA by altilery interdiction. This applies to every encounter in which the high command often 'demand' operational unit commanders to give higher enemy bodycounts to avoid a bad BC Ratio. Dak To and A Shau were debacle of massive proportion where small piecemeal US formations faced regimental sized NVA units , and in here the enemy body count data was even worse since they 'assumed' that their altilery and air interdiction on supposed NVA retreat corridor resulted in high number of enemy casualties , with no shred of physical evidence.

Lam Son was a horrifying reality for US military since even with US Air Support, the South Vietnamese ground soldiers cannot hold against NVA's attack in a display of ineptness and cowardice. Many US personell died from supporting this invasion and many US Asset was shot down pointlessly in the retreat.

Koh Tang was included as an example because of sub par performance of US intelligence and US Marines against a low-tech cambodian soldiers although experienced got no altilery and no air support. It was an incident that occured on the ending of American defeat in vietnam , which is a fitting way to close the debacle.

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The point is so many people in USA cannot accept that other nations can beat US military because of the delusion of military superiority. This delusion also permeates US military rank and file thus caused the embarassing defeat and retreat from iraq and afghanistan.

a reply to: milomilo
I stand corrected about Koh Tang. I was under the assumption that it was the US incursion into western Cambodia ordered by Richard Nixon. Now that you've refreshed my memory, it was a USMC op to recover a ship's crew taken by the Cambodians. The mission originated from Thailand and it was ill-conceived.

As to the US operations in Vietnam, I have two tours in 69-70 and 72-73 and you need not point out how things were there! One thing that you failed to point out was the micro-management exercised by the politician in Washington. They imposed rules of engagement that we routinely wondered who's side they were on. The last few wars we were not "in it to win it" by the mediocre government support. Our soldiers are sent into the armpits of the world to do anything but win. My son returned from Afghanistan in 2011 with the same complaints as I had 45 years ago returning from Vietnam.

What does this say about the US military? We have high tech weapons and highly trained soldiers by any formula this should be a great army. The only things that remain would be it's leadership or it's mission/objectives militarily. On the civilian side there are many things that effect a military operation. If the political party in office does not share the same military objectives of the preceding party...this could mean the military will be without a clear mission and little or no support. Case in point, is the Afghanistan 2010 troop surge where Obama only approved a third of the requested troops for the up coming operations. Was this because of his vast military experience or his opposition to the war. Regardless the operations were successful but the US didn't hold the ground won due to the lack of troops with the enemy reoccupying their lost territory. You would say we lost the battle but I don't see it that way! The soldiers performed their jobs flawlessly but they were not supported by the national command authority. In my time, when the NVA invaded past the DMZ, Nixon want to return but congress would not provide funds to do so and the numbers of lost soldiers had the politicians scared...no national will to continue. I don't know what was worst, fighting the NVA or Americans spitting and throwing feces on returning troops.

If you have any suggestion to how to improve our performance please comment away! I would be interested in seeing your recommendations.

Politics ALWAYS interfere with military operations.. ALWAYS.. it is pointless to blame politics for the US defeat in vietnam or stalemate in korea..

and consider the bigger strategic implication of unrestricted war in vietnam (no political restriction). It will be worse than the korean stalemate if US invaded north vietnam , The Chinese would definitely intervene and at that time US need china to balance against Soviet.

The end result will be worse for USA since a land war (non nuclear) Against china in vietnam will escalate to a larger war with china and that is a nightmarish scenario / unthinkable..

American is an air power and a naval power nation. Never a land power nation , that goes for the Soviet and China.

a reply to: milomilo

You offer no suggestions just criticism. It is easy to be an armchair general when you've never had any skin in the game. I'm surprised your expertise hasn't been incorporated into our military combat doctrine as you seem to able to see these operations much more clearly than those of us who were there on the ground. I have 27 months in Vietnam and in that time neither unit, that I belonged, was made to leave the battlefield by enemy action! We took causalities and sometimes heavy casualties but this doesn't mean we lost in those actions. It also doesn't mean we were incompetent in what we were doing... I take great offense in your implication!

originally posted by: buddah6
a reply to: milomilo

You offer no suggestions just criticism. It is easy to be an armchair general when you've never had any skin in the game. I'm surprised your expertise hasn't been incorporated into our military combat doctrine as you seem to able to see these operations much more clearly than those of us who were there on the ground. I have 27 months in Vietnam and in that time neither unit, that I belonged, was made to leave the battlefield by enemy action! We took causalities and sometimes heavy casualties but this doesn't mean we lost in those actions. It also doesn't mean we were incompetent in what we were doing... I take great offense in your implication!

You asked for my suggestion : My suggestion is for america to stop creating / inciting wars and political instability all around the world and using their military as their tool to strengthen US Hegemony.

it is just american military underestimate their vietnamese opponent and too overconfident , which lead into massive casualties in their battles in vietnam. This occured more severely in areas hold by NVA regiments instead of the VC. If you really in vietnam what unit were you in and what was your job in the war ? were you infantry grunt or just rear area / support group / aviator ?

a real world case in US overconfidence and stupidity , if you remember it : The slaughter of the Herd (173rd Airborne Brigade) in Dak To , because they previously were posted in relatively safe area (Binh Dinh Province, with only VC ambushes and booby traps as opponents) and they confidently think that Dak To will be a cakewalk and use company sized maneuver elements (even against the advice of the experienced 4th ID who suggested no less than Battalion Sized maneuver elements). The 'Herd''s companies were decimated in ambushes by NVA regiments who knew how to do Fire & Maneuver. You can ask your fellow veterans from the Herd how bad was Dak To..

a reply to: milomilo
I was in Vietnam with the 3/505PIR as an infantry platoon leader on my first tour and you'll get more information when you respond in kind...now it's your turn. What is your bonafites?

originally posted by: milomilo
You asked for my suggestion : My suggestion is for america to stop creating / inciting wars and political instability all around the world and using their military as their tool to strengthen US Hegemony.

Oy vey. The US had a mutual defense treaty with South Vietnam, like it does with NATO. The US is hardly the unique source of wars & political instability.