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Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/17/2022 9:09:23 AM   
devoncop


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Status: offline 		An idea that may already be being implemented for the expansion covering post 19967 is that US forces should really see reduced morale and general efficiency post Tet as the incoming draftees arrived much affected by anti war sentiment back home.

Insubordination was a huge issue after this point with discipline breaking down and many instances of Marines and regular infantry units even refusing to go on patrol when directly ordered to do so.

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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/17/2022 2:50:21 PM   
Jason Petho


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From: Terrace, BC, Canada
Status: offline 		This will be a good chance to use the C class platoons!

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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/17/2022 2:55:31 PM   
devoncop


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Status: offline 		Great stuff....though maybe somewhat of a shock to US players used to the reliability of the 1965-67 platoons :-)

As an unreconstructed VC player this concerns me not one jot

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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/17/2022 3:02:03 PM   
Jason Petho


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Status: offline 		Bahahahaah, of course, of course

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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/18/2022 8:56:43 PM   
Twotribes


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Status: offline 		Please list for us the battles the US lost in 68 to 72 due to low morale and lack of discipline?

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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/19/2022 8:28:20 AM   
TomWalton

 

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quote:

Please list for us the battles the US lost in 68 to 72 due to low morale and lack of discipline?


Hm, difficult one (though we could also ask whether or not it mattered how many battles they "won", if in the end they lost the war?).

Much as I think CSVN is probably the best computer wargame I've ever played, I'm not sure that it really models the war at a scale where morale and discipline really make a difference. The scenarios have to assume the US forces have been willing to "go out on patrol". A CSVN scenario where discipline had broken down would have you trucking supplies round Da Nang or Cam Ranh Bay -- and possibly all squads beginning "disrupted" with low morale and then unable to move for 12 turns or more ;-) ! It would make a poor game!

Max Hastings, in his excellent Vietnam book, suggests that:

quote:

All the dollars, all the war, had failed to confer on the rulers of South Vietnam and their supporters three vital things: dignity, self-respect and sufficient human sympathy to achieve an accord with their own people. Absent these things, battlefield success counted for very little.


But I think you'd need a game on a totally different scale, modelling the whole war, to bring that sort of issue in.


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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/19/2022 9:14:22 AM   
devoncop


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

Please list for us the battles the US lost in 68 to 72 due to low morale and lack of discipline?


In the same book by Max Hastings mentioned above he describes quite clearly the decline in quality of such forces and specifically speaks of the overrunning of Firebase Mary Ann on the night of 27th/28th March 1971.
Manned by C Company of 1st/46th Infantry. He describes repeated refusals of combat by men of the 1st/46th including on one occasion by an entire company.

The OIC Col. Doyle though personally brave was unable to enforce discipline,and the Capt in charge of overnight security Capt Knight failed to post guards overnight "or reset tripwires and set Claymores,or to renew wire entanglements. Or to remain awake. Or abstain from alcohol and marijuana. Most of the designated guards were sleeping,playing cards drunk or stoned"

Discipline in the unit was apparently somewhat, though not considerably worse than many other similar units at this time.

After the base was overrun MACV's investigation found Knight guilty of dereliction of duty and found several other key men ineffective, Doyle was removed from Command and the Brigade Commander was sacked.

I think that gives you one example at least



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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/19/2022 12:11:03 PM   
Twotribes


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Status: offline 		From the end of the war for the US, you said 68 and on.

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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/19/2022 2:11:19 PM   
devoncop


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Status: offline 		You asked for battles lost by the US between 68 and 72 due to poor morale/ lack of discipline and I just gave you one.....

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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/19/2022 2:15:06 PM   
Twotribes


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Status: offline 		Ya one, which does not a trend make.

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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/19/2022 2:15:33 PM   
devoncop


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Status: offline 		I can give you several others.

"The history of the Marine Corps legal branch records that fragging of officers by their own men had never been so widespread and the US Army records between 1969 and 1971 more than 600 incidents of such fraggings resulting in 82 deaths and 651 injuries". Hastings again.

" No witness doubted that from 1968 to the end , the effectiveness of American forces was in relentless decline...."it became progressively harder to persuade (Gen) Abrams' men to match the communists' commitment and warcraft, even in the interests of their own survival".

No one can argue some US troops continued to fight quite well but as a whole their effectiveness had declined consuderably since 1965 as the war weariness and draftee percentages in units increased so I was just suggesting that maybe strength and/or morale numbers of US platoons should be reduced in the CSVN expansion.







< Message edited by devoncop -- 2/19/2022 2:31:51 PM >

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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/19/2022 3:02:50 PM   
Twotribes


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Status: offline 		No you advocated that all US troops be reduced and that simply is not historical

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RE: Reduced US troop efficiency - 2/19/2022 3:24:39 PM   
devoncop


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

No you advocated that all US troops be reduced and that simply is not historical


I said "US forces" not ALL US forces.

There is a difference.

We shall agree to disagree.

Have a good day.


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