USA Vs UK.. a war in 2012, who would win?

[Harleyman]

It might have been a side show Harley but we would have to have dealt with it sooner or later, I have never been a fan of Churchill I think he was just the right man at the right time, he was good at getting the Americans going so I could give him some cred for that,it could have been a lot different if Halifax or someone else like that had run things here,Ike was great leader and he was the man of the moment,I think when the British Canadians and Americans get together we are the best fighting power in the world.

 

Yep! Ike was a great leader in his role as Supreme Commander. As a president he wasnt too bad either although he avoided the growing issue of black equality and also he started the involvement of Amerifca's role in Vietnam after the French got kicked out.

 

Ho Chi Minh told the French "you can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours but even at these odds, you will lose and I will win"

 

General Giap the Commander of the North Vietnamese forces echoed the same theme telling a reporter that the lives of hundreds of thousands of his compatriots meant little as long as victory was achieved in the end even if it took a hundred years.

 

The Vietnamese were more than just a "bunch of rice farmers" as another poster on this thread contemptuously referred to them.

They may have been indoctrinated Communists but more so dedicated nationalists determined to unite the north with the south and rid themselves of foreigners and the NVA were first class seasoned combat veterans.

 

There was no army in the world that could have won that war

[Shogun]

Tell me one honest thing Harley I dont know if you are a Yank or not but did America really think that they had a chance of beating the Vietnamese or even making a influence on them in any way I mean what was the aim and what did they achieve in the end after all them brave lads gave there life's.

[Rich]

Dint talk like a Wally. The luckiest break Britain got in WW2 is when the Russians and the Americans joined in.

 

Yeah, hence Britain being so far up America's arse ever since.

[poppins]

Yeah, hence Britain being so far up America's arse ever since.

 

Why don't you change the record Rich ?

[Harleyman]

Yeah, hence Britain being so far up America's arse ever since.

 

So instead you would have found it more to your liking to have kissed Der Fuhrer's butt instead?

He was a vegetarian so that might have been a bit dodgy at times.

[Harleyman]

Tell me one honest thing Harley I dont know if you are a Yank or not but did America really think that they had a chance of beating the Vietnamese or even making a influence on them in any way I mean what was the aim and what did they achieve in the end after all them brave lads gave there life's.

 

You could write a whole book on that

[Aleksandr]

As anyone who knows me might agree I'm always open to an inrelligent discourse but I also have the somewhat foolish and childish habit of occasionaly descending to the same level of idiocy in response to posts like yours.

 

You sound like a nuclear bad guy version of the prime minister of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick a small fictitious country in the movie "The mouse that roared"

 

Anyway has any genious on here figured out what could possibly trigger off a nuclear exchange between the US and the UK?

 

Some threads just get dafter and dafter :hihi:

Well, since you didn't notice, what started it all off was a hypothetical question. As for being 'the mouse', do me a favour. Even a mouse can wipe out the USA if it has it's arse on the button!

[callippo]

the USA really did think at first that they could lick the Vietnamese, only later did reality sink in. They thought they could do anything. But this is one of the really key features of the Cold War and it was also the single most deadly dangerous thing about it. Both sides were overestimating themselves, and what their capabilities were, the USA and the USSR both. The USSR just overestimated their capabilities more.

[Harleyman]

the USA really did think at first that they could lick the Vietnamese, only later did reality sink in. They thought they could do anything. But this is one of the really key features of the Cold War and it was also the single most deadly dangerous thing about it. Both sides were overestimating themselves, and what their capabilities were, the USA and the USSR both. The USSR just overestimated their capabilities more.

 

There was a lot of blame directed at Lyndon Johnson's handling of the war.

The criticism was aimed at the policy of gradual escalation and failure to carry the war directly to the north. This gave the NVA time to build up their arsenals of Soviet and Chinese weaponry.

General Westmoreland's war of body counts and his theory that by killing them in the thousands that it would eventually wear down the North Vietnamese didnt work. In hindsight the war should have been concentrated against the North Vietnamese Army and not so much time and effort spent on fighting the Viet Cong. That's what the prevailing opinions of Vietnam war historians seem to be anyway.

 

The other factor and the most important one of all is that the Vietnamese are a people who have waged war againsy invaders for centuries. They've fought their ancient enemies the Chinese several times, invading Mongols, Cambodians, Laotians and never accepted complete domination by the French.

 

Ho Chi Minh was essentially a Vietnamese nationalist, had traveled around the world, lived for a period of time in the US and France, spoke several languages and was dedicated to freeing Vietnam from the French. At the end of WW2 he had hopes for a time that the US who he saw as being anti-colonialist would aid him in achieving independence from France.

 

The other thing of major significance was that the Republic of South Vietnam was completely corrupt and rotten and it had alienated the rural peasantry as well as many among the Bhuddist hierarchy.

 

Also the American army had been trained to fight a war on the plains of Europe and not in jungles and rice paddies against an enemy that could have been anyone around them.

 

In a way the Vietnamese fought the war in a similar manner to that of the American colonists against the British

[callippo]

they were emboldened by their success in putting down the Filipino insurrection of course, which wasn't all that long before Vietnam, but perhaps failed to realise that the Filipinos were (and still are) of a different timbre than the Vietnamese - though they look alike, they're quite different. The Filipinos were the far more colonialised, having had three and half centuries of it already - this was the reason of the Japanese contempt for Filipinos during their occupation in WW2, they thought they were far too westernised and had given in far too easily. Crucially unlike the Vietnamese, the Filipinos had almost no foreign support. And even then, the Americans had a hard time of it with the Filipino insurrection. They had to put a lot more resources than they thought they would, to win it.