Vietnam War, German Army

Omega-13 · Post by **Omega-13** » 2002-12-12 05:43pm

Instead of the American army going into vietnam, the German army from WWII has gone into the future,
the german's have everything they had in WWII, in their prime,

Can they do better than the Americans did?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-12-12 06:40pm

No, they do far worse.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2002-12-12 07:01pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:No, they do far worse.

No, they do much much better. Unlike the US, they have
a powermad dictator in charge and don't have to worry
about public opinion back home...unlike...

*cough* LBJ *cough*

May LBJ ROT IN HELL FOR FUCKING VIETNAM UP!

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-12-12 07:03pm

I've got to agree partially with Shep on this. The little mordern tech the Veitnamse had will play havoc with the Nazi's but the sheer resolve will allow them to do a lot of damage. Ultimately the Germans will ramp up production and build up the tech base to win.

guyver · Post by **guyver** » 2002-12-12 07:28pm

MKSheppard wrote:
Sea Skimmer wrote:No, they do far worse.
No, they do much much better. Unlike the US, they have
a powermad dictator in charge and don't have to worry
about public opinion back home...unlike...

*cough* LBJ *cough*

May LBJ ROT IN HELL FOR FUCKING VIETNAM UP!

Yes the Germans would do much better than the US. Not because of Hitler, but because they would not hold back. Also the media would not make them out to be a bunch of baby killers.

My father was in the Nam and that is the one thing he hated. Coming home and having everyone (the anti-war people) think he just killed women and children. The media back than never told the whole story.

irishmick79 · Post by **irishmick79** » 2002-12-12 07:34pm

The germans would get rocked worse than the US did. Vietnam was fucked from the beginning. Some of the principal factors that caused US policy to go completely down the shitter was racism, and a complete misunderstanding of southeast asia (fueled in part by racism). The US commanders were still riding their reputations from WWII, and didn't see the vietnamese as a truly worthy opponent. They miscalculated vietnamese mentality and determination badly. The Germans, being racist nazis, would probably have suffered from those two factors even worse than the Americans did.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2002-12-12 07:50pm

German army would do about the same or worse then US Army. Germany did have a tentacity to over-engineer weapon systems.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2002-12-12 08:04pm

WWII Germans would have liquidated any South-East Asians they ran across or conquered because they were considered "inferior" in Hitler's racial heirarchy.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-12-12 09:09pm

I don't believe that the Wehrmacht would have been able to cope with Viet Cong guerilla warfare any better than we did, even if they get Panzer divisions all the way to Hanoi.

As for "LBJ fucking up the war", it really could not have gotten more fucked up than it already had been. Vietnam was a big steaming pile of French shit we should never have allowed ourselves to step in.

Omega-13 · Post by **Omega-13** » 2002-12-12 09:12pm

Could anyone have success in vietnam? What about the USSR? (yes it sounds weird, but go with it)

Raptor 597 · Post by **Raptor 597** » 2002-12-12 09:51pm

The Soviet Hordes have another have another, lesser Afghanistan if the Viet Cong do things perfectly. Otherwise, the Soviet Hordes take over the whole country, just pour lots of troops in.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2002-12-12 10:47pm

Yes, the Germans do much better. They have no morals them back, so they will exterminate anyone even remotely suspected of Communist sympathies, invade Cambodia, invade the North, and whatever is necessary. The only real danger they suffer under is provoking the Soviets or Chinese.

Sam Or I · Post by **Sam Or I** » 2002-12-13 02:03am

The US won the majority of the major battles in Vietnam. If you look at it from a pure military aspect the US was winning. Public opinion lost Vietnam, at one point I heard the Viet-Cong were on the brink of surrender until they saw a US news report, Politics also held down the military from full out war. I would say Germany of WWII would stand a good chance if they could easily get there.

Falkenhorst · Post by **Falkenhorst** » 2002-12-13 02:29am

My 2 cents is that the Einsatzgruppen and other SS units and brutal antipartisan units would turn the whole thing into a giant bloodbath. The Germans had some units that gained a pretty black reputation for their skill at ruthlessly wiping out partisans in the Balkans and Russia during the war.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-12-13 08:11am

what kind of aircraft did the vietkong use?

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-13 08:19am

Actually low ranking SS Panzer Ganadiers were in the Vietnam War. French Foriegn Legion to be exact, Now MARCH OR DIE!

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-12-13 08:23am

The Yosemite Bear wrote:Actually low ranking SS Panzer Ganadiers were in the Vietnam War. French Foriegn Legion to be exact, Now MARCH OR DIE!

yep that was a common way to evade punishment especially for KZ guards.

Oberleutnant · Post by **Oberleutnant** » 2002-12-13 09:23am

Cpt_Frank wrote:what kind of aircraft did the vietkong use?

Vietcong didn't have any air force because they were not a regular army, just an organised guerellia group. The North Vietnamese armed forces on the other hand were a completely different thing. I believe their air force operated Soviet (and Chinese?) stuff like MiG-21s and MiG-17s.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-12-13 10:34am

Cpt_Frank wrote:
what kind of aircraft did the vietkong use?

Vietcong didn't have any air force because they were not a regular army, just an organised guerellia group. The North Vietnamese armed forces on the other hand were a completely different thing. I believe their air force operated Soviet (and Chinese?) stuff like MiG-21s and MiG-17s.

Thanks for the confirmation.

irishmick79 · Post by **irishmick79** » 2002-12-13 11:01am

you guys need to read "A Bright Shining Lie," By Neil Sheehan. It's a well done examination of the US policy failures in southeast asia. The americans tried to fight a european WWII attrition style war in asia, when they had to be fighting a completely different kind of political war that they just weren't prepared for. The US was trying to prop up a corrupt, failing regime in Saigon that for the most part refused to be helped. Pacification policies designed to win "the hearts and minds" had the wrong goals set, and the wrong objectives to obtain. By the time US Marines hit the dirt in '65, the Viet Cong could claim that 70% of the South Vietnamese countryside was VC loyal.

The same problems would have crippled the German efforts in Vietnam. Europeans on a whole completely misunderstood asia, and this misunderstanding would have led them to establish policies and procedures that undermined their ability to suceed. While the german military might have had similar success against the VC that the americans had, they would have been even more unprepared to fight the political war that won vietnam for the communists.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2002-12-13 12:21pm

irishmick79 wrote: While the german military might have had similar success against the VC that the americans had, they would have been even more unprepared to fight the political war that won vietnam for the communists.

Oh bullshit. The VC cadres were completey annihilated during Tet,
and when the CIA's Phoenix Program went into effect, we began
acting like the Gestapo, and ruthlessly liquidated anyone remotely
connected with Communism.

It's kinda hard to build up a 2nd VC force if all of the high ranking
leaders who formed the first are all worm food now courtesy of the CIA

irishmick79 · Post by **irishmick79** » 2002-12-13 01:12pm

The Pheonix program had it's fair share of problems, and the viciousness of it was one of the reasons that the Saigon government was never able to get a foothold in the countryside in the latter years of the war. It drove potential SVG supporters to support the NVA and VC. I mentioned the Saigon corruption in my previous post, and it had a huge effect on the effectiveness of the program. Saigon officials were able to identify VC cadres, and often times had the VC cadres pay for protection from the pheonix programs assasination squads. Pheonix was used by the South Vietnamese officials to further their own political objectives, through fingering of political opponents as enemy agents.

If the Germany was trying to prop up the Saigon regime, the gestapo would have likely faced similar difficulties with their "pacification" programs. The rampant corrpution in the Saigon regime would have hindered their efficiency.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2002-12-13 01:48pm

Well, it'll be bloody. The NVA, at least, has the support of the USSR with it and all the weaponry it implies. That means air-defenses more than capable of engaging whatever Luftwaffe forces can be brought to bear, modern (for the time) aircraft and such.

It is entirely possible that the Wehrmacht's leadership will do the same mistakes that Westmoreland did; though that's up for conjecture. The Germans will be on the end of a very long logistics chain, and with inferior weapons (and possibly training wrt jungle warfare) to boot.

willburns84 · Post by **willburns84** » 2002-12-13 03:31pm

The Werhmact, and the SS to follow would have gone in and killed everyone. They would not have so much "propped up" South Vietnam as outright take it over and kill everyone who got in their way or even so much as looked at them funny.

They would have been Draka-lite.

Put everyone they can into labor camps - anyone they find outside of a camp they kill. The Germans, for the most part (I'm sure there are a few exceptions out there), were superb soldiers with a solid core of NCO's and junior officers. Their tech would need some improvement as others have said, but more importantly, they had the WILL to make a victory, a victory for them, possible.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-12-13 03:32pm

MKSheppard wrote:
Sea Skimmer wrote:No, they do far worse.
No, they do much much better. Unlike the US, they have
a powermad dictator in charge and don't have to worry
about public opinion back home...unlike...

*cough* LBJ *cough*

May LBJ ROT IN HELL FOR FUCKING VIETNAM UP!

There's no way the Germans can fight in about 75% of Indochina, there transport aircraft suck, useful helicopters are 10 years away and many of their trucks had two wheel drive with civilian specifications.

The Germans where in there prime in 1941-42, for your little invasion of the North would you like to volunteer to take the Panzer IVE aginst the T-54 battalion or fly a Stuka against the radar directed S-60's?