🚀 go-pugleaf

John M Atkinson (jatkinso@ANTISPAMgmu.edu) wrote:
: To suggest that the ARVN would have rolled over and died due to further partisan
: activities is laughable at best.  The partisan war was largely won by 1973, and
: only the regular PAVN infantry divisions, with armored brigades in support, were
: able to finish off the ARVN.

Yeah,. I guess pulling out of Somalia because of partisians didn't matter
either did it.  It was all those Somalian tanks!

: %You should know, as a soldier, that even the smallest effort of force if
: %it draws away a larger force is effective in winning the battle.  Thats
: %the entire premise behind resisting when captured, it takes far more
: %people to keep you captive if your not cooperating than if you were just
: %passive and playing by the rules.  All those folks keeping you from
: %getting out *aren't* fighting the war - and might as well not even be in
: %the war.
: %
: %Wars are not won with simple firepower or force of arms.B

: No.  But the final decision is one of simple firepower.  All else is irrelevant
: except as a factor of how much firepower it can distract from the main effort.

Oh balderdash, if you cut off the head you don't need a protacted
conventional engagement.  If all you needed was simple massing of
firepower, then all tactical models would reflect that - and they don't.

: %: You have to kill someone to have an insurgency.  Otherwise it's simply
: political
: %: action.  
: %
: %Uh... if you recall they *did* kill people - Police officers during a few 
: %protests that got way out of hand. And Ghandi went on a hunger strike to
: %stop it, got the strike ended as a result, got arrested, went to jail -
: %got out... and so on.  

: Ghandi was engaging in a peaceful political movement.  The fact that the British
: overreacted to it is irrelevant as far as that definition is concerned.

The Indians also over-reacted - perhaps you should review your history
again.  There was violence on both sides, granted the British did much
more of it, but nonetheless, violence occured on both sides, the British
were tossed out - and the insurrection worked.

M. Shinn