Better late than never.
Posted on 07/11/2012 7:25:41 AM PDT by moonshot925
Would it have been worth it to use low-yield tactical nuclear weapons during Vietnam War?
Better late than never.
929 warheads is still a lot of warheads. How many do you need to wipe out civilisation?
Lloyd Bentsen urged the use of nukes in Korea. The idea was rejected, in part because of the problems caused if the North Koreans did not surrender.
We had already destroyed every dam, dike, canal, power node, and power plant, so there was no guarantee that they’d quit if we dropped The Big One on Pyongyang.
And if we dropped it and they did not surrender, there goes the “nuclear deterrent”, since there was an example of it plain not working.
Likewise nuking something in VN, it was unlikely that they’d just quit, and highly likely that they’d gain more global sympathy and more UN help. And every lefty government in the world would report a rash of radiation-induced problems, money being the antidote (look at the very effective DU penetrator. The enemy, rather than spend millions on a better-armored tank, spent 100,00 on a publicity campaign to get us to stop deploying them).
lol Well, within two klicks, anyway. Against a known tunel complex, though, it would be highly effective.
I hear rumors that there were quite a few Army folks with specific Crockett training.
So we pop off a nuke in NVN and suddenly one goes off in Taiwan. Now what? Even with a 10-1 nuclear superiority, do you really want to get into a game of global tit-for-tat?
good point..
McArthur was fired for the strong push to use them in Korea.
We got away with using them once, and for a variety of reasons. Use ‘em again, even the small ones, and a precedent is set.
I’m not saying it would be bad, but it would change the worlds geopolitical culture regarding the use of nukes.
BTW, this site is pretty cool. It shows just how little physical damage nukes actually do (compared to what most people think they do):
http://www.carloslabs.com/node/20
Yeah. MacArthur agreed with you and was fired for it.
I think he was right, too. It would be a very different world today if we had actually fought wars to win.
ALL weapon types are used eventually.
We should have let Taiwan take back china decades ago we would have avoid Korea, Vietnam and what is to come.
1. Nukes are impossible to use without harming innocent bystanders/noncombatants.
2. Using nukes would have turned our allies even further from us - and we had very few standing with us to begin with in Vietnam.
3. Horrible terrain for using nukes: too many compartments/obstacles/hill masses to employ the blast/burn/ irradiate parts of the weapons.
4.Would have affected the US and allied forces almost as much as the target, as far as downrange radiation contamination goes. Not that it would have influenced our Defense Department too much at the time - we are still "enjoying" the poisonous aftereffects of the deforestation plans. We were just an expendible item to them, like Kleenex, back then.
In short, no way, Jose...
No.
Bingo.
Or, simpler still...
Invade North Vietnam.
And promise to use tactical nukes - ONLY in North Vietnam - if Russia or China responded with ground forces.
I'm not a war historian, but I can't recall a single war between bordering countries where one country - North Vietnam in this case - had NO FEAR of a counter invasion.
Then we would execute a preemptive first strike against the Soviet Union and China.
It is called "massive retaliation".
Not sure if nuking the NV would have been as preferable then say nuking the idiots who tied our hands behind our backs.
I'll be keeping my eye on you.
(language warning for the blue-haired little old ladies on FR)
Vietnam was fought about the same way I fight fire ants in my yard.
I can kill every hill in the yard tho it takes a lot of effort but then in a few days they will re-appear.
Had we bombed the starch out of that area (say 10 miles N-S of Hwy. 9) and denuded the forests with Agent White previous to our attack, results would have been different and we would not have had to spray/bomb such a vast area of SE Asia.
If you study this Op, you will find the NVA fought like Tigers. They had to! It was their jugular vein. Casualty reports vary, however, many state 20K NVA and 1/2 that many ARVN KIA during this 2 month Op....
Not advocating war, simply saying, in the long run, if we had to go in, we would have sustained far fewer KIA/WIA.
My old boss, BG Miller, was one of the first artillerymen trained on the Davey Crocket before he was sent to Vietnam and Laos.
It was known as Mutually Assured Destruction. A fancy way of saying suicide.
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