How Many Wars Was Vietnam
As the USA deployed major forces to Vietnam between 1965 and 1967, American politicians and military commanders were inspired by futuristic, space-age visions of how to fight the war. The problem, however, was that these visions often conflicted with each other and became rallying cries for opposing institutional lobbies.
The US Army, for example, constantly had to defend its own air power in the shape of helicopters and unarmed fixed-wing aircraft, against the US Air Force’s claims that it could provide all the troop lift and fire support that was needed. Hence the Army was tempted to make extravagant claims for its transport and gunship helicopters, and even set up an all-helicopter airborne cavalry division.
The Marine Corps, by contrast, did not have this problem, since it possessed its own integral air force of fast jets. It did not need helicopter gunships, simply because it could call up its own Phantoms. Nor did it believe in the small
Huey utility helicopter, preferring the much larger Sea Knights and Jolly Green Giants that were better adapted to operating from ships. The US Navy, meanwhile, feeling that it should take part in the war inland, built an advanced riverine flotilla — the ‘brown water navy’ — to transport troops and firepower around the Mekong delta.
The story did not end there. The Armor lobby wanted to move and fight on tracks, while the Engineer lobby wanted to solve battlefield problems by defoliation — using such unconventional weapons as the (mechanical) Transphibian Tactical Crusher or the (chemical) Agent Orange. Others wanted one-man personalized flying machines, while yet others looked to the hovercraft.
Finally, and in some ways most portentous for the future, a whole new lobby emerged for electronic warfare. Its vision was to avoid moving around the battlefield entirely, wiring it up `like a pin table’ with electronic sensors that would activate artillery or air strikes.
produce an armored divisional air defense system (DIVADS), or the British TSR-2 fighter-bomber, finding solutions to the technical problems involved become so expensive that the whole project has to be cancelled (in TSR-2’s case this happened just as the problems were close to solution).
There are two alternatives to gold plating. The first is to follow Soviet practice and build slowly but carefully on existing designs that have already been combat-proven. This approach shows clearly in the unbroken line of development from the World War II series of Js tanks through the T54/55, T62, T64, ‘172 right up to the latest T80s. The Red Army has thus had a plentiful supply of reasonably up-to- date tanks that were also reliable and cheap, and did not pursue technological dead-ends or follow utopian dreams.
