>right in the middle of this valley surrounded by hillside seems like a great place to have our battle
>"The Viet Minh opened fire with a massive artillery bombardment in March. After several days the French artillery commander, Charles Piroth, unable to respond with any effective counterbattery fire, committed suicide."
Is there a bigger fuck up than the Battle of Dien Bien Phu post WWII? Could France have fucked up harder?
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I never understood the base on the low ground concept.
I get an air strip but at least take the highest peak and make that your base.
>Could France have fucked up harder?
True story - the French begged Eisenhower to help by sending B-29s to bomb the Viet-Minh positions, and he apparently came close enough to agreeing that a couple of them were even painted up in French markings before he thought better of it.
Piroth was a badass though. He lost an arm in WWII, so when he decided to take responsibility for what happened at DBP, he took a grenade, pulled the pin with his teeth, lie down in his bunk, and held it to his chest.
Some shit about DBP was just crazy, like the fact that there was a French Army field brothel there on base, staffed mostly by Oulad Na'il tribeswomen from North Africa. As the situation got worse, the prostitutes all volunteered to be put to work helping the wounded. They were captured with the remaining soldiers when the base fell, and marched off into captivity right along with them.
Anyhow, the "hedgehog" is a risky maneuver, but can pay off if you do it right. Khe Sanh was basically the same idea, but the Americans were able to pull it off because they had B-52s available, which the French didn't. In the end, the French simply didn't have the firepower in theater to make the idea work, and that, not anything Piroth did, is why it didn't work.
You do know there are like 3 battles of Dien Bien Phu, right? Jesus christ this board is retarded sometimes
You know there's only one that anybody remembers or cares about, right?
For some reason, I love this battle. I've read Ted Morgan's valley of death, but I haven't read hell in a very small place. It's funny that the majority of base defenders weren't even french, they were colonial and foreign legion troops. Pic related because many french paratroops used the m1 carbine.
>this board is retarded sometimes
>sometimes
you must be new
>"The Viets are everywhere. The situation is very grave. The combat is confused and goes on all about. I feel the end is approaching, but we will fight to the finish."
>"Of course you will fight to the end. It is out of the question to run up the white flag after your heroic resistance."
>You know there's only one that I had ever heard about, right?
Can you elaborate on the hedgehog stategy you refer to?
I'm French and completely ignorant of Indochina oher than we were cocky cos used to dumbass African resistance and after getting slaughtered for a while realized it was a pretty shit place to hold on to
>doesnt know it was basically trying to re-apply the concept of the Na San battle n which actually went great
Ça serait mieux de te documenter dessus en effet si t'as déjà tiré des conclusions aussi débiles et peremptoires.
A "hedgehog" refers to putting a forward base right in the middle of enemy territory to provoke them into attacking it, then using superior firepower to deal them a defeat. It's a risky strategy because it's hard to know what the enemy will throw at it and whether you'll have enough firepower to beat it back. The French didn't at DBP. The Americans did at Khe Sanh.
Here's the book that's the gold standard in studies of the French Indochina War ever since it was published in 1962: amazon.com
What happened is
>France: help us pls
>US: Okay, but only if our other allies agree
>US: UK, what do you think of us helping out the French in this Vietnam place
>UK: Fuck frenchies desu
they had bases on high ground, and lost them in the 1st phase of the battle. It's what the French are best at!
The French kinda had it coming for naming the place Indochina. Imagine someone takes over your country and calls it Canadamexico, FrancoIreland or Spanish Germany
Couillon.
Merci d'être là.
The dumbtards saying "haha dien bien phu was stooopid" forget the very same strategy worked for the french at NA SAN.
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Also to the fucking burgers thinking disrespecting french soldiers and veterans is funny, show some decency at least one day in your lives.
The US didn‘t like the idea of helping France because it didn‘t want to be seen defending Colonialism when it‘s own very foundation and and national philosophy was against colonialism.
And second the French underestimated the Viet Minh ability to get heavy Artillery on to the Mountain, while also greatly underestimating their numbers.
Not only Na San, but the US pretty much reused the same hedgehog tactic, however with greater success since they could commit a much higher amount of troops, aircrafts, guns... Of pretty much everything in fact. France in the late 40's and 50's was poorfag-tier, French soldiers there were barely better equipped and the number of soldiers deployed was insignificant.
That Uniform and rifle tho, modt /fa/ army post ww2
>The US didn‘t like the idea of helping France because it didn‘t want to be seen defending Colonialism when it‘s own very foundation and and national philosophy was against colonialism.
Sure buddy, keep telling yourself that.
Fun fact, to convince the CIA the commies the french were fighting in Indochina were the same as norks in Korea, the french had to show them the vast amounts of US made weapons captured from the US-backed koreans the norks were sending to the viet-minh through China.
Needless to say it was quite a shock for american spooks.
>"w-what? Ho Chi Minh is a communist? WHO KNEW?"
>Also to the fucking burgers thinking disrespecting french soldiers and veterans is funny, show some decency at least one day in your lives.
To be fair you left us quite the shit sandwich with Vietnam and didn't have the decency to stick around.
That said, French are alright. We have better allies, but we also have a hell of alot worse. You are always welcome on our flattops
To be frank, if the US had been involved earlier in a more impactful way, the outcome could have been much more favorable. Vietnam was on its way to independence from at least 1950 anyway, the major sticking point for the rest of the war until DBP was wether or not it would be a communist state.
Turned out it was to be half and half.
>show them the vast amounts of US made weapons captured from the US-backed koreans
from 1944 onward the Viet Minh were armed and supported by the OSS, and recieved large amounts of US arms themself.
its just really hard to make a base in the mountains.
also in terms of territory control you want your base to command a valley, because nothing happens in the mountains
Iirc the air support was pitiful. The French had little more than a couple of DC3's throwing down a few cases of supplies, there was no offensive capability whatsoever, nor reinforcements.
>didn‘t want to be seen defending Colonialism when it‘s own very foundation and and national philosophy was against colonialism.
en.wikipedia.org
OP specifically mentions the artillery officers suicide. Did that happen in every battle of Dien bien phu?
No? Then stfu
>Could France have fucked up harder?
That was kino and nothing else matters.
>After several days the French artillery commander, Charles Piroth, unable to respond with any effective counterbattery fire, committed suicide."
He spent the days in the run-up to the battle laughing and assuring the other officers that as soon as the VM arty revealed its positions it would be wiped out by counter-battery fire. A few days later he pulled the pin from a grenade and hugged it tight under his chin.
The VM had dug their guns into deep dug-outs in the hill-sides protected by steel doors. They fire a few rounds then pull the guns back to safety. the probably got this from Japanese engineers among them from WWII. Japs did that at Iwo Jima or Okinawa.
The "French" army at Dien Bien Phu was minority French. It was mostly Algerians, Moroccans, Black African, Vietnamese and Foreign Legion (mostly German SS and Wehrmacht vets). The French paras were hard as fuck though, they fought as well as anyone possibly could.
Khe Sanh worked because every day B-52s reduced the NVA approach trenches to a moonscape. the French had a handful of fighter-bombers and some idiot fused the bombs so they buried themselves in the ground before detonating instead of at tree-top height. At one point the French had ONE working helicopter in the entire country.
Excellent book on the subject.
Fun fact - the French disassembled a few Chafee tanks, flew them in and re-assembled them. they were priceless.
Na san was different due to terrain. there they were on a hill. At DBP they were in a bowl with the enemy all around the rim. The French forts were isolated and often could not support each other and got picked off one after the other.
>It was mostly Algerians, Moroccans, Black African, Vietnamese and Foreign Legion
lol what? There was very few shitskins. A lot of Vietnamese though.
The gunners were African IIRC and they performed very bravely, taking heavy casualties.
No doubt everyone performed very bravely, but even the legion troops were made of half Vietnamese.
Not all. Many went into "internal desertion" mode. they dug burrows and hid, only emerging at night to scavenge for food.
Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist first and communist second.
This picture is actually extremely related
The guy was a lifelong commie.
You can't tell he was one before the other.
I mean, I dont know how to say "fuck you, piece of shit nowar fighting faggot OP" in French or Vietnamese.
>en.wikipedia.org
at Na San the defense posistions were on the hills and close enough to b e mutually supporting
at dien bien phu they were in the valley and too spread out
Read a book retard.