How did soldiers fighting a losing war against a far superior force pass the time when they know they're fucked?

How did soldiers fighting a losing war against a far superior force pass the time when they know they're fucked?

The modern example would of be the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. but also say sieges back in the day when the garrison knew it was only a matter of time before getting slaughtered. What would they do in the long idle hours before inevitable butchery?

Well in the Vietnam war American troops would try to sleep at every possible opportunity to have as little time as possible to think about how they would be the laughing stock of their generation.

/k/ may have some insight.

If "Japanese Destroyer Captain" is to be believed, lots of drinking, moping around, and occasional gallows humor. Or a better answer, you try to just hyper-focus on whatever your specific role is and don't let events outside your immediate control affect your state of mind. You take solace in the hope that small individual victories can bring. You have hold on to faith that if you do your job well, these small victories will add up over time.

Probably plan a way to desert. Pray to their god. Maybe assume help is on the way.

all memes aside.. the americans were probably a lot safer than the vietcong, even in their own territory

>You take solace in the hope that small individual victories can bring. these small victories will add up over time.

damn user, that gave me feels

rerere posting there now

The communists were the ones getting rekt in combat. Their biggest offensive against the US, Tet, was a total joke. The Vietnamese have never understood why we didn't just stomp the shit out of them.

Would you please tell me the Result of the war? Maybe you should have asked the Soviets to carry you through another war.

The result of the war doesn't change the fact that the Vietnamese tended to lose the actual combat.

How many times did the US try to invade north Viet Nam?

>B-BUT MUH KD RATIO

Kek, every time.

My grand pappy fought in ww2 and it was what you would do most of the time except alot more depressing, cleaning your gun and equipment, making sure everything is working and talking and eating rations. Alot of praying too, although youd usually pray no matter what.

>if you kill your enemies, they win

Some Iraqis thought they actually stood a chance, that's what Saddam spoonfed to everyone. But vets of 1991 knew they were fucked and were often quick to desert.

Different user, but by the same logic of only casualties, do you think the Soviet Union lost WW2, or what?

If your casualties result in little to no political advantage, yes, your enemies win

Vietnam was a war of attrition so yes kill/death ratios matter.

And you straight up lost the K/D tug match.

>Thousands and thousands of aircraft lost
>70+k dead americans
>more than half a million dead others, mostly south vietnamese
>many vessels lost
>absolute nothing gained
>all by rice farmers

The South Vietnamese lost that war after the US pulled out, Americans won every major battle. Prove me wrong.

They lost the most important battle of all, good PR

I'm not arguing for the war, I'm correct in stating the US won every battle. They should set up on Hills like 937 after taking them but the would leave for the VC to return. It was a war of attrition, and the US did it's job. The only reason America pulled out was that the public didn't have the stomach for the war. Not justifying the war but you're wrong dude, 70k is a lot but nothing compared to the NVA/VC killed.

there is no such thing as good PR in modern wars. especially one that was the first be broadcast on tv shouldn't have happened.

and* shouldnt have happened. US troops did fne in an unpopular war.

Well I was more talking about the American failure to win over the Vietnamese population, they saw whites and nigs as the exact same shit as the French, in fact sending blacks to Vietnam at all was a very bad idea after what Senegalese Tirailleurs got up to

>US job was to loose
>South Vietnamese army did not existed

fucking retarded

all out just retardation, especially the "US won every battle" Veeky Forums contrarian burger meme history. leave Veeky Forums please.

Being a japanese infantryman in ww2 had to suck. Pressganged into executing peasants, getting stationed on shitty rocks, beaten by your sergeants, suicide by grenade etc

Americans lost the battles in the revolution yet won the war.

British did not lost, they just withdrawned

America also won battles in the revolution, Vietnam didn't against America.

Make their prisoners clean up their mess before they were overrun

noone said the US didnt lose the war
the OP said "superior force" which in the Vietnam war, the US was the superior force...that happened to lose (kinda, unless you count Paris as the end of the conflict)

Win the battles, lose the war.
You lost, get over it burgers.

War is an extension of politics. The goal was to prevent the south going communist and they failed miserably.

>War is an extension of politics
Boy, is there a draft in here?

OP is talking about defeat at a tactical level.

I'll take what is a Martyr for $500.

neeto. What side?

1946 VC Ho Chi Minh wants US support in their independence from France like US from GB. US says no.
1950s CIA in Vietnam
1963 CIA support coup that kills south Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. JFK complicit and assassinated months later.
1964 Gulf of Tonkin false flag/ bad intel US intervention
1968 Nixon sabotages peace talks
1972 Nixon visits China
1973 US pulls out of Vietnam
1974 VC violate peace treaty
1975 US refuses to re-enter war in Vietnam
1978 Vietnam invades Cambodia and overthrows Khmer Rouge
1979 China invades Vietnam

Did Nixon make some deal with China to pull out of Vietnam so China could take over? Why even bother fighting a war if you pull completely out of the region? Why stop Communist Vietnam but let Communist Cambodia commit genocide on their own people? US involvement in Vietnam made no sense.

Depends on how much you like heroin guess

>Depends on how much you like heroin guess
So Afghanistan is just like Vietnam then.

On the way to France

Why did jfk feel the need to be complicit? He was a junkie
Heroin made illegal in usa in 1970
Also. China=Fentanyl

The vietcong would have been destroyed if not for the political climate in america at the time, combined with the unprecedented level of TV coverage, and not to mention the fact that the completely contrived gulf of tonkin incident utterly failed to enrage the american people to the point of wanting any war, even before they knew it was a black flag operation. Nobody gave a shit about some minor naval incident. Bringing down some skyscrapers would be much more effective!

And that kids is why there isn't a draft anymore.

>there are Americans right NOW that STILL won't admit defeat

>rice farmers
>trained in guerilla warfare, a tactic the Americans had no experience with
>backed by the Soviet Union

Yeah, we didn't lose to Vietnam, we were never fighting Vietnam

most iraqi soldiers changed into civilian clothes and ran away

When the ice is thick enough they can walk or drive heroin over to the usa from Russia

Do you have a realistic idea of how much CIA was into drug smuggling/arms contracts?

Entire wars were started because of that, Vietnam was the CIA's wet dream given how much Opium there was.

The whole "US had more military victories = not a loss" shit is stupid because the Vietnamese didn't just aim for military victories but political victories aswell, which is what they got.
This post is dumb because the US lost the war of attrition considering the public wasn't happy about the amount of losses the US were taking forcing them to withdraw.

>US values fair elections and democracy
>gets butthurt and blocks elections in Vietnam when it looked like the Communists were going to win the elections

Mehhhh....nah

>If you abandon all strategic objectives and keep harping on the fact that you killed some illiterate rice farmers with helicopters and napalm, history is reversed and you're the victor in the conflict
top lel

>communists win
>the communists immediately ban elections
like pottery

no one really laughed at them

they kill ungodly numbers of vietnamese

I dunno if you know this, but not everyone in the us military during the Vietnam war went to or anywhere near Vietnam

>people vote for communists knowing this
Is it really a democracy if the people can't choose to govern themselves by another system of government if desired?

>US imposes a military junta puppet state in South Korea
>South Korea is an industrialized democracy
>US fails to impose a military junta in South Vietnam
>Vietnam is a corrupt shithole

If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid.

If it's stupid and it doesn't work it's just a bummer...like why i don't have a gf.

>implying America never used guerilla tactics.

>during the Vietnam war
>When?

...

Are we talking about the war on a strategic or tactical level? If tactical, the US BTFO the NVA/VC in almost every engagement they found themselves in. If strategic, it was an incredible failure on the US part.

What would we have gained had we used different strategies, though?

>korea
>not a corrupt shithole
really
Every single president korea has ever has been impeached, assassinated, or fled the country.

A handful of successful electronics and automotive companies are all that props the country's economy up. The workplace is rife with nepotism and apocalypse cults permeate every level of society.

>If you abandon the government the whole war was being fought to protect and just pack up and leave, you win because mumble mumble

Honestly non comparable and only mentioned by people who have an extremely limited grasp of actual Eastern Front history.

A massive chunk of Soviet casualties came during Barbarossa when millions of men were captured, 60-70% of whom would later die in German POW and concentration camps.
Thse men are still factored into Soviet casualty figures, and often, German satellite countries like Romania are not. The stats also leave out the millions of German soldiers maimed or otherwise permanently injured, and while they also leave out those for the Soviets, the Germans were better at getting the grievously wounded home alive.
But either way those were still irrecoverable casualties.

After 1942 the Soviets were still trading at a disadvantage for each Axis soldier, but it wasn't a horribly lopsided slaughter where 5 Russians died for every German. It was closer to 2.5 to 1 casualties. And by the end of the war it was the Germans losing more men than the Soviets.

Only people baiting for replies or actual honest to god ignorance compare the slaughterfest that was the Vietnam War to the Eastern Front. The Vietnam War is an enigma in that the invading force won, and not just some Pyrrhic victory, they absolutely trashed the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese victory can't even be called Pyrrhic, because that would imply they at least gave it as good as they got it.

The Vietnam War is so unique because the army that fought better, harder, smarter and maintained control throughout the war lost anyways. And not because they were bled dry or failed to accomplish what they set out to do.
No, that came after the US pulled out, retroactive defeat because of politics. It's something that could only have happened in the last 100 years.

Nukes changed war as we know it, and have known it for millennia.