1965 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000UWK7II?ie=UTF8&tag=doc06-20&link... Watch the full program: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/08/vietnam-war-battle-of-ia-drang-va...
Throughout 1963 and 1964 a series of political and military mishaps had seriously affected the capabilities of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) main forces in South Vietnam. ARVN commanders were initially under direct orders by President Ngo Dinh Diem to avoid pitched combat at all costs, allowing the NLF (VC) forces (known around the world as the Viet Cong, or simply "VC") to train and grow without significant opposition. Even after Diem's overthrow in a 1963 coup, the new military leadership largely consisted of commanders put in place by Diem prior to the coup. They showed equal lack of interest in fighting the NLF, spending their time in a series of coups and counter-coups.
In this vacuum the NLF (VC) units were able to mount increasingly larger military operations. At first these were limited to building up larger formations (battalions and regiments) but by late 1964 they had evolved into an all-out war against ARVN units, which they outperformed in all ways. By early 1965 the majority of rural South Vietnam was under limited VC control, increasingly supported by NVA regulars from North Vietnam. By 1965 ARVN units in the field were hopelessly outclassed and being ambushed and slaughtered.
U.S. advisers in the field had long been pushing for the ARVN forces to be "taken over" by U.S. commanders. In addition to actually getting the men to fight (something they generally seemed willing to do when well-led) the better training and leadership of the U.S. command was expected to be more than enough to make up for the existing deficiencies in the ARVN command. However, the newly-appointed commander of the Vietnam efforts, General William Westmoreland, felt the direct application of U.S. forces was a more appropriate solution; perhaps the ARVN units would not fight, but the same was certainly not true of U.S. Army regulars. By early 1965 he had secured the commitment of upwards of 300,000 U.S. regulars from Lyndon B. Johnson, and was actively trying to get them into the field as soon as possible. Buildup of combat-ready forces took place throughout the summer of 1965.
By 1965, the VC forces were in nominal control of most of the countryside and had set up a major military infrastructure in the Central Highlands, to the northeast of the Saigon region. Vietnamese communist forces had operated in this area during the previous decade in their war against the French, winning a notable victory at the Battle of Mang Yang Pass in 1954. There were few reliable roads into the area, making it an ideal place for the communist forces to form bases that were relatively immune from attack by the generally road-bound ARVN forces. During 1965 large groups of North Vietnamese regulars of the PAVN moved into the area in order to conduct major offensive operations. Attacks to the southwest from these bases threatened to cut South Vietnam in two.
The U.S. command saw this as an ideal area to test their newly developed air mobility tactics. Air mobility called for battalion-sized forces to be delivered into, supplied, and extracted from an area of action using helicopters. Since heavy weapons of a normal combined-arms force could not follow, the infantry would be supported by coordinated air, artillery, and aerial rocket fire arranged from a distance and directed by local observers. They had been practising these tactics in the U.S. in the newly-created 11th Air Assault Division (Test). The 11th was redesignated the 1st Cavalry Division (the 1st Cavalry had been in South Korea since the Korean War, it was redesignated the 2nd Infantry Division and its colors transferred to the 11th Air Assault (Test) at Ft. Benning Georgia just before deployment overseas.) The division's troopers dubbed themselves the Air Cav. Starting in July 1965 they began deploying to Camp Radcliffe, An Khe, Vietnam. By November most of the division's three brigades were in-field and ready for operations.
In early November 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division was sent into combat on a search-and-destroy mission in order to track down a force that had unsuccessfully attempted to overrun the Special Forces base at Plei Me, about 25 miles (40 km) south of the 3rd Brigade's base of operations at Pleiku. The 3rd Brigade had searched around the base for several days but had found nothing. Westmoreland sent word to continue the search westwards toward the Cambodian border, but unsure of where to look, the 3rd's commander, Col. Thomas "Tim" Brown, returned to Pleiku in an attempt to gather additional intelligence. He learned of some sort of concentration of forces on Chu Pong Mountain, 14 miles (22 km) northwest of Plei Me.
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The Battle of Ia Drang Valley, 1965by PublicResourceOrg58,667 views
@ronpaul2008rocks you thought Ho Chi Minh was a bad guy then you were wrong Ho Chi Minh just want to unite our country like Abraham Lincoln did with USA
NikolaiBelinski2357 1 month ago
This wasn't really a test for America, we had just spent millions and millions on previous wars, we had been in this war for way too many years and Congress had turned down many Military strategies that would have ended the war a lot earlier.
Mshoon89 2 months ago
the nva were hardcore fighters and just like the japanese they did not like to surrender
newyork1969ful 3 months ago
Two things:
1) What a waste. Just because Ho Chi Minh was a bad guy does not make a stupid war right or smart.
2) I can't believe the press was allowed to interview these soldiers straight out of combat. No respect at all for the soldiers, alive or dead.
ronpaul2008rocks 5 months ago
this was a test for the usa
redbulljustice99 5 months ago
Reminds me of the current clown act in Afghanistan.
allencrider 9 months ago
@AccordGTR
It was a different time and those UNESOC sites didn't exist at the time, sadly war is war regardless of how historic something is
I'm talking about the Montanards the job of the Special Forces was to train them to fight off VC raiding parties in the Highlands and if you're talking about the CIA run Pheniox Program I'm fully aware of that, and I also know that many South Vietnamese took advantage of the program to settle a vendetta or for political or economic gains
snakes3425 10 months ago
@snakes3425 I'm sorry, you think just because you went in there and helped a bunch of peasants, yu think you were doing them good? What's funny is today, millions of American tourists have gone to Vietnam to see the cultural fishing villages that have been like that for thousands of years - UNESCO hertitage site Hoi An village, near former Da Nang base. Fyi 1957-64, CIA operations had hit squads & kidnap operating inside North Vietnam. Read FIGHTING DIRTY by Peter Harclerode
AccordGTR 10 months ago
@AccordGTR
Things began to go down hill when the regular army took control of what until 1964 had been a primarily Special Forces war.The conventonal divisonal and battalion commanders didn't listen to the advice Special Forces commanders had to give about the VC or how to handel the situation, and as a result the conventional forces destroyed much of the support the Spec Ops teams had won in South Vietnam between 1957 and 1964
snakes3425 10 months ago
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dimitboris 10 months ago