"Evan Brennan" wrote in message


"The Aussies taught us a lot about small unit ops"


For once I agree with you. But then again the 173d Airborne was green
in 1965 with no experience in combat, let alone in jungle warfare.
There was no Vietnam recondo schools in 1965. They did too much
shooting since they were not familiar with the sounds of the jungle
and often shot at various animals by mistake. They also made too much
noise, built too many fires, and left garbage laying around outside
of the firebases.

But they learned and improved whereas Australia did not improve much
at all, save for the SAS since they embraced US style airmobility.

The very low number of kills claimed by Oz infantry speaks louder
than your lame attempts at cooking up a cover story.


Oh poor Evan, a moment ago you were claiming -

"December 1965-September 1966. Since the Australian 1 RAR was
hardly up to the task, the US 173d Airborne Brigade committed two
battalions to operate against the VC and infrastructure in Phuoc
Tuy province, and to clear areas for an Australian base at Nui Dat."

Now it turns out that you are forced to admit that they didn't teach the
Aussies how to do it, your back flip with half pike is amusing to say the
least, the follow on 'but they learned and the Aussies didn't' is laughable
as an attempt to retreat from your earlier gaffe.



6. July 1970 to April 1971. In addition to responsibilities in Long
Khanh and Bien Hoa provinces, 2d Brigade, US 25th Infantry Division
was forced to operate in the Phuoc Tuy province because the Australian
Army could not handle the enemy or pacification program without us.
This is in addition to the fact that US troops guarded the seaport and
other installations at Vung Tau, and provided road convoy security to
and from.

Yawn, 1 ATF pacified the area quite nicely, in the dates you indicate
the
Australian deployment was winding down (like the US one) however -


Westmoreland never thanked Australia for "pacifying the Phuoc Tuy
Province" or "destroying the 5th VC Division and D445" because
they never did.

General Westmoreland commented on the Australian troops that: "I have never
seen a finer group of men. I have never fought with a finer group of
soldiers".

You can't permanently destroy a formation like a Div as new troops are
inducted into it.

If you had served in the military you would know that.

Yet David Horner himself (who wrote the only reference you own) notes that
D445 were reduced to impotence by the Australians.

But then if you had served, you wouldn't keep making such an arse of
yourself would you?


The VC had bunkers and tunnels EVERYWHERE and the Kangaroos-in-denial
could not find all of them. Everytime the Australian weenies thought
they "hunted out the province" the Communists paid them a nice visit.
From David Horner's history of Australian SAS:

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/s329667.htm

The Americans went there, found the tunnel entrances, sealed the tunnel
entrances after blowing smoke down to find other entrances, and didn't go
down the tunnels. General Westmoreland was against going down tunnels. We
didn't know that. As soon as we came across a tunnel in Ben Cat area, I knew
that I was going to be the first down as far as I was concerned and I was
going to do it. So I went down head first with a torch in one hand and a
pistol in the other and my feet tied - one foot was tied - and my sergeant
was lowering me down the tunnel as I went down. And was I scared?
Absolutely, I was.

The information that we brought out of the tunnels was enormous. There were
guns, there were typewriters. We were right on the headquarters of the Gia
Dinh area. There was over 100,000 sheets of paper. We had the list of
Vietcong agents in Saigon. It was like a feast of intelligence, and I KNEW
that we were making a difference to the war effort. There's no doubt about
that.


DENNIS AYOUB, ex "Tunnel Rat": Sandy had to make us a cohesive bunch, and he
did, though he got the very best out of us by pushing us and by pushing us
as hard as possible, and, in fact, after a while there was a begrudging
respect for this guy because we used to achieve.


SANDY: Straight after that, General Westmoreland changed his mind and said
we were going to have now a strategy of searching down, searching out
tunnels and pulling out the intelligence. It's too valuable. That was the
difference that we made.


April 1969: Lt. General Julian Ewell of the US Army II Field Force
issued a directive to 1st Australian Task Force they should change
their concept of operations to concentrate on pacification;
interdiction of local VC as they entered villages in the east of
the province". Nevertheless, there was no major VC main force activity
in 1969 other than the summer offensive.

May 1969: Elements of 33 NVA Regiment, 274 VC Regiment and local
VC began a month long operation around the villages and hamlets along
Route 15 and provincial Route 2. Their intentions were unknown, but
it was believed they may have wanted to disrupt normal government
administration. The build-up for a VC-NVA assault of this size
should have been obvious to Australian troops but they were taken
by surprise. The SAS failed to detect the staging areas and
Australian officers ignored the warning signs from previous contacts.
In May and June there were several enemy rocket attacks on the
Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat.


and these were the only rocket attacks on bases in the whole of Vietnam were
they?


June 1969: 3 Squadron of the SAS Regiment conducted eleven patrols
with a total of 157 enemy troops sighted and five contacts resulting
in eight VC killed. Results for July 308 enemy sighted, five killed.


the difference being that these are credible numbers rather than the
fantasies submitted by US units.


September 1969: As his Vietnam tour ended, Brigadier Pearson halted
operations around Dak Do and since the VC often moved to high ground
between raids, the SAS began patrolling around the May Taos, a VC
mountain stronghold on the border of the Long Khanh province.


Which means that troops were deployed into areas that the VC were likely to
be found, what do you think it means?


April 1970: Task Force began Operation CONCRETE in the Xuyen
Moc district, Phuoc Tuy province, with the aim of destroying
D445 VC Main Force Battalion and its base areas.

"the sustained effort against D445 and D440 in the period Sept 1969 - Apr
1970 resulted in those units becoming essentially inactive, and subsequently
they were removed from the province for rest, reinforcement and retraining"
D. Horner "Duty First" P.271

I couldn't be bothered doing a piece by piece refutation of the rubbish you
post, it's all based on what is at best your total misunderstanding of the
military or, what is far more likely, the fact that you are a lying piece of
****.

You are routinely caught lying and misquoting sources, your credibility is
nil.

Now tell us about your military experience, why should we give any credence
to whay you post?