First, there is no such thing as a 'tactical' nuclear weapon. Those designated as such were still weapons of mass destruction and labeling them as 'tactical' was delusional.
Second, there would be no point in using nuclear weapons in Vietnam (or anywhere else for that matter) because all you get is an irradiated ash heap of no use to anyone.
Sincerely,
M
I understand your point, but the is such a thing as tactical nuclear weapons. The term is out there and has been for some time. It refers to relatively small nuclear ordnance, that can be deployed by long range artillery, short range missiles, etc.. Whether tactical nukes would be any less likely to trigger a nuclear war is debatable. The shock around the work of using any nuke would have a profound effect on our relations with other nations.
__________________ No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends John 15:13
Chinese lacked reliable delivery systems. Soviets knew what MAD was all about if they launched.
Fact is, we could have employed nukes successfully, and that is the thrust of the argument.
The Chinese may have lacked means to directly hit CONUS at that time, but they could certainly have used nuclear weapons against American forces in Vietnam. If you mean by "successfully" that we could drop or fire nuclear warheads and they would have exploded, then you are right and that point is not even debatable. If you mean by "successfully" that our military and policy objectives could have been achieved with no negative results to us, I think you're just making a wild-assed guess (WAG in military acronym.)
__________________ No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends John 15:13
"Easy" isn't the issue under discussion. The OP stated that there were no suitable centralized targets, which is entirely incorrect.
As to the issues you mention, those are largely wrong as well. Very few people understand the utility of tactical nuclear battlefield weapons, having only ever seen the movie and television full-scale versions.
Furthermore, we didn't even have to deploy a nuke. All we had to do was inform the North Vietnamese government that we had placed a nuclear mine in Haiphong harbor and they would have been forced to honor the threat, whether it was really there or not.
We could have won the war in Viet Nam; our politicians deliberately chose not to, fielding an array of excuses for their actions designed to place the blame on other nations and how they might have reacted.
How might they have reacted? With horror, revulsion, and then fear and withdrawal. No one would have wanted to antagonize a nation as powerful as America that had just deployed nuclear weapons in the field, and that included the Soviet Union and China, which had no nuclear weapons of their own at the time.
The truth is, nuclear weapons ARE the ultimate solution in combat when properly employed. For example, the North Vietnamese depended on industry, electrical power and communications, all of which are totally vulnerable to nuclear EMP. One weapon, detonated as much as 100 miles above North Vietnam, would have destroyed every electrical circuit in every machine and device in the nation, totally and permanently.
One small tactical device - weighing eighty pounds and carried by a single soldier - along the Hoi Chi Minh Trail would have rendered the area impassable by human beings for years, and would have instilled permanent terror in the NVA troops. We deployed these devices in Korea in the 60's to prevent mass troop movements through the Korean mountain passes, intending to use them as command detonated mines, and trained a cadre of special troops to carry them and deploy them on foot, undetected.
Or, a single neutron weapon would have killed every single NVA on the whole Trail without destroying a single object and without leaving any residual radiation. We had those, too, for use against massed Soviet tank formations.
We are a very long ways from the crude weapons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Glad you weren't in charge!
__________________ No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends John 15:13
I understand your point, but the is such a thing as tactical nuclear weapons. The term is out there and has been for some time. It refers to relatively small nuclear ordnance, that can be deployed by long range artillery, short range missiles, etc.. Whether tactical nukes would be any less likely to trigger a nuclear war is debatable. The shock around the work of using any nuke would have a profound effect on our relations with other nations.
I know what the term means. I understand the point that is being attempted to be made. I don't agree with it. A nuke is nuke is a nuke and the destruction that can be wrought with just one has nothing tactical about it. And once a nuke is popped, especially against someone who has them, then there are going to be larger problems.
Sincerely,
M
__________________
'Artillery brings dignity to what otherwise would be nothing but a vulgar brawl'-Anonymous Artilleryman
'Life, liberty, and the pursuit of all who threaten it.'
'The best revenge is not to do as they do.'
-Marcus Aurelius
I know what the term means. I understand the point that is being attempted to be made. I don't agree with it. A nuke is nuke is a nuke and the destruction that can be wrought with just one has nothing tactical about it. And once a nuke is popped, especially against someone who has them, then there are going to be larger problems.
Sincerely,
M
Tactical Nuke is just a term for a weapon portable enough to be delivered by an artillery shell or tactical rocket launcher to its target. The explosive equivalent of such bombs are usually measured in kilotons, some as small as ten tons of TNT. Some can be carried on a backpack. All are designed for battlefield use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
The movie Starship Trooper has an example of what a really small tactical nuke could do after being launched from a bazooka like launcher from a mobile infantry platoon.
__________________
The avatar is Ken Brady's M-113 after it had been hit by three enemy RPGs. Everyone survived the ambush.
Tactical Nuke is just a term for a weapon portable enough to be delivered by an artillery shell or tactical rocket launcher to its target. The explosive equivalent of such bombs are usually measured in kilotons, some as small as ten tons of TNT. Some can be carried on a backpack. All are designed for battlefield use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
The movie Starship Trooper has an example of what a really small tactical nuke could do after being launched from a bazooka like launcher from a mobile infantry platoon.
I was about to say 'more realistically, in Metal Gear Solid 3...', but then I remembered more about the game and how they're air-lifting a rocket-propelled tank with an missile launcher on the side of it using a few HINDS, so it'd be foolish to say it was more realistic than Paul Veerhoven's space epic. Having said that, it does have a Davy Crockett; (you have to skip along to about 3:00 to see it.
Whilst the term 'tactical nuclear weapon' exists, what defines a tactical or strategic nuclear weapon is still very much subject to the whims of the Stygian cultists of nuclear strategy
__________________ 'Fly Navy, Sail Army, Walk Sideways'
If you liked it, then you should have put a ramjet on it.
what's war for if not an allegory to help men work out how to succeed with women? - David Mitchell
I was wondering when someone would mention the Davey Crockett- Quite humorous really, it's killed kill radius also encompassed it's firing location, I'm quite surprised the Chinese or Russians didn't think of it first.
Thankfully they were not used in VN and really, like has been said, what would have been the point? the north didn't possess anything of value to warrant it's use, given the greater ramifications of doing so, they weren't worth it.
You just don't solve the root causes of Vietnam with Nukes.
We did solve the root cause in WW2 with Nukes (Japanese cultural change as a result of understanding their militaristic culture was going to get them all killed).
I was wondering when someone would mention the Davey Crockett- Quite humorous really, it's killed kill radius also encompassed it's firing location, I'm quite surprised the Chinese or Russians didn't think of it first.
Thankfully they were not used in VN and really, like has been said, what would have been the point? the north didn't possess anything of value to warrant it's use, given the greater ramifications of doing so, they weren't worth it.
I think the only thing of value that the north possessed was manpower. Using a nuke is really not for wiping out a military base per say. It is however, used against what the enemy considers valuable as well as the common citizen. A nuke shows the other side what will happen to them should they continue on in their aggressive way. Blasting a city is a means to shock a country into giving up before more destruction befalls them.
In my mind, the only target that I would have used a nuke or nukes would be on the HCM trail. The destruction would be such that it would cripple the north's highway of transportation of men and supplies. I think that the destruction would be such that the jungle cover would be destroyed. It would have also scared the hell out of every man who moved on that trail
__________________ "Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I fear nothing cause I am the meanest mother****er in the Valley"!
Tactical Nuke is just a term for a weapon portable enough to be delivered by an artillery shell or tactical rocket launcher to its target. The explosive equivalent of such bombs are usually measured in kilotons, some as small as ten tons of TNT. Some can be carried on a backpack. All are designed for battlefield use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
The movie Starship Trooper has an example of what a really small tactical nuke could do after being launched from a bazooka like launcher from a mobile infantry platoon.
Asolutely. My ship carried nuclear depth charges that could be delivered only by one means, short range rocket, and had only one intended use, anti-submarine, for only one reason in the Tonkin Gulf 1972, to protect the carriers if needed.
The ability of my class of DLGs to carry nukes for delivery by ASROC was well known back then. The actual "did we or not?" was highly classified, and was always to be answered "I can neither confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard this ship".
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