How could the French have prevented themselves from being encircled at Điện Biên Phủ? Could Piroth manage to save point Dominique if he had more guns to use for counter battery?No fucking clue how one of the most well known battles in Vietnam somehow isn't /k/ related.
their plan hinged on air support being able to ensure the hill forts around the valley could be held. they had a mostly ww2-dated hand me down air force at this point in 1954to put it in perspective, the USAF in 1968 was barely able to pull this off in 1968 at Khe Sanh, but they did and thus won the battle
We wanted to be encircled. That was the point. The war was lost, but honor demanded it be settled on the battlefield, not a drawing room. It’s a French thing. It’s ok if you don’t understand.
>>61965004Ackshuallybnobody can agree on who won Khe Sanh, but we can all agree it went better than Dien
The entire French strategy in Indochina was mobile mechanized groups striking out into the countryside to pin and force the Viets to fight. The base at Dien Bien Phu was set up to be a FOB for mobile thrusts into the Viet Minh heartland and the border with China who was then heavily supporting the Viet Minh forces. There were a few Shermans who were flown in piece by piece and reassembled in the valley for these mobile thrusts. The French thought any defensive siege wouldnt last long because of the Viet Mihns poor logistical capabilities and their lack of artillery heavier than 75mm field guns and a handful of 120mm mortars. They were almost right since the viets had to mobilize tens of thousands of peasants to build roads and haul supplies and the supply situation was always terrible for them. The French had a far better supply of artillery ammunition all throughout the siege; especially the 155mm guns witch the Viets had no answer to at all, despite the fact that all their ammunition had to be flown in. Furthermore, the French had decisively won a similar siege battle in 1952 at Nà Sản and so even if the position at Dien Bien Phu was besieged and attacked, the French thought they would be just pinning the Viet forces down for destruction by the air force and artillery.
Before the battle began, the French were "distracted" by mobile operations and didn't spend much time building up the defenses much. Not much building material was flown in and the French lacked enough barbed wire and mines, although some mines were later flown in during the siege. They had to largely make-do with whatever wood and bamboo they could scavenge in the surrounding area. Once the siege began, the Viet Minh could scavenge far more construction materials than the French and their engineering and fortification projects were quite substantial and impressive. The Viet Minh got a few 105mm artillery pieces from the Chinese who captured them off the Americans in Korea although ammunition for these weapons was always scarce.The French formed several battalions of native Viet volunteers that were meant to conduct skirmishes in the unforgiving viet countryside, as a counter to the mobile and elusive guerrillas. Several of these formations were present at Dien Bien Phu and the French threw these very lightly armed and poorly trained light infantry forces into brutal static trench battles. Unsurprisingly, these formations had terrible casualties and fled on numerous occasions. The "regular" viet volunteer formations with better equipment and trained to fight like normal infantry performed as well as the Legion formations on most occasions.Giap knew he needed a few early victories in the siege to buttress the morale of his troops. The Viet Minh had never really won a set-piece battle before, especially one on this scale. The Viets attacked and seized Beatrice and Gabrielle in two successive nights, although Gabrielle was a close-fought affair and they almost got thrown back. After the loss, the French were despondent, with one of the French commanders killing himself with a grenade. Three nights later Anne-Marie was almost bloodlessly siezed after the defending native Tai troops just left and walked into the jungle.
After the outer positions were taken the battle was pretty much decided as the Viet Minh could move their artillery close enough to fire on the main position and move their flak batteries close enough to make even parachuting supplies in an unenviable job. The difference between Nà Sản and Dien Bien Puh is that the French were able to keep the airfield operational at Nà Sản by holding the outer positions, something they failed at Dien Bien Phu. As far as the French airforce, they neither had the aircraft nor the trained pilots to effectively interdict the Vietnamese supply columns, nor provide enough CAS over the battlefield, nor even to just fly enough supplies into the fortress. The French had to use pilots from the commercial airlines on numerous occasions to fly fresh troops and supplies into Dien Bien Phu. When the flak cordon got too hot, these commercial civilian pilots were not very enthusiastic about dying for France and so they reverted to their base French instincts and went on strike. The French also used American """mercenary""" pilots borrowed from the USAF throughout the siege.The French expected the Viet Minh to attack at night and then retreat into the hills at dawn. When the Viets started staying in the valley during the day, they effectively played the UNO reverse card on the French by forcing them to attack prepared fortified positions almost daily to keep supply lines open between the main position and the outlying positions like Hugette 5, 7 and Isabelle.
To stop Dien Bien Phu from being "encircled" would have required a far greater commitment from the French government for the entire war than they were willing to provide. All the French formations were under-strength in Indochina and the French just didn't have the manpower, nor the equipment, nor the budget, nor the willpower to fight a real war in Indochina. They were unwilling to send conscripts from France to the theatre and so therefore all the formations were volunteer formations and conscripted indochinese soldiers.The French also just had a lot on their plate at the time. After being defeated and occupied by the Germans for four years, they had to deal with a war in indochina whilst dealing with all their other colonial commitments whilst also leaving enough forces in mainland Europe to potentially deal with the Russians. Officer reinforcements and replacements were almost nonexistent whilst most officers in theatre were on their third tour and were burnt out from combat fatigue. Many companies at Dien Bien Phu were led by NCOs from the start. Also when Dominique was attacked from the 30th of March onwards, Piroth had already killed himself 15 days ago so I doubt he could have done much for Dominique.
what if they just admitted colonialism was over and left, preventing decades of pointless bloodshed
>>61964961By not being the only bitches who wanted to keep colonialism going there and fucking off, allowing the US to secure the ties with the Viet Minh they were pleading to set up. But noo it was all “we will go le commie if you don’t lend us your entire logistical air strength America le waaah”. Fuck the French, we should have let them get teabagged and overtly supported the gooks.
>>61964961well, not being outnumbered 4:1 would have helped i guess.
>>61965040well if you believe commie spin that they actually wasted their best divisions and heavy equipment including most of their tanks as a "diversion" then sure, theres doubt. If youre not retarded however, its pretty easy to see just how much they commited to the battle that got anihilated by Arclight raids and other airstrikes in failed attempts to recreate Dien.
>>61966422>If youre not retarded however, its pretty easy to see just how much they commited to the battle that got anihilated by Arclight raids and other airstrikes in failed attempts to recreate Dien.Can you elaborate a bit?
>>61964961The French wanted to reiterate the battle of Na San. It didn't work.>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nà_Sản>>61965843This anon has been the craziest mf on /k/ for years at this point. He genuinely believes the viet minh liked Americans. The same viet minh receiving soviet commie support since 1945, atrociously slaughtering white civilians since 1946 including with the help of former Japanese imperial soldiers who had already done the same to French civilians in 1945, welcoming commie Chinese support since 1949, and getting gifted US weapons captured on the Korean front since 1951.I blame common core.
>>61965219I would like to add to annons high effort and quality posts.The other reason was that the french had a policy of using existing ethnic power structures to help keep control.One of the "kings" they where working with was in a even more up shit creek place and so he had to be gotten out. But they had to move him somewhere where he'd still be on his turf. He and his men plus several french units would march to the valley to set up there.The frogs also chose the location because the valley was a known stomping ground for Vietnam recruiting and supplies. So it was as many birds with the one last stone we have left to throw. But they lacked the men, supplies and airlift. The operation was nearly called off because off it. But then intell said that there weren't to many viet in the valley. So they chose to stick to the time table.Needless to say there where a lot more Vietnam in the valley. The assault nearly failed and a lot of troops got diverted to hunt down the Vietnam that fled.The column with the "king" didn't have a smooth trip.So everything had gone tits up before the siege even started. That's why the french officers where so despondent, they already knew they'd lost and there'd ge no way out.
>>61965019t. Petain in 1940
>>61968088>I blame common coreThe Ken Burns doc series certainly didn't help. It was well-produced for sure, but only further entrenched certain myths around the war like Tet, the bombing campaigns and "Ho Chi Minh was totally a nationalist first guyz!"
>>61965843Crazy to think that most of the conflict that are currently happening originated from this decision. Maybe it’s a bit off a reach but idk
>>61964961French can't do anything about it, it was all on Giap, if he had followed the little Mao "assymetric warfare for dummies" manual he would go with the "quick attack, quick victory" plan and, maybe, it would worked for the french.Instead he decided to take it easy and slow and fortify and burrow all the guns, mortars and aa assets, nullifying all the advantages in artillery and air power the French had.But the encirclement and being outnumbered was all on the plan, being outgunned wasn't.
>>61965019>It’s a French thing. It’s ok if you don’t understand.>The french have surrended so many times that they even have traditions for it.Lmao.
>>61965019t. british>>61964961the goal was using hedgehog tactic on Vietnamese forces, the battle prior this one was using the same tactic and ended as a decisive victory for the french and the vietnamese suffered heavy losses in it.the problem is french air force is absolutely laughable at that time to make this victory possible in the first place they had to relly to british bombers, in Bien Phu the french called the British bombers in time but in answer the brits told them they won't fly or do any air strike, this is where the plan went to shit.So no, no matter what you can think the only way for the french to be saved in that battle would be a miracle to change the brits decision and make them fly their bombers as expected
>61965843The sad thing is they knew Indochina was a lost cause, there was no support at home to keep it under the french boot, almost half of the population were even supportive of it's independence. They cannot send regular army units and conscripts to fight there by law so they were all foreing legion units and volunteers with a hodgepodge of equipment from france, uk, USA and even japanese captured stuff.The last general they put on charge of the Far East expeditionary corps, Navarre, was sent with the mandate of, not to defeat the viet minh but to beat them hard so France can negotiate the withdraw "on favorable terms" whatever this means.
>>61968088It's simple, the Viets saw how the Americans overthrew the British so wanted American help to overthrow the French. Ho Chi Minh himself quoted the Declaration of Independence in his inauguration speech because he wanted that for Vietnam as well. He got support from communists because communism was also inherently anti-imperialist, and when the Americans chose not to help, the Soviets and Chinese gladly stepped in.>>61969500>Ho Chi Minh was totally a nationalist first guyzWhere's the lie? You'd be one too if your country were continuously occupied by foreign powers for decades
>>61969500Thanks to mention this anon. Alas, it's the same story all over again. Just like Ridley Scott's bullshit movie about Napoleon seems to have made many retards on the web all fuzzy.I guess I should be happy the history channel never mentioned the French are in fact the ancient astronauts too.>>61974967Hi ojskrimpsuun528.>It's simple, the Viets saw how the Americans overthrew the BritishLafayette and Rochambeau are laughing from heaven reading this. Americans "overthrew" the bongs using the French money, the French army, and the French navy.>Ho Chi Minh himself quoted the Declaration of Independence in his inauguration speech because he wanted that for Vietnam as well.He also quoted the French one. Makes you think.He also said he preferred to sniff the crap of the French for ten years than to eat the shit of the Chinese for a a thousand. Does that makes a difference?In French translated in English from the mouth of Ho himself:>https://youtu.be/EwKpVuxRwYU>He got support from communists because communism was also inherently anti-imperialistCommunism was anti-imperialist? Especially after 1945? So you're not only deluded, you're also a commie now?Do you realize there were a ton of commies and socialists in the French government after 1945? That these were the ones who decided to intervene militarily both in Indochina and Algeria?By the way, where did Ho's right-hand men learned about communism? They did so in France. Do you really believe the French authorities didn't know about these guys? Do you have any idea about the internal situation of Indochina between 1940 and 1945, or of France during the 12 years of the post-war 4th French Republic before De Gaulle took over with the 5th in 1958?Are you aware your fucking bullshit about "France threatening to join the USSR" can't possibly make any fucking sense in such a context? Like, not at all?Do you know De Gaulle wrote a letter to Kennedy warning him not to go to Vietnam?I am so fucking done.
>>61965019Toi t'as tout compris.>mfw you remember they immediately separated the White, Arabe, Caraïbes, Africain soldiers from our Laotien, Khmer, Cambodge, Viet, Montagnard and Chinois bros and they were never seen alive again.https://youtu.be/Mensk0Y6HIs?si=KUTV6Dt6O1ufhkno
>>61965219>>61965436>>61965515>>61965607You cannot talk about Dien Bien Phu without talking about the Tonkin border garrisons and the destruction of the Bayard and Charton columns along Route Coloniale 4. With Mao's followers controlling the border and the garrisons detroyed, that was the day the war was lost and Paris knew it. Dien Bien Phu was a conscious sacrifice of the CEFEO like >>61965019 mentioned. We kept our promise to defend the peoples of Indochine from the reds and Vietnamese racial supremacists to the bitter end. To all my đồng bào bros out there, sorry you got genocided. We tried our best but it wasn't enough. On vous a pas oubliez.
