in honnor of shane warne , a bit of a curved one dien bien phu .... khe san pretty much the same geography , big difference in air power could the french win or the U.S. loose ? .
I'll read up un those battles - but Shane who ? Seriously - would you favour him or McGrath with a hand grenade ?
The French plan for DBP was quite badly flawed, DBP was supposed to provide not just defensive position in the path of Vietminh advances and drap Giap's main forces into a set piece battle against which the French regulars would defeat the Vietminh through superior equipment, but also a base from which paratroopers drawn from TAPI could launch offensive patrols against through the jungle. The reality was that the French considerably under-estimated the capabilities and ingenuity of Vietminh artillery, whilst overestimating the capabilities of their own artillery and airforce's ability to support and supply the base. This was compounded by the unforced error of launching a separate operation into Laos (Which further divided the already despearately weak Air Transport effort and drew off valuable paras from DBP), and meddling at the highest level in Indochina to keep troops in the Delta area. The US at Khe Sahn enjoyed (although in the context of such battles I use the term cautiously) far greater resources in terms of air transport and much better or at least more versatile equipment such as better helicopters able to more directly deliver supplies rather than scattering them randomly by parachute. Different battles fought by very different armies with very different equipment and logistical capabilities.
. In both case , the purpose was to get the oponent to react , thus bringging him to a confrontation In both situation , the logment was on or near the supplies road to the south In both situation , it was very succesful , too much in the case of DBP for khe san the U.S army could drive a road column to the base , demonstrating its power , the french army couldn't Khe san was latter abandonned , since its permanent possession wasn't really important , an article long ago mentionned Khe San as a probe to an eventual ground action on RNV territory . .
The key differences lay in the French inability to maintain DBP, and the intention of DBP to act as an offensive base where infact offensive operations were called off early in the battle after prohibitive casualties, the combined effectiveness of Vietminh artillery against the French positions and the relative ineffectiveness (If only due to lack of numbers) of French air power and artillery and the inadequate resources allocated to Indochina compared to the US effort at the time of Khe Sahn.
