Ebook Tet Offensive 1968 Turning point in Vietnam Campaign James Arnold 9780850459609 Books
Ebook Tet Offensive 1968 Turning point in Vietnam Campaign James Arnold 9780850459609 Books
Download As PDF : Tet Offensive 1968 Turning point in Vietnam Campaign James Arnold 9780850459609 Books
Osprey's study of the 1968 Tet Offensive, which was the decisive battle for Vietnam (1955-1975). Masterminded by the brilliant North Vietnamese General, Vo Nguyen Giap, it was intended to trigger a general uprising in South Vietnam. However, the bloody fighting for Saigon, Hue and other cities actually resulted in a catastrophic defeat for the North. In this excellent assessment of the key battle of the Vietnam conflict, James Arnold details the plans and forces involved and explains how, despite the outcome of the battle, the American people and their leaders came to perceive the war for Vietnam as lost.
Ebook Tet Offensive 1968 Turning point in Vietnam Campaign James Arnold 9780850459609 Books
"Arnold provides a good overview of the Tet Offensive. Osprey's format does not permit a detailed, indepth look at every aspect of the campaign but Arnold has done a very good job of selecting incidents within the timeframe which had far reaching outcomes. His analysis is spot on with regards to events that were relatively minor skirmishes between small units and yet changed the course of the war in favor of he losers of those skirmishes. Probably nothing new here, but a very concise and easy read to introduce the campaign to a novice or trigger more reading/research for a veteran. I recommend this one without hesitation."
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Tet Offensive 1968 Turning point in Vietnam Campaign James Arnold 9780850459609 Books Reviews :
Tet Offensive 1968 Turning point in Vietnam Campaign James Arnold 9780850459609 Books Reviews
- Arnold provides a good overview of the Tet Offensive. Osprey's format does not permit a detailed, indepth look at every aspect of the campaign but Arnold has done a very good job of selecting incidents within the timeframe which had far reaching outcomes. His analysis is spot on with regards to events that were relatively minor skirmishes between small units and yet changed the course of the war in favor of he losers of those skirmishes. Probably nothing new here, but a very concise and easy read to introduce the campaign to a novice or trigger more reading/research for a veteran. I recommend this one without hesitation.
- A fine part of the Osprey books about the Vietnam War.
- Highly informative detail of a fascinating event.
- Veitnam hasn't quite receeded into the mists of time--not when every media talking head compares the current Iraqi and Afghani situation to South Vietnam in 1968! James Arnold's "Tet Offensive 1968" is an excellent summary of one decisive battle.
Remember--in war it is never whether you win or lose the battle. If everybody claims that you've lost, you have. The news media thrives on neagtive news--bad news sells. Since at least the American Civil War (when most of the northern newspapers strongly sympathized with the slave-owning and Democratic south) the news media has had a vested interest in painting the American military as inept, corrupt, and just plain rotten. The US Army blames the news media for "losing the war" in Vietnam. The news media of the period counters that "the establishment" (JFK and especially LBJ) lied to them and to the American people. There's some truth to these charges. Arnold manages to clarify the murky details without too much finger-pointing. Fact LBJ committed ground troops in 1965 because the old foreign policy failed in Vietnam. By 1967, the Johnson Administration considered Vietnam a lost cause, but couldn't see a way to get out of it. The first chapter in "Tet Offensive 1968" explains this quite well, and the last chapter details the immediate aftermath.
Arnold spares neither the media nor the government--or the military. The media reporting was incompetent. There was a flawed foreign policy. As for military action, nearly every principle of warfare was violated. I salute the guys on the round in Vietnam for achieving anything positive with all of these factors against them.
The nuts and bolts part of Osprey books are usually quite good--excellent values for the money. Us amateurs have limited time and money, so the 96 information and image-packed pages give excellent returns for spent resources. I pay close attention to the index and to "recomended reading," as well as publication date. This book was published over 15 years ago, and more information has come out, but for the casual historian, this is enough. After all, "Tet Offensive 1968" is about a single battle lasting a few weeks. The Vietnam tragedy lasted from the 1920's and still clouds America's judgement.
We still have a flawed foreign policy. Our news media still has trouble getting the story right.
I liked the full-color illustrations of the Tunnels of Cu Chi, the assault on the American Embassy in Saigon, and the battle for streetfighting in Hue City. I did question some equipment details--the cartridges for the Soviet-made RPD and the US M60 machine guns are different and do not interchange. The NATO cartridge fires its heavier bullet faster than the Warsaw Pact cartridge, producing 50% more projectile energy at the same range. Or, how about the 82mm vs 81mm mortar thing on page 33 the information I have is that the British WW2 three inch Stokes, the German WW2 8cm, the Warsaw Pact 82mm and the NATO 81mm mortars can all use each other's shells because they are the same shells. There are some adjustments required to the firing tables due to different trajectories and some of the modern shells produce peak chamber pressures too high for older mortars, but the shells will work. Mortars are simple. I stress this because one of the Vietnam myths is that the AK-47 will fire both 7.62 and 5.56 NATO rounds. I disproved this while attending the First Infantry Division's Unit Armorer Course during August 1984, but I still occassionally run into this. Today's veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan know better, having hands-on experience with the real thing. The caption on Page 30 in "Tet Offensive 1968" says that the RPD (which is chambered for the Soviet M43 7.62x39mm round fired in the AK-47) fired the same ammunition as the US M60 (which uses the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge). The M43 casing is 39mm long and the NATO case is 51mm long and fatter--no way you can cram the bigger cartridge into the RPD! The RPD was a light-weight belt-fed automatic weapon and the AK series uses a detachable magazine--they are effective and reliable, but cannot use ammunition other than what they were designed to fire! I should take points off for this, but as I've said, this myth is common among Vietnam vets.
Even with some technical errors, this is a worthwhile addition to my library. I like it. - The Tet Offensive, 1968, by James Arnold is a short, concise, but interesting history of the critical offensive that led to the American withdrawal from Vietnam. While set in the traditional Osprey style, the book deviates from the ususal Ospery book in its focus on the political implications of the offensive.
Arnold points out that if one judges the battle from the perspective of the original aims by the North Vietnamese that the offensive was an unambiguous failure. However, what the North Vietnamese, nor for that matter the Americans, did not anticipate were the political implications of the offensive. Juxtaposed against General Westmoreland's statements that the United States was winning the war, the growing mistrust of the military and the mistaken reporting of the taking of the American Embassy, the offensive led to a loss of political will to continue the war.
Arnold does a fine job discussing all of the above as well as the essential military details. For a history of the Tet Offensive, the book is a worthwhile read. - Good read but lacked depth concerning some other close battles that erupted during Tet.
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