Blood , Metal and Dust. By Brigadier Ben Barry.


  • I`ve been on Ospreys site drooling at brian food for "Nam, and other items, with just the wish to learn, one thing I found was this book.



  • Does any one know if it`s a good base to actually learn how from a civilians view, (myself), we ended up seemingly lossing the "Action", and leaving all in chaos. 

    For some I know this subject may be raw, but if any of you that served , recon it`s a good learning read ,let me Know, thank you all, Geoff.


  • Same as Vietnam :

    https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/lt-gen-hal-moore-an-american.html

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Were_Soldiers

    You should try to read the book,  the film only covers half the story (in the UK you can get it on inter-library loan ).

     


  • @Dennis Horne Thanks I`ve been collecting a lot of "Nam " info, films from the American Defence Libery and Cinema Films. Also books, I`ve boht for We were soldiers, and also the photograper who went on to be called the troops press man( who`s name as  slipped this adled brain for now). Research can be as much fun as building the models , sometimes more.


  • The whole 'Nam' saga starts towards the end of the 2nd world war. Ho Chi Min retook Hanoi from the Japs in a similar manner to Tito liberating Yugoslavia.

    Trouble was that Vietnam had been split into 2 areas of concern. The north was under the administrative care of the Nationalist Chinese. The South was intially under British care, an Indian Army division was sent to occupy Saigon to provide post war security.

    There was a 'dismantle all empires' faction in the US state department which resulted in the banning the use of US shipping to return French colonial security troops, it had to be done with (limited) British/Indian shipping in theatre.

    The UK managed to transport them, but ill equipped, the idea was to transfer the Indian forces gear to the French as they in turn returned to India.

    The State Dept also banned the transfer of that lend lease equiment to the French, as a result the French used former Japanese troops as security instead, they also restored the Japanese era collaborative civil service.

    Add to that a CIA coup installing a right wing dictator and the scene is set for the decades of suffering which became 'Nam.

    See any similarities with post Saddam Iraq ?


  • If you're looking for a view on how how mismanged Afghanistan was instead of an after action report, I think "Warrior Diplomat" was an interesting read for anecdotes since the author had the unusual mix of prospectives of being on the ground, actually directly with the natives, and was later in a command center position. Lots of stuff about the horrible mismangement, awful "allies", and people who just plain old weren't worth saving (one story that stuck with me was the villagers who went to a neighboring village and destroyed the well a charity just built there purely because their village hadn't gotten one)


  • @Nanashi Anon Thank you, I`ll give it a heads up.


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