The Vietcong did defeat the US but they lost over 1,100,000 men in the process. They weren't well trained and even though the US lost its resolve to continue the war, the US was essentially winning at the time.
The Nazis on the other hand were well trained well equipped soldiers who simply bit off more than they could chew by fighting too many countries at once. So I say the Nazis are better.
While they lost their fight, Nazis were more successful. They were real soldiers with massive resources and were well-trained and equipped not to mention the loyalty they had for their country.
I know this is going to be controversial, but I'm going to side with the French forces. Hell, they got a midget to invent modern warfare. How much more "holy fuck" can it get :P?
Not to make this into something even remotely resembling a scholarly argument, but surely you should set some conditions, parameters or something. I mean, do you mean a genuine Viet Cong insurgent or an NVA regular smuggled south? Do you mean a Nazi party functionary, a Gestapo officer, a Volkssturm conscript, a member of the einsatzgruppen, a full on Waffen SS panzergrenadier? Armed with what, exactly?
" Not to make this into something even remotely resembling a scholarly argument, but surely you should set some conditions, parameters or something. I mean, do you mean a genuine Viet Cong insurgent or an NVA regular smuggled south? Do you mean a Nazi party functionary, a Gestapo officer, a Volkssturm conscript, a member of the einsatzgruppen, a full on Waffen SS panzergrenadier? Armed with what, exactly? "
Well if you watched the show, they establish a lot to tell you who they are, and what they are using.
I'm going to supply my own context here: Nazis - World War II battlefield; Vietcong - Vietnam. I can see how you might say Nazis if you were one of the groups persecuted by them, but they would just slap me in a POW camp and deal with me according to the Geneva convention, so they wouldn't pose a hell of a lot of threat -- this all assumes I was captured by them rather than killed. However, the Vietcong just torture the hell out of you if they captured you, so I'm going to go with Vietcong.
If we're talking about fighting against an enemy in the field of battle, the German forces are far superior. You can just burn the Vietcong to the ground. Once they've got no jungle they've got nothing; the Germans were versatile. So, depending on the context, I'm going either/or
This is of course assuming we're in Vietnam, In germany I don't think the vietcong would do so well in a frozen forest. Although if they we're well prepared for the enviroment, Hiding and waiting for the enemy to come to you will always win in the longrun.
1vs1 Vietcong He'd run into the bush and wait for the german to come looking them shoot him in the back. A win is a win is a win. Even if it's a little cheap.
@Mechwing:@pwnasaurus: The US never lost a single major military engagement to the Vietcong actually. The Tet offensive completely broke the public will to fight, but it was actually a complete and utter military defeat that completely uprooted their South Vietnamese insurgency and failed to achieve any military objectives (the taking of major cities in South Vietnam).
@EpicSteve: The Nazis were fighting to conquer other nations. The Vietcong were fighting to liberate their country from what they saw as simply another foreign occupier, one that was already fully funding the French they have been fighting for years and were now finally committing troops. While both were nationalists, the latter held far more loyalty to their country imo.
@Meowayne: Yeah, though I don't think we're really drawing those distinctions here. I think people for the most part separate the SS from the regular army while putting both under the Nazis umbrella a lot more than separating the Nazis as a whole from the regular military.
" @Meowayne: Yeah, though I don't think we're really drawing those distinctions here. I think people for the most part separate the SS from the regular army while putting both under the Nazis umbrella a lot more than separating the Nazis as a whole from the regular military. "
Of course not. Who'd dare to question the image of the tall, blonde, bold , jew murdering fantasy-Nazi-soldier-figure.
@pwnasaurus: Oh, sure, yeah. The general strategy implemented was shitty, end of story. We attempted to fight a battle of attrition supported with heavy strategic bombing campaigns. The problem with that was 1) a battle of attrition implies you know the numbers of the enemy forces. We sure as hell didn't. So when the Tet Offensive happened, and was completely crushed by us, instead of viewing it as a victory, everyone only saw an enemy that they have been told for years was on their last leg apparently still capable of striking deep into South Vietnamese territory. 2) The Viet Minh didn't have any infrastructure that a strategic bombing campaign could damage.
But the question is who would win in a straight up fight, not who has more bodies to throw at a fight with the mental will to keep it up regardless of the casualties, and we won every single major military engagement.
@Meowayne: The irony of course is I don't think people even have that image of the "average Nazi soldier" either, but rather transfer that to something like the SS. It's as if creating a greater evil from within your enemy is easier than redefining who your enemy actually was.
I guess then the Waffen SS bloke, taking out terrain, surprise and other tactical advantages, would beat the insurgent 9 times out of 10. Quality of available weaponry and training just gives a massive advantage to the SS man.
This is the worst fucking show buts it's absolutely hilarious. The one I saw was some kind of end of season special where it was the IRA vs the Taliban in a carpark. The IRA were described as being Catholic extremists (they weren't/aren't, they were definitely catholic but it wasn't what they were/are built around) and ultimately won by using a flamethrower (not that likely since they only ever used one once during a disasterous raid on a British army checkpoint in the late eighties). The programme also maintained that the IRA was formed *after* Ireland lost the war of independence all of which is utter shite.
Most of the German army weren't Nazis, they were just soldiers and very, very good ones. Good enough to go from the ashes of WW1, to taking most of Europe and then fighting Britain, Russia and the US at the same time and making a decent go of it.
If by 'Nazis' you/they really mean the whole German war machine of WW2, then they'd easily have 'won' in Vietnam where the US failed, because the SS would have had no qualms about going village to village and just burning them to the ground and killing everybody there - they were nice like that. The Vietcong weren't better than the US military either, not even close, they just outlasted the American public's support for the war, which is all anybody ever needs to do against the US abroad.
Didn't the French get beat by both? France fell in 1940 to the invading Germans and French Expeditionary Forces lost Dien Bien Phu during the First Indochina War in 1954 leading to their exit from the Vietnam peninsula.
I'm going to assume both have been transported to an alternate battlefield such as a forest outside of Vancouver, high grass plain in Southern Africa, or an Aztec ruin in Mexico. Under those guidelines, I think it's a draw. Assuming it's one soldier for either side, the one who sees the other first is the one who wins. I make these assumptions because the OT has not described the setting or load out of the engagement.
If this battle took place in any type of jungle or urban area I'm going to guess the Vietcong would smoke the SS, they are guerilla fighters with some of the deadliest weapons and traps made from pretty much nothing.
I hate this show but I can't stop watching it. I mainly hate the childish smack talk between the"experts" they have each week. The samurai expert (the archer dude not the stuntman) was easily the most annoying person I have ever seen on spike and that's really saying something with that network.
Oh yeah and even though I've seen the episode already my vote was for the Nazis winning but that's mainly because of the reliability of a lot of their weapons. As Vince says "you know the germans always make good stuff".
Although a WW2 russian soldier, particularly those involved in the stalemates in the russian cities, would most likely be better than either. Which the russians proved against the nazi's already
" @Meowayne: Yeah, though I don't think we're really drawing those distinctions here. I think people for the most part separate the SS from the regular army while putting both under the Nazis umbrella a lot more than separating the Nazis as a whole from the regular military. "
Of course not. Who'd dare to question the image of the tall, blonde, bold , jew murdering fantasy-Nazi-soldier-figure. "
WAT. The Nazi Party and the Wermacht were one and the same. I'm not sure you understand the historical context very well. While some German soldiers may not have agreed with Hitler's policies (near the end of the war at any rate) the vast majority fought and died under the yoke of extremely strong nationalist pride. Of course, I'm probably wasting my breath talking to a person who likely sides with Holocaust deniers. 'fantasy' my ass. Nazi soldiers were all part of the Wermacht and they mudered Jews, Poles, Gypsies and Homosexuals en masse.
Really depends on the context. The Vietcong were more effective in the conflict they fought in. Whatever reasons you want to give, the Americans lost the Vietnam conflict. So in the context of the Nazis in WW2 and the VC in Veitnam, the VC were more effective.
The Nazis were crushed completely. According to wikipedia over 60 million people died in the conflict (including civilians), and roughly twice the number of Americans died in WW2 than in Vietnam. If Hitler had not been insane, I think that history would have been different.
I voted for the Nazis. The blitzkrieg was very effective. The Nazis accomplished more, faster. They just weren't able to hold onto what they captured (poor long term planning). The were involved in too many conflicts. You also have to consider that the VC were being subdizied by the Chinese and Russians. The Nazis had no such advantage.
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