Dien Bien Phu battle - Cold War event

Times has changed and now USA is using Vietnam & Asean as a proxy war against China. After all of these decades, Vietnam seems to hate China more than the country that dropped agent orange in Vietnam. 

Asean was formed to push the commies out

The reason why Vietnam won all these wars is homefield advantage. French, Americans, Chinese have very little knowledge of the guerilla warfare 

Guerrilla Warfare and Attrition Warfare

Vietcong Gurrilla Fighters

                Guerrilla warfare is a very unconventional style of warfare; it refers to small conflicts where groups of stealthy combatants use the element of surprise to eliminate the opponent. This tactic was widely used by the North Vietnamese Communists, also called the Vietcong. During some ambushes the Vietcong guerrilla fighters would sneak up on unaware U.S. troops, attack them, and leave before risking capture.  The Vietcong would also pose as citizens or farmers then, when least expected, they would surprise attack U.S. troops using arms provided by Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese Marxist revolutionary leader and also the president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. He ordered an elaborate 200 mile long tunnel system to be dug to aid the guerrilla fighters in their ability to move from place to place undetected by U.S. infantry.

                By about 1965 Vietcong soldiers had access to Chinese versions of the AK-47; they also had heavy, medium, and light machine guns. The heavy machine guns were mainly used as anti-aircraft weapons, most effective against U.S. helicopters. Other weapons such as land mines, and booby traps were hand crafted in North Vietnamese villages. The Vietcong also got aid from an unexpected source: they would scavenge the country side for unexploded American bombs and land mines and use the explosives in bombs of their own. In one year approximately 20,000 tons of explosives could be found in unexploded or dud American bombs.

                When America entered the war they planned on winning using traditional methods, meaning that the war would be won by conquering land. However, the U.S. troops weren’t used to the jungle terrain and General Westmoreland realized that the only way the war could be won was through a method of attrition. This means that a war isn’t won by who has more land, but won instead by whomever eliminates more opposing troops. American troops were actually very successful in using this method; they killed over two times as many soldiers as they lost. However this style of warfare enraged many peace groups in America because it targeted civilians as well.  Many riots and protests sparked throughout the United States.

Photos of the battle from North Vietnamese side

The pic above is a French tank that got hit by artillery

in the 5 pics below are French aircrafts that got shot down

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Captured French pilots who parachuted into Viet Minh controlled areas after their aircrafts had been shot down

Viet Minh soldiers digged a tunnel below the bunker and then detonated an explosive inside the tunnel to collapse the bunker above it

[img] [/img]                                Night time hill to hill bullet exchanges

[img] [/img]                               French cluster bombs during night time