"The Bitter Legacy of the 1979 China-Vietnam War" Topic

Interesting article for a forgotten war…

"Almost 40 years after a short yet devastating war launched by China in 1979, there has been not any official commemoration of the war in Vietnam. The fierce fight from February 17 to March 16, 1979, claimed tens of thousands of lives, soldiers and civilians alike, in Vietnam's border provinces, but the conflict hasn't received the same level of attention as wars against the French and Americans.

Yet since the escalation of tensions with China in the South China Sea in recent years, the Sino-Vietnamese war has begun receiving renewed media attention. For this year's anniversary, Vietnamese people used social media to vocally commemorate martyrs and civilians who died in the war, followed by debates criticizing the government for remaining silent and neglecting the war in high school history textbooks.

On February 17, 1979, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops crossed Vietnam's northern border to invade the country, waging a bloody strike along the 600-kilometer border that the two nations share. From the standpoint of historians, China's month-long invasion of Vietnam is understood to as a response to what China considered to be a collection of provocative actions and policies undertaken by Hanoi…"
Main page
link

Armand

I was baffled by this conflict at the time, but now see it was a a combination of Sino-Soviet rivalry, centuries of clashes between China and Indochina and millennia of wars between Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Siam. Funny old world though. We found ourselves cheering on the PAVN, as they cleared out Pol Pot and the insane Khmer Rouge

China decided to update their small arms with the Type 81 rifle. Another shortcoming was that any tank drives were leaving the infantry in the dust and then getting taken apart on their own. So the PLA decided to mechanise a lot of their infantry and went on a binge building a lot of PACs and copying an Egyptian provided example of the BMP.

A pretty interesting conflict. Considering they were allies during the Vietnam War only a few years before. But realpolitik works that way …

…but the conflict hasn't received the same level of attention as wars against the French and Americans.

Of course not, because it was Communist-vs.-Communist and didn't fit the triumphalist narrative of worker solidarity pushed by the Soviets and ChiComms.

javelin98 for the win!

Good wargame potential surely?

Yes, I'd think it would make some good wargame scenarios.

IIRC the VN Air Force was flying US F-5's against ChiCom Mig's.

Wolfhag

(smile)

Armand

SPI's old Air War had a scenario for this.
'Return of the Red Red River Rats' I think it was called.