How did the Vietnam war differ from that of past wars?

Answer 1

The Vietnamese war was not a war fought between two military organizations in the traditional manner. The US did not originally participate as a military organization. We didn't always have the ability to identify who was a foe and who wasn't. There was no clear strategy defining what constitutes a victory.

In previous wars, we had knew who was the enemy. In the world wars it was the Germans and their allies, or the Japanese. In Korea, it was the North Korean or Chinese Army. The enemy wore uniforms and/or spoke a language clearly identifying them as the enemy. There were defined fields of battle, prisoners were taken and there were some rules about prisoner treatment, though it wasn't always being followed by the enemy especially in the southeast Asian environment where cultural ethics were different..

The US initially only sent advisors to assist the South Vietnamese in military matters. Then we sent more. When the advisors were being harmed, we sent soldiers to protect them. Then we sent more soldiers to fight the enemy and aircraft to attack enemy position. There were no tactical targets that would give the U.S. any military advantage and too often friendly positions were incorrectly identified as enemy leading to unwanted loss of life. It was called a war of attrition where we hoped to wear down the enemy into giving up their cause. The enemy rarely engaged as a military force. They used guerrilla hit and run tactics hiding in the jungle foliage and hidden tunnels.

Answer 2

It was America's longest war against Another Country and the only war which it did not win.

It was America's only war in which it fought a sophisticated air war (supersonic jet aircraft) against a determined enemy using hi-tech ground defense systems and the latest in jet aircraft (MiG17s, MiG19s, and MiG21s). This includes the only time that the B52 Stratofortress was shot down in combat by some of those highly sophisticated defense systems.