Addition:

Oh, one very important that I left out of my last post concerns that all important logistical aspect of the war involving supplies... Vietnam was the signature "Cold War" proxy war between the US and the USSR/China... This is the part that the military scientists use in teaching... Because of the geography it was relatively easy for both the Russians and the Chinese to re-supply the National Liberation Front (NLF) via North Vietnam since the US had no way of cutting those land supply routes... If supplies had to come in boats then from strictly a logistics side it would have been easier tho given the fact that South Vietnam was involved in a "hot civil war" within itself wouldn't have changed anything...

B~