Malaya verus Vietnam.

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#1

This is not intended to be an Anti-American hate thread, so be informed!!!

Having been embroiled in various threads over the past day or two on Korea, when Malaya got brought up too.

Malaya was a war fought against communists over about 12 years, also in jungle conditions, just as Vietnam was.

What are the differences between the two?

America in Vietnam was equiped with better technology - Helicoptors and aircraft - than the British in Malaya, who practiced such dangerous tactics as treejumping!!! (Parachute into the jungle canopy, chute is caught on trees, you use a rope to lower your self to the ground from your harness)

Manpower also was not an issue with Vietnam.

Was it the people? The fighters? The Ho Chi Mihn trail!!!? Was it the proximity of places such Cambodia that was already comunist?

I am reading into both wars, I consider myself to have only a passing knowledge on either, as we speak, but if anyone has any starters I’d like to hear them.

Was anything significantly different?

1000ydstare.

#2

The Malayan Emergency bears more resemblance to Vietnam under the French, rather than later when the US became involved.
One big difference is in the people involved:
Vietnam’s war was fought between opposing ideals but involving the same people, whereas the “CTs” in Malaya were almost exclusively drawn from the ethnic Chinese minority & were not supported by the majority population.
The attempted Communist takeover of Malaya was at a relatively early stage when a workable plan to stop it was introduced, involving a mixture of “Hearts & Minds”, protected villages(to isolate the CTs from food, refuge & support) & a rigorous use of resources to track down & capture/kill the CTs.
The whole Malayan Emergency was on a much smaller scale than the later parts of the Vietnam conflict.

#3

Major difference that springs to mind is that it was much easier to interdict supplies to Malaya than South Vietnam. Also the state support (China helping the CTs) in Malaya was much less than in Vietnam (North Vietnam helping the VCs).
Having said that, the US campaign in Vietnam was very poorly run. The Malayan Emergency wasn’t run very well (we kind of learnt things as we went along), but it was run better. For the real textbook on how to defeat a communist insurgency, have a look at what the Royal Thai Army did at roughly the same time as Vietnam. That seems to have been much better than the UK in Malaya.
Unfortunately the Thais are having major problems in the south right now (by the Malaysian border) with a fairly sizeable Islamist insurgency. They’ve got a lid on it now, but a while ago they were suffering substantially worse casualties than the US was in Iraq. Incidentally, this is why the Thai troops left Iraq - they were needed at home, and while the Thais offered to send various naval units the US didn’t need them and figured the Thais would be of more use in The War Against Terrorism at home.

Edit: typo

#4

Look to the conflict in Muscat & Oman to see a classic example of turning a near certain Communist victory into a triumph for the British Army.

All done on a shoestring budget as well 8)