Talk:Battle of Ia Drang

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Contents 1 Some minor edits 2 Info Box, Commanders 3 Difference Between Casualty Figures in Article and Side Box 4 Overhauling this Article 5 Detail of Article 6 Please Remove a Redirect, Thanks 7 Force strength 8 only 16 Americans not dead or wounded?

[edit] Some minor edits

I'm a newbie at Wikipedia. I don't know if adding this to the talk page is necessary but I thought I would list some changes I made anyway. On 7/29/05 I edited lots of little things here and there. I'm pretty sure "battalion" and "regiment" should be capitalized when they refer to a specific unit. I retyped "1/7" as "1st Battalion, 7th Cav," and so forth. I rewrote several sentences which I thought confusing. Also, when listing casualties the original article called the US dead "soldiers" but the PAVN dead "fighters." If I understand correctly, the PAVN troops were regulars and therefore should also be considered soldiers. As it was I changed both to "killed." Good day and happy editing, -Schmitty3347

Why isn't this article entitled the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley? I have been a student of the conflict since it was going on and I have never heard it refferred to as anything else (with the exception of Operation Silver Bayonet of which it was the major action). RM Gillespie 23:05, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Hm... I'll poke around my book collection here and see what the consensus of my bookshelf is, but if you can find us some cites for that, it'd probably help too. Then it'd be as simple as renaming this article and dropping a redirect from the old title to the new one.--Raguleader 01:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Info Box, Commanders

So, I went in to edit the info box entry to put in Colonel Brown's first name, and I noticed that the entry also included Lt. Colonel Moore and Lt. Colonel McDade as the commanders of their own Battalions. The thing is, these last two bits don't show up in the template. Does anyone know how to modify it so they fit?--Raguleader 13:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, fixed the name formating in the info box, also fixed the name of the unit Colonel Brown commanded (the 7th Cavalry Division is part of the 3rd Brigade, not vice versa). Now the infobox looks cluttered with all the American officers on the side. Since Lt. Col. Moore and Lt. Col. McDade commanded their units in seperate actions in the battle, and Colonel Brown was in overall command, I'm not sure if we can remove any of them. Is there some standard for dealing with this, or are we just not worried?--Raguleader 13:39, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Grr... OK, it's apparantly the 7th Cavalry Regiment, not Division. *slaps forehead* Since a Brigade is part of a Division, this is probably where the original confusion on whether the 7th was part of the 3rd to begin with. Fixed now. *goes to find coffee*--Raguleader 13:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I went in and fixed all. Without going into a lot of detail, the hierarchy is as shown. Brown was the overall commander, Moore the on-scene commander, and McDade's battalion the one ambushed at Albany.--131.238.92.62 12:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there any information available on the NVA/VC order of battle and their commanders? Does anyone want to add it in for the Infobox?--Raguleader 20:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Difference Between Casualty Figures in Article and Side Box

The article states "The U.S. lost 234, with 242 wounded ... The PAVN lost 1,037 killed with an estimated 1,365 wounded."

However, the side box says 234/242 and 837/1365. Any reason for the discrepancy between 1037 and 837? Also, should the 1365 in the side-box read "1365 est." since it is an estimate, but the other figures (as far as I know) are not?

-Anonymous

Also, American strength is listed in the side box as 395 men but casualties are "239 dead, 242 wounded." Furthermore, "The PAVN forces had suffered thousands of casualties and were no longer capable of a fight" according to the article's text but the total Vietnamese casualties are less than 1,000 in the side box. The information is wrong either in the text or the side box, or maybe both. -KS 1/6/07

[edit] Overhauling this Article

Hi,

I'm new to Wikipedia, but I did my university thesis on the Vietnam War and am really interested in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. I couldn't believe there was so little information in this article beyond the technical aspects of the battle. Therefore, I'm overhauling this article to provide a more human side to the battle. My primary source is Moore & Galloway's We Were Soldiers Once...And Young.

If I make any factual errors, please do not hesitate to correct me. Otherwise, please give me a few days to get everything in and the formatting right before making any significant changes.

Thanks!

James Cameron

March 6/06

[edit] Detail of Article

March 8/06

I realize that I have included a significant amount of detail in this article, including the names of many officers and enlisted personnel involved in the battle. I have not yet finished this page, so please bear with me a few more days.

The purpose of including this much detail is so that interested individuals who have had relatives or friends who were at the Ia Drang may know what their loved ones did and underwent in this battle. I have purposely avoided providing details that would be troubling for those who may have known the combatants (such as detailed causes of death, for example).

While all of this information and much more is available in Moore and Galloway's book (in fact, it's my primary source), my hope is to respectfully inform those who knew the combatants of the Ia Drang (or any veterans of the Ia Drang who may read this article). For those who have never known these men but wish to honour their experience (like myself), the purpose of this page is to provide information on what I believe is among the most interesting and tragic battles of the War.

For those who are interested in learning more, I highly recommend the LZ X-Ray site and We Were Soldiers Once...And Young - which, in my view, is one of the best war books ever written.

James Cameron

Canada

I found this article fascinating, it had excellent detail. Well done on researching the content. I did a little cleanup while I was here. ~ Flooch 13:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please Remove a Redirect, Thanks

Sometime ago I started a page called "Landing Zone X-Ray" to be about the place in present-day reality, not about the battle. Now I have all my research complete but the page redirects here. Would someone please detach or remove the redirect so I can just write the page out as I initally intended it to be? (I'm planning to use TerraServer or Google Earth to pinpoint the exact field or sunnink like that, but now I can't since the page is gone. Also I want a clear assurance that the embleer hraka rah who did this to me is stopped and will never do it again. Thank you all so much!) --Shenshuai 16:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Force strength

Would the number given for American forces include both Colonel Moore's and Colonel McDade's men combined? I'm pretty sure that would be far more than 395, though any counts should take care to remember that Lieutenant "Hard Corps" Rescorla's platoon fought in both actions.--Raguleader 21:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] only 16 Americans not dead or wounded?

Come on.

Also, the second battle has only one paragraph (and should have even separate article). --HanzoHattori 06:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

This is probably related to the strangely low number of American soldiers listed as being present. 395 men would be a single battalion, while there were as many as three American battalions involved in the battle (only two involved in any major ways, with Colonel Moore's battalion fighting at X-Ray and Colonel McDade's battalion fighting at Albany.--Raguleader 10:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with the second point though BTW. The Albany fight really deserves its own article. But what to call it? In most histories it's covered under Ia Drang. Maury 13:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)