http://thefilmarchive.org/ The Army of the Republic of Vietnam ARVN lost about 266,000 killed from 1959 through 1975. R.J. Rummel's range was 216,000 at the low end and 316,000 at the high end. Guenter Lewy, from a US Department of Defense document, reported that ARVN suffered 220,357 killed from 1965 through 1974. A PBS estimate was a quarter of a million men killed in action. According to the government in Hanoi, 1,100,000 North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong military personnel died during the Vietnam War Rummel reviewed the many casualty data sets, and this number is in keeping with his mid-level estimate of 1,011,000 North Vietnamese combatant deaths. He further calculated a mid-level estimate of 251,000 Viet Cong military deaths. The US emphasis on "kill ratios" was logical in view of an attrition strategy, but such measures of success may have been exaggerated and inflated. Besides those killed in battle, many thousands of NVA/NLF soldiers died from disease or accidents. Heat exhaustion, dehydration, ringworm and beriberi were common. An estimated ten thousand NVA/NLF troops died per year from these causes. 1968 Tet Offensive - Hanoi failed in its most ambitious goal of producing a general uprising in the South and instead suffered more than 45,267 communist (mainly Viet Cong) deaths. 1972 Easter Offensive - This saw 50,000 to 75,000 North Vietnamese combatants killed plus their loss of over 700 tanks. The communist attack was broken up mainly by US air power. The Viet Cong and on occasion North Vietnamese regulars often wore civilian clothes. Civilians could thus be mistaken for being a member of one side and be shot. They were sometimes killed simply from being caught up in the midst of a battle. South Vietnam suffered the majority of civilians killed in this manner. Rummel's review of the various data led to a mid-level estimate of 843,000 civilian deaths in both North and South Vietnam. The Vietnamese government in 1995 estimated that 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilians on both sides died in the war, but does not divide the deaths between North and South Vietnam. Rummel estimated (apart from the post 1975 communist power consolidation) that a low-level of 486,000 civilians died; the mid-level was 843,000, with a high level at 1,200,000. NVA/VC forces murdered around 164,000 civilians between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam. Rummel's lowest estimate is 106,000 and his highest is 227,000. Rummel's summary has a mid-level estimate of 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants (ARVN's local millitia) killed by North Vietnamese forces (including the Viet Cong). In addition, at least another 36,000 Southern civilians were executed for various reasons between 1967-1972. Another 50,000 refuges were killed during the 1975 Spring Offensive, along with 1,260 civilians during the NVA's shelling of Saigon, and some 2,800 to 6,000 civilians killed in the Massacre at Huế during the Tet Offensive. About 130 US POWs and 16,000 South Vietnamese POWs were executed by their communist captors. During the peak war years, almost a third of civilian deaths were the result of Viet Cong atrocities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties

• published: 17 Jun 2012
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