The Vietnamese had been fighting for decades, and had an excellent militia system that held them for days until their regulars arrived. The Chinese hadn’t really been fighting since Korea. Veterans are worth their weight in Gold in War – in fact in any long war bounty hunters will seek them out for exactly money to sell them to whatever army.

They also had a village system of entrenchments and tunnels facing the Chinese just like they had done to us…of course the Chinese trained them from late 40s until early 70s.

The Vietnamese have a long tradition of fighting the Chinese. Vietnam is China’s Finland- they really just don’t want to ever go back there, just like the Russians will probably never invade Finland again.

Just saying.

We walked the battleground stationed in Korea, the actual decisive point for us a gentle rise, that was held by a LT and a PFC frantically firing a M1 Carbine and throwing back the Chinese grenades at one point.

They held them, they pulled out the next day when the weather cleared and got slaughtered from the air.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chipyong-ni