# Talk:Operation Crimp

I found that this article was lifted in its entirety word-for-word from a web site. It was not only not particularly well-written, but confusing. I researched the article on my own and summarized it as shown.--Buckboard 10:48, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I have rewritten the article now but am a bit concerned that it doesn't adequately cover American operations. I mainly have Australian sources - anyone care to help? Anotherclown (talk) 15:09, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I've added a bit more about US operations now and will see what other sources I can get my hands on. Anotherclown (talk) 06:16, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Why there is a preponderance of references to the Australians on Operation Crimp is because the huge quantity of enemy documents was found in their section of the tunnels.  The US battalions were active around that area, and found tunnels, plus had some heavy contacts, but by the fortunes of war, 1RAR was involved in the Vietcong headquarters part of the tunnel system.
1RAR wanted to continue to investigate and explore the system beyond 14 January but the Operation was terminated on decision by higher headquarters.
Also of note is that neither General Westmoreland nor General Joseph  McChristian, the head of Intelligence at MACV, both of whom visited 1RAR on Op Crimp, referred to the operation in their end of tour reports.  
Lex15709 (talk) 01:46, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Lex, do you have a citation on the end of tour reports?  Auntieruth55 (talk) 16:55, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
McAulay, Lex. (2007). 'Found and Lost: The Buried Secrets for Victory in Vietnam?' Vietnam 20 (3): pp. 28–35 mentions it on p. 34. I have gotten the article from ProQuest. — AustralianRupert (talk) 07:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Added now - thanks Lex and Rupert. Anotherclown (talk) 07:30, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Added a bit more for Mangold and Penycate as well. Anotherclown (talk) 07:18, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Added a couple of images of US pers now to balance out the Aussie content. Anotherclown (talk) 08:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"divisional-sized" doesn't sound quite right to me, but I won't fiddle with it if you guys like it. - Dank (push to talk)
See WP:EMDASH.  (I made the edit.) - Dank (push to talk)
Some of the hyphenation looks wrong to me, but I'll have to leave it for people who know the British language.  Regarding single quote marks, see WP:MOSQUOTE, but be aware that there's dissension on this point.  Chicago supports single quotes in BritEng.  Also please be aware that I read British English articles faster than I read AmEng articles, and I leave more stuff untouched in BritEng than I do in AmEng.
This is missing a "when", and is too complicated: "No sooner had the lead elements—D Company, under the command of Major Ian Fisher—emerged into the cleared area that was originally to have been used as the battalion's LZ, the forward platoon—12 Platoon—came under fire from Viet Cong positions in the tree-line on the north-east corner." - Dank (push to talk)
Might be good British English but I don't recognize it: "the Australians were made to fight their way" - Dank (push to talk)
"found to be able to pop up undetected": wouldn't "popping up undetected" imply that they were able to do it? - Dank (push to talk)
See WP:MOSCAPTION about the periods/full stops. - Dank (push to talk)
"To the north, while ...": It's rare that two "while" clauses in the same sentence work. - Dank (push to talk)
"57-mm": no hyphen. - Dank (push to talk)
"Failing to emerge, the tunnel": the tunnel wasn't failing to emerge. - Dank (push to talk)
"the name of agents": the names of agents - Dank (push to talk)
"It was only after the war that it was learnt that ...": Why not "It was only learnt after the war that ..."?  Btw, I've given up on asking for alternatives to "learnt", although it doesn't sound right to American ears. - Dank (push to talk)
"thorough out the war": throughout? - Dank (push to talk)
"widely inaccurate": probably "wildly inaccurate" - Dank (push to talk)
Okay, I finished my copyedit.  Congratulations on passing A-class, and sorry for the belated support. - Dank (push to talk) 19:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Dank, I have made most of these changes now. Cheers for taking the time to read it and do a copy-edit. Anotherclown (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks yourself, I'd like to see more of your writing, it's easy to follow and easy to clean up the odd bit of lint, although I'm never going to do justice to the BritEng. (Did we agree that you guys don't object to calling this BritEng?  That's slightly surprising to me.) - Dank (push to talk) 23:25, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Personally I don't mind calling it BritEng, but then again I'm probably more of an Anglophile than most Australians! Take care. God save the Queen! Anotherclown (talk) 08:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Here, here! ;-) AustralianRupert (talk) 08:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I changed the naming conventions for the US units involved. Each infantry division has a 3d Bde (there is no distinct US 3rd Brigade), so I added some construction of 1st Infantry Division in each occurrence. I also corrected the leade to specify that the 1st Infantry Division controlled the two US brigades involved (the 173rd was only attached to the 1st ID and not actually part of it organizationally).Intothatdarkness (talk) 15:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with some of this, in particular rewording the lead (I tweaked this further to be 'under the command of' rather than 'controlled by' which is incorrect terminology). That said I disagree with constantly referring to it as 3rd Bde, 1st Div. There is only one 3rd Bde mentioned in this article and the prelude clearly established that it was part of 1st Div. Seems a little too repeatitive to me. Anotherclown (talk) 09:05, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
Actually in US military terminology, the brigades are controlled by division headquarters, with attached units referred to as being under "operational control" (OpCon), not command. But whatever. Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Whilst you're probably correct, command relationships are way too technical to be of any relevance to the average reader. In my experience many Army officers don't fully understand such terminology so I don't see how someone not educated at West Point, Duntroon or Sandhurst (or somewhere similar) is going to have a hope. Anotherclown (talk) 10:09, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I was just pointing out that in US military use the terminology was correct. What we end up using may be different, of course.Intothatdarkness (talk) 20:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm fairly sure its standard across ABCA (if not NATO). In fact there are a number of terms which are used to describe the operational command authorities of assigned forces: Operational Command (OPCOMD), Tactical Command (TACOMD), Operational Control (OPCON) and Tactical Control (TACON). In my experience TACOMD is the most common, whilst OPCON would be more commonly used when forces are assigned to/from another single service or another nation because of the inherent protection the authority provides. I'm a little surprised to read that US Bde's are usually assigned OPCON to a DIV HQ (as I would have thought TACOMD more likely) but there you go. Regardless, its still a "command" authority not a "control" authority so I think command is more accurate in this circumstance. Also I question whether such terminology was in use in the 1960s anyway. Anotherclown (talk) 08:09, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Vietnam was the point of transition for some of these terms, although the roots go back to World War II and some of the Pentomic concepts from the 1950s. But like I said, we should use whatever works best for the article.Intothatdarkness (talk) 13:39, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
No worries, I realise you have said that a few times. Sorry if it felt like I was labouring a point, I was just interested in the topic thats all. Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 20:47, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I understand. It's an interesting thing in and of itself. Typically in AARs and such units during the Vietnam period show up as OPCON. Brigades were a touch fluid (which you can see if you look at the history of the 3rd Bde of the 25th ID, which ended up "reflagging" as a brigade in the 4th ID), although it was typically the separate brigades (173rd, 199th for two examples) that could be attached or OPCONed to a division (as happened often for both with the 1st ID in the III CTZ). Just because they used the term OPCON doesn't mean that it was necessarily "correct" as far as doctrine goes, of course. I find this stuff interesting, too, so sorry if *I* went on about it. Intothatdarkness (talk) 21:26, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Graham took over command of 1 ATF on 1 Jan 1967. Operation Crimp took place a year earlier (before 1 ATF even deployed). The barrier minefield was indeed Graham's brainchild and was laid during Operation Leeton (6 March – 1 June). It certainly resulted in a large number of munitions being lifted by the Viet Cong and used against the Australians but I'm not sure what any of that has to do with Crimp. Different time, different place. Anotherclown (talk) 09:21, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

In what possible way did the battle end anywhere close to a Vietnamese victory? The body count was in Australia/ US favour and additionally they gained a tremendous operational win by uncovering the tunnels. Yet a pro Vietnamese editor has been constantly editing and censoring the outcome of Vietnamese battle losses across multiple wiki pages and writing it out, so it can't be easily seen that Vietnam had lost a particular battle. I would report them to the vandalism noticeboard but I see they haven't edited for a while. But if they do return, they are very welcome to make their case here and explain themselves. 49.180.9.62 (talk) 22:36, 3 December 2023 (UTC)