The guy who made the pronouncement about the artillery was an expert too . He died there
Charles Piroth. Like many of his comrades, Piroth was a highly decorated veteran of World War II. He had lost an arm in Italy. He knew his craft and was outspoken about it. If you were a visiting dignitary at Dien Bien Phu in those early days before the siege you no doubt had a session with Piroth on your agenda. It was he who most outspokenly preached the gospel of superior French artillery and firepower. When arriving in the valley one of the first questions on the minds of many when seeing the proximity of the surrounding mountains was: what happens if the Vietminh put artillery up there? The French had occupied the low ground and left the mountain crests above open. Basic tactics tell us that is not sound military practice. But Piroth would discount those fears as overstated. He preached that the Vietminh didn’t have the ability to get large amounts of artillery up there, and if somehow they did, his guns would quickly target them and destroy them. A few test rounds would be fired for effect and that was that. Piroth liked to boast that even if he couldn’t destroy all the enemy guns, Giap could never bring enough ammunition into the valley to do the French serious damage. This turned out to be a serious miscalculation, with grave consequences for Piroth.
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