The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1st Part)
The two world wars ensured the global spread of modern firearms in such quantity and quality that the firepower superiority that allowed even small European military units to win colonial conflicts against vastly superior native forces disappeared. Armoured vehicles, so effective on European battlefields, were essentially useless in the mountains and jungles of exotic theatres of war with sparse or non-existent road networks. Only air power brought some advantages, whether as air support for ground troops or as the ultimate means of transport in terrain without passable roads. It was thus symptomatic of the mindset of the graduates of European military academies that they fixated on air superiority instead of vanishing superiority in small arms (and more or less useless superiority in armour). Combined with an underestimation of the enemy and a complete disregard for reality, this attitude resulted in the defeat of the French army at Điện Biên Phủ...