Describe and explain how the North Vietnamese and their NLF allies in the south were able to fight successfully against such apparently overwhelming odds between 1965 and 1973.

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Ion Teale

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Describe and explain how the North Vietnamese and their NLF allies in the south were able to fight successfully against such apparently overwhelming odds between 1965 and 1973.

The NLF was able to successfully fight the us troops in the south of Vietnam for a number of reasons. Amongst many of other reasons including political and social, the NLF and their allies fought successfully through a very effective and resourceful physical form of fighting. They operated largely using various types of guerrilla warfare. The central office near the Cambodian border commanded the Vietcong in the south. They almost solely relied on the Ho Chi Minh trail that ran through Laos and Cambodia for arms supplies. The Vietcong units were full time soldiers that often operated from villages, blending in with the local civilians. A very important point in understanding the difficulties that the US troops faced in seeking their opposition. For the most part US troops never saw any evidence of an enemy in Vietnam. They could not see whom they were fighting and so were hit hard by the Vietcong tactics of hit and run. American Morale was especially hit badly as the US troops started to lose their mentality and frustration kicked in.

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 Vietcong troops relied heavily on small arms to defeat a seemingly overwhelming American force and in particular booby traps. In total 11% of US casualties were lost to enemy booby traps. Such traps consisted of basic resources like bamboo sharpened and placed in a pit to capture any unsuspecting US soldiers by surprise and wound them to the point of being unable to fight but not quite dead. This was a highly successful tactic deployed by the Vietcong to wound a massive majority of the enemy to weigh them down and exhaust their resources as opposed to killing them which ...

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