Vietnam. The Tactics used by the US and the Vietcong were diverse. Americas preference of strategies being, attempting to fatally damage Vietnam with immense amounts of bombs
Lucy Cadd 9117 GCSE Coursework:Vietnam post Canford School, 55243
The Tactics used by the US and the Vietcong were diverse. America's preference of strategies being, attempting to fatally damage Vietnam with immense amounts of bombs, and therefore exhausting the Vietcong's supplies, both of men and of willpower. The Guerrilla warfare which the Vietcong favoured to, involved the laying of an impressive web of booby traps, mines and tunnels. Also terrorist activity, to which their aim was to take their opposition by surprise and never actually come face to face with them, was high on their list of strategies.
The USA's most preferred tactic was to use bombs designed to break North Vietnam's will to fight, bringing them to the negotiating table. In May 1965, the Americans launched 'Operation Rolling Thunder' which carried on for three years. During this time the US dropped explosives on military establishments, infrastructure and fuel storehouses. Napalm was often used throughout the South against suspected enemy positions, supply lines or in support of ground forces. Napalm, which is jellied petroleum, sticks to the skin and burns through to the bone. However bombing was never successful in breaking the will of the North Vietnamese leadership nor did it ever succeed in hindering their ability to wage war. This was because Vietnam did not have a large number of industrial or military targets to be bombed and any material lost was always replaced by China and the Soviet Union.
A further strategy employed by the US was to remove the sparse jungle in South Vietnam as it made a perfect shelter for the Vietcong. A ten year programme of chemical defoliation named Operation Ranch Hand began in 1962. The most common defoliant was Agent Orange, which contains Dioxin that is known to cause cancer. This proved to do more harm to the Americans than the Vietcong, as many Vietnam veterans who had been exposed to the chemicals began to suffer from cancer and their children from birth defects, however the campaign did not limit communist activity or ...
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A further strategy employed by the US was to remove the sparse jungle in South Vietnam as it made a perfect shelter for the Vietcong. A ten year programme of chemical defoliation named Operation Ranch Hand began in 1962. The most common defoliant was Agent Orange, which contains Dioxin that is known to cause cancer. This proved to do more harm to the Americans than the Vietcong, as many Vietnam veterans who had been exposed to the chemicals began to suffer from cancer and their children from birth defects, however the campaign did not limit communist activity or the supply of materials to the South.
America found the helicopter extremely useful to their methods. They helped in transferring troops around quickly and also by evacuating patients behind the lines of defence to the safe hospitals.
The seventh fleet conducted a naval blockade of Vietnam throughout the war. However this was unsuccessful due to the fact that it was impossible to stop and search every small boat travelling to South Vietnam so the supplies to the Vietcong did not cease.
After the Guerrilla attacks on the US base at Pleiku, president Johnson had his excuse to send in ground troops to South Vietnam. Consequently, on the 8th March 1965 the first troops landed at Da Nang. And this time there was no pretence of calling them 'advisors'. However, troops faced a constant ordeal in Vietnam. They never knew where the enemy was, or whether someone was a friend or foe.
Therefore, in 1966 the Americans began 'Search and Destroy' missions to hunt down the enemy. Anybody who the Americans thought was a member of the Vietcong was instantly killed, sometimes very dramatically. This was highly unsuccessful because it was extremely hard for the American soldiers to distinguish whether a person was a member of the Vietcong because they didn't wear uniform, and instead wore black pyjamas just like the Vietnamese peasants. Many innocent civilians ended up being killed, which lost the US the trust and confidence of many of the Vietnamese civilians. This is why the US introduced a policy called Pacification. It was designed to 'win the hearts and minds' of the South Vietnamese. Re-housing refugees, providing clinics and schools, helping peasants to build new infrastructure canals and drainage ditches were important parts of this policy. This scheme had rather more success than the Search and Destroy missions.
An ineffective tactic was the 'strategic hamlet' policy. The intention was to keep the Vietnamese peasants in fortified areas where they could not be terrorised into giving food and shelter to the Vietcong. This brutally demoralised the peasants cutting them away from their villages and fields.
Focusing on the Vietcong tactics, perhaps one of the cleverest being the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was used to send guerrillas, weapons, equipment and food to the Vietcong in the South. In reality, it was not one trail but dozens of inter-linked trails. In places the trail was 80Km wide with dummy paths and depots to confuse enemy planes. Much of it was carefully hidden from the air, so when the Americans started bombing the trail, instead of breaking the will of the Vietcong it sent them literally underground.
Another ingenious Vietcong strategy was their amazingly complex maze of underground tunnels. These tunnels were much more than hiding places, there were underground kitchens, weapon stores, dormitories, hospitals and rest areas. US soldiers saw this a sign of their success, that they had forced the Vietcong to hide underground, however it can also be seen as a sign of their ingenuity, another tactic to make it more problematical for the Americans to defeat them.
The Vietcong, like the Vietminh before them, fought a guerrilla war, much of it at night. The initial objective was to gain the support of the peasants living in rural areas. As Mao Zedong said, 'without the constant support of peasants..... failure is inevitable.' When the Vietcong entered a village they followed a strict code of behaviour. Many peasants agreed to help by feeding and hiding them. In some cases, the peasants also agreed to take up arms and help to 'liberate' other villages. The overall strategy of guerrilla warfare is to involve the enemy in a long drawn-out war. They chose their targets carefully, making sure they had the advantage in numbers and surprise, and escaping immediately after the attack was finished. They avoided large-scale confrontations, unless they were convinced that they outnumbered the opposition.
The Vietcong were exceptionally skilled at planting booby traps. Some traps were straight forward, such as a concealed hole under a path that could break the foot of anyone stepping into it; others were more resourceful and deadly. These traps managed to break the morale of the American troops severely.
In September 1967, the NLF launched a series of attacks on American Garrisons. General Westmoreland was delighted that the NLF were at last engaging in open combat. He was able to report that the NLF had lost 90,000 men and that as the NLF were unable to replace such numbers that the end of the war was near. However, on 31st January 1968, 70,000 members of the NLF launched a surprise attack on more than a hundred cities and towns in Vietnam. It was now clear that the purpose of those attacks in September had been to draw out troops from the cities. The Tet offensive was crucial to both sides. 37,000 NLF soldiers were killed compared to 2,500 Americans. However, it also illustrated how inexhaustible the supplies were of men and women willing to fight for the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government.
A new plan called 'Vietnamization' was introduced in 1968. The idea was to encourage the South Vietnamese to take more responsibility for fighting the war. It was hoped that this policy would eventually enable the US to gradually withdraw all of their soldiers from Vietnam. However, few wanted to fight a war that America was abandoning. 'Search and destroy' missions became 'search and avoid' operations. And the general morale of the troops was completely disintegrated.
