The US believed that the Vietcong were forced to build them because of their tactics being so successful but it only shows how determined the Vietcong was to beat the US. the tactic of building tunnels was very successful and it is shown when they managed to build tunnels under US camps and bases.
The North Vietnamese government used a route which stretched through
Laos and Cambodia and into different parts of South Vietnam. In parts it was 50 miles wide. It was used first to transport 80 000 South Vietnamese refugees back into their country but trained and equipped for a guerrilla war. Routes like this were essential to the Vietcong as they were needed to transport weapons, supplies, equipment and people around the country. The trial was kept open and supplying the Vietcong constantly by 40 000 people. The route was successful throughout the war even though it was often bombed by US and ARVN warplanes.
North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh trial was often bombed by the US airplanes to defend against these airstrikes they used Soviet built Mig-21 fighters, anti-aircraft guns and surface-to-air missiles to try and destroy them. The North Vietnamese government used the air-raids to try to get the people to become more determined to resist the US even though the US believed it would have the opposite effect and cause the Vietnamese to surrender in less time. This tactic used by the government succeeded and the people were more determined than they were before to win the war.
Because the Vietcong and NVA were fighting in their own country they could afford to wait years before they attacked using conventional weapons as it didn’t matter to them how long the war lasted before the Americans just grew tired and left which meant victory would be easier. After the US forces had left there would only be the ARVN to fight against. Because of the huge cost of the war ($133 billion) the US army in contrast was always under pressure to finish the war as quickly as possible. This Vietnamese policy worked and in time the US ‘grew tired’ and withdrew their troops which made the invasion of the South easier for the NVA.
Both the US and the Vietcong wanted to get the support of or ‘win the hearts and minds’ of the South Vietnamese people who were caught up in the fighting. The US introduced a policy of ‘Pacification’ in this they built roads, bridges, canals or provided clinics and schools this policy was unsuccessful because it took second place to the need to wipe out the Vietcong and NVA although it showed some success during the Tet offensive as the people showed little support for a communist revolution. It was essential for the Vietcong to have the support of the locals so they were always careful not to annoy them to ensure they were supplied with food and shelter. The code of conduct for the Vietcong was strictly enforced and it told them how to treat the people. It proved to be
successful because the Vietcong always found support in the villages in the countryside.
During the war the US forces in Vietnam tried many tactics against the Vietcong and NVA. At the beginning of the war the US soldiers did not fight directly against North Vietnamese forces but were called military ‘Advisers’ and helped in training the ARVN to stop the expected invasion from the north. In 1954 the first advisers were sent by Eisenhower. there were just 17 but by 1961 the number had grown to 685. Along with the advisers economic aid and modern weapons and equipment for the army were sent. The tactic of sending the advisers failed as in time they became troops and were involved directly in the fighting but the sending of aid and weapons was successful as it helped to make sure most of South Vietnam stayed pro-western and supported the war.
The Increasing problem in South Vietnam was that many local farmers supported the Vietcong and helped them to fight the guerrilla war against the Americans. The US reaction to this was to create ‘Strategic hamlets’
which were fortified villages to stop the Vietcong from mixing with the local population. This tactic was mostly a failure because it meant that the farmers would have to leave the land they had farmed for centuries which caused Diem’s regime to become even more unpopular and as the US was associated with Diem it made them more unpopular too.
The tactic used at the beginning of the war for the airstrikes was ‘Selective’ bombing. It meant that bombs were not dropped on towns and cities or huge areas of countryside but targets that were accurately selected and only a few bombs were dropped on it. targets were often roads, bridges, railway lines, supply depots and army barracks. This tactic was used in Operation Rolling Thunder and it was intended to show what weaponry the US had at its disposal. This tactic did not work as it was soon replaced by ‘Saturation’ bombing.
Saturation or blanket bombing was introduced as the war intensified. It was needed because selective targeting had failed to bring the North Vietnamese to the conference table. The giant B-52 Bombers dropped bombs weighing 2 tons on everything in sight. In the long run these massive air raids were not successful and their effect was only the strengthening of the North Vietnamese morale and determination to win.
The main aim of the US soldiers in Vietnam as to kill as many Vietcong as possible. To determine the success of any mission it was made clear it would be the number of dead Vietcong or the ‘Body count’. This tactic used in Vietnam and other wars is called a war of attrition. They used this tactic because they believed that if more Vietcong were killed than US or ARVN soldiers then they would eventually win because there would no longer be any more Vietcong. This tactic did not work because although the Vietcong suffered many times more casualties than the US they still kept getting new recruits and the body count was having little or no effect on the morale of the Vietnamese. Also the Vietcong was always far readier to accept huge loss of life unlike the US and South Vietnamese government.
As the war progressed it became more and more clear that the conventional tactics that the US army was trained in were having little effect on the guerrilla Vietcong so it became clear that if the US was going to win the war then they would have to use their advantage of high technology and use it in a kind of guerrilla war. The tactic that was used was using helicopters to carry out search and destroy missions. These would involve going into villages suspected of having Vietcong or their supporters and rooting them out. helicopters were also used as gunships to find and destroy Vietcong or NVA units in the jungle. A horrific example of a search and destroy mission was the My Lai Massacre in which unarmed women and children were killed even though the genuine Vietcong suspects and their sympathisers had already escaped. The tactic of using helicopters in a guerrilla war proved successful as the Vietcong was usually taken by suprise if they were attacked by helicopters. But when the media found out about massacres like My Lai it did little to get support for the war from the US public which in the end proved to be a main reason for the withdrawal of US forces.
The rainforests in Vietnam gave the Vietcong plenty of cover to hide from the US forces so the US responded to this by using masses of chemical weapons to destroy or defoliate the trees. To defoliate the trees the US used ‘Agent Orange which destroyed the leaves which left the branches bear. This allowed the US to spot the Vietcong from the air and over 25 000 square Km of Rainforest was destroyed by the end of the war. Unfortunately it contained a toxin called Dioxin which contaminated the people who handled it at the airbase and the people local to where it was dropped. the effects of it were long-term. Agent Orange was successful in defoliating the tree canopy and so the natural cover for the
Vietcong it had little effect on the way the war was being fought and made the war even more unpopular with the US public. Another powerful chemical weapon used to destroy areas of forest but also used as a weapon was napalm. Again it was successful in destroying the forests and villages but did very little to change the way the war would be fought because the Vietcong built tunnel systems to hide underground
from the Americans.
In conclusion I think that tactics used by the NVA and Vietcong were more effective than those used by the US and South Vietnamese even though the US had the advantage of high technology they failed to use it in a way that would be effective in changing the way the war was fought and would make them more popular with the people South Vietnam and the USA. Unlike the NVA and Vietcong who managed to keep the advantage over the US by using tactics that made use of their skills in guerrilla war and the terrain that they were used to fighting in.
