Describe the military tactics used by both the USA and the Vietcong in the 1960s

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Describe the military tactics used by both the USA and the Vietcong in the 1960s

As war progressed the military tactics became increasingly important. Both sides first tactic was to try and win the hearts and minds of the people. Most Vietcong had strong relationships with the peasants who they helped, working in the fields in return for shelter. The Americans tried to win the people by providing aid but they couldn’t tell the peasants from the Vietcong and any good work they did was cancelled out by their association with the hated Diem. They set up strategic villages, trying to separate the peasants and Vietcong. They were very unpopular, moving people away from their homeland and ineffective as the Vietcong had been moved into the mistaken as villagers

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Once the Strategic Villages had been over-run by the Vietcong, America launched operation rolling thunder to limit supplies from the north and then used the minor excuse of an attack on Pleiku an American airbase to justify war to the American public and deployed ground troops.

The Vietcong’s Guerrilla tactics were almost impossible to counter, they used their knowledge of the jungle very effectively. Demoralising the soldiers by setting booby traps like the punji trap. A unit could loose half of their soldiers and never see the enemy. Unable to keep the Vietcong out of villages the U.S ...

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