2572 lines
154 KiB
Plaintext
2572 lines
154 KiB
Plaintext
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V I E T N A M P R I M E R
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by
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Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall (Ret.)
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LESSONS LEARNED
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HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
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V I E T N A M P R I M E R
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FOREWORD
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The two authors of this study went to Vietnam in early
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December, 1966 on a 90 day mission, one as a private citizen with vast
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experience in analyzing combat operations, the other, a Regular Army
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officer representing the Army's Chief of Military History. Their
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collaborative task was to train combat historians in the technique of the
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postcombat interview. In the course of conducting six schools for officers
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selected for this duty in Vietnam, they put into practice the principles
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they advocated, and from their group interrogation of the men who had done
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the fighting, they were able to reconstruct most of the combat actions of
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the preceding six months, including all but one of the major operations.
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The present work emerged from this material.
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Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall, Retired, longtime friend of the
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Army, and Lieutenant Colonel David Hackworth, veteran of a year's combat in
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Vietnam as a brigade executive and infantry battalion commander, have
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pooled their experience and observations to produce an operational analysis
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that may help American soldiers live longer and perform better in combat.
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Their study is presented not as the official solution to all the ills that
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beset combat troops in Vietnam but as the authors' own considered
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corrective and guide for the effective conduct of small unit operations.
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Although it does not necessarily reflect Department of the Army doctrine,
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it can be read with profit by all soldiers.
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(signed)
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HAROLD K. JOHNSON
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General, United States Army
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Chief of Staff
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V I E T N A M P R I M E R
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LESSONS LEARNED
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V I E T N A M P R I M E R
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A critique of U.S. Army tactics and command
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practices in the small combat unit digested from
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historical research of main fighting operations
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from May, 1966 to February, 1967.
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The material presented in this document was prepared by Brigadier General
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S. L. A. Marshall, U.S. Army, Retired, and Lieutenant Colonel David H.
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Hackworth, Infantry; and the opinions contained herein do not necessarily
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reflect the official positions of the Department of the Army.
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VIETNAM PRIMER
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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THE POST-ACTION CRITIQUE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
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THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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LESSON ONE - THE DISTRICT ASSAULT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
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LESSON TWO - WARNING AND MOVEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
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LESSON THREE - DOUBLING SECURITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
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LESSON FOUR - CONTENDING WITH JUNGLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
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LESSON FIVE - RATES OF FIRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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LESSON SIX - COMMUNICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
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LESSON SEVEN - SECURITY ON THE TRAIL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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LESSON EIGHT - THE COMPANY IN MOVEMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
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LESSON NINE - RUSES, DECOYS, AND AMBUSHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
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LESSON TEN - FIELD INTELLIGENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
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LESSON ELEVEN - THE DEFENSIVE PERIMETER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
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LESSON TWELVE - POLICING THE BATTLEFIELD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
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LESSON THIRTEEN - TRAINING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
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LESSON FOURTEEN - THE STRANGE ENEMY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
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V I E T N A M P R I M E R
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THE POST-ACTION CRITIQUE
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All of the lessons and discussion presented in this brief document are
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the distillate of after action group interviews with upwards of a hundred
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rifle companies and many patrols and platoons that have engaged
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independently in Vietnam.
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Every action was reconstructed in the fullest possible detail,
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including the logistical and intelligence data, employment of weapons,
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timing and placement of battle losses in the unit, location of wounds, etc.
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What is said herein of the enemy derives in whole from what officers and
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men who have fought him in battle learned and reported out of their
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experience. Nothing has been taken from any intelligence document
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circulated to the United States Army. The document therefore is in itself
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evidence of the great store of information about the Viet Cong that can be
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tapped by talking with men of our combat line, all of which knowledge lies
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waste unless someone makes the effort.
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The briefing actions at the company level generally took less than one
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hour. The longest lasted two days and more. The average ran about three
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and one-half hours. To reconstruct a fight over that span of time required
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from seven to eight hours of steady interrogation.
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Soon after engagement, any combat unit commander can do this same
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thing: group interview his men until he knows all that happened to them
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during the fire fight. In their interest, in his own interest, and for the
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good of the Army he cannot afford to do less. There is no particular art
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to the work; so long as exact chronology is maintained in developing the
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story of the action, and so long as his men feel confident that he seeks
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nothing from them but the truth, the whole truth, then the needed results
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will come. Every division and every independent brigade in Vietnam has at
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least one combat historian. He is charged with conducting this kind of
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research; he can also assist and advise any unit commander who would like
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to know how to do it on his own.
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Special rewards come to the unit commander who will make the try.
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Nothing else will give him a closer bond with his men. Not until he does
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it will he truly know what they did under fire. Just as the combat
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critique is a powerful stimulant of unit morale, having all the warming
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effect of a good cocktail on an empty stomach, and even as it strengthens
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each soldier's appreciation of his fellows, it enables troops to understand
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for the first time the multitudinous problems and pressures on the
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commander. They will go all the better for him the next time out and he
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will have a much clearer view of his human resources. Combat does have a
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way of separating the men from the boys; but on the other hand the boys
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want to be classed with the men, and influence of a number of shining
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examples in their midst does accelerate the maturing process. The
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seasoning of a combat outfit comes fundamentally from men working together
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under stress growing in knowledge of one another.
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Mistakes will be brought out during the critique. Their revelation
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cannot hurt the unit or the man. Getting it out in the clear is one way -
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probably the only way - to relieve feelings and clear the atmosphere,
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provided the dignity of all present is maintained during the critique.
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Should the need for a personal admonishment or advice become indicated,
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that can be reserved until later.
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Far more important, deeds of heroism and high merit, unknown to the
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leader until that hour, become known to all hands. From this knowledge
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will come an improved awards system based on a standard of justice that
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will be commonly acknowledged. Men not previously recognized as possessing
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the qualities for squad and platoon leading will be viewed in a new light
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and moved toward promotion that all will know is deserved.
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No richer opportunity than this may be put before the commander of a
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combat company or battery or the sergeant who leads a patrol into a fight.
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He who hesitates to take advantage of it handicaps himself more than all
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others. If he does not know where he has been, he can never be certain
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where he is going.
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That is to say, in the end, that something is lacking in his military
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character, a "zeal to close the circuit," which is the mark of the good
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combat leader.
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V I E T N A M P R I M E R
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THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM
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Though it may sound like a contradiction to speak first of the tactics
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of engaging fortifications in a war where the enemy of the United States is
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a hit-and-run guerrilla, seeking more at
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the present time to avoid open battle than to give it except when he
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imagines that the terms are more than moderately favorable to his side, a
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moment's reflection will sustain the logic of the approach.
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His fortified areas almost invariably present the greatest difficulty
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to U.S. tactical forces, and it is when we voluntarily engage them that our
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loss rates are most immoderate. At no other technique is he more skilled
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than in the deceptive camouflaging of his fortified base camps and semi-
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fortified villages. There, even nature is made to work in his favor;
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trees, shrubs, and earth itself are reshaped to conceal bunker locations
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and trench lines. Many of these locations are fund temporarily abandoned,
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thus presenting only the problem of how to wreck them beyond possibility of
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further use. On the other hand, when he chooses to fight out of any one of
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them, the choice is seldom, if ever, made because he is trapped beyond
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chance of withdrawal, but because he expects to inflict more than enough
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hurt on Americans in the attack to warrant making a stand.
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There is even more to it than that. The fortified base camps and
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villages are the pivots of the Communist aggression. Denied their use, the
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movement would wither. The primary problem of defeating the North
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Vietnamese Army (NVA) south of the 17th Parallel and the ultimate problem
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of destroying the Viet Cong (VC) between that line and the southern
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extremity of the Delta are joined in the tactical task of eliminating their
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fortified areas with maximum economy of force.
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Years of labor and mountains of irreplaceable material have gone into
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building this network of strong camps over the country. It is the
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framework that sustains irregular operations, and a semi-guerrilla army can
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no more get along without it than a conventional army can hold the field
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when cut off from its main bases. Yet there is no such camp or armed
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village in Vietnam today that is beyond the reach of U.S. forces. However
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remote and concealed, none can be moved or indefinitely kept hidden. To
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find and smash each, one by one, is an essential task, a prime object in
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conclusively successful campaigning. The Viet Cong movement cannot survive
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as a horde of fugitives, unidentified as they mingle with the village crowd
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and bury their arms in the surrounding paddies. When the fortified bases
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go, the infrastructure withers, and thus weakened, finally dies.
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The fortified base camp is roughly circular in form with an outer rim
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of bunkers and foxholes enclosing a total system of living quarters,
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usually frame structures above ground, command bunkers, kitchens, and
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sleeping platforms. But as with the U.S. defensive perimeter, the shape
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will vary according to the terrain, the rise and fall of ground, and the
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use of natural features to restrict attack on the camp to one or two
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avenues. Some of the bases, and in particular those used only for training
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or way stations, have minimum defensive works. In all cases, however, the
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enemy is prepared to defend from a ground attack.
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The semi-fortified village is usually an attenuated or stretched out
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set of hamlets, having length rather than breadth, a restricted approach,
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bunkers (usually at the corners of the huts), lateral trenches, and
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sometimes a perpendicular trench fitted with fighting bunkers running the
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length of the defended area along one flank. There will be at least one
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exit or escape route rearward, though the position is often otherwise
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something of a cul de sac, made so by natural features. Tunnels connect
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the bunkers and earthworks, enabling the defenders to pop up, disappear,
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then fire again from another angle, a jack-in-the-box kind of maneuvering
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that doubles the effect of their numbers. An unfordable river may run
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along one flank while wide open paddy land bounds the other. The apparent
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lack of escape routes makes the position look like an ideal target for our
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side, with our large advantage in air power and artillery. But until
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bombardment has blown down most of the foliage any maneuver into the
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complex by infantry skirmishers is a deepening puzzle.
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When the attempt is made to seal in the enemy troops, one small
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opening left in the chain of force, such as a ditch, the palm grown slope
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of a canal bank, or a drainage pipe too small for an American to venture,
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will be more than enough to suit their purpose. They will somehow find it;
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there is nothing that they do better by day or night. It is as if they
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have a sixth sense for finding the way out and for taking it soundlessly.
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They are never encircled so long as one hole remains. Beaten, they will
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lose themselves in shrubbery and tree tops while the daylight lasts, get
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together when night closes, and make for the one exit.
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Three ground units of the 1st Air Cavalry Division fought through an
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action of this kind in early December, 1966, and took heavy losses. By
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dark the fight was won and resistance ended. The natural boundaries of the
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combat area permitted no chance for escape over 95 percent of the distance.
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Through a misunderstanding, the two rifle units covering the one land
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bridge left a 30 meter gap of flat land between their flanks. Though it
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was a moonlit night, the enemy remnants, estimated at two platoons or more,
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got away without a fight.
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V I E T N A M P R I M E R
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LESSON ONE - THE DISTRICT ASSAULT
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The record of U.S. Army operations in South Vietnam demonstrates one
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hard fact: a company sized attack upon an enemy fortified base camp or
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semi-fortified village, held in equal strength by NVA or VC main force with
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a determination to defend, and not subjected to intense artillery and/or
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air strikes beforehand, means payment of a high price by the attacker. The
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result of such an attempt is either ultimate withdrawal by the attacking
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force, too often after excessive loss, or a belated reinforcement and a
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more prolonged involvement than was anticipated or is judicious.
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Yet the tactic seems to have a fatal allure for the average young U.S.
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rifle company commander. It has been many times tried and, just as often,
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failed. The enemy deliberately tries to make the position look weak, and
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hence attractive. One ruse is to leave frontal bunkers unmanned, though
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the approach of the attacker is known. Initial resistance will be offered
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by a squad minus, while within the complex a company plus is preparing to
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maneuver. The effort is subtly directed toward getting the attack snarled
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in a maze of fortifications not visible to the eye, whence extrication
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grows ever more difficult and advance becomes extremely costly.
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The direct consequence for the rifle company that impulsively engages
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a position well beyond its strength, at least 50 percent of the time, will
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be as follows:
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(1) Its battle order, or fighting formations, are weakened
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through immediate losses in its frontal element.
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(2) It must concentrate on the problem of extracting its
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casualties under fire.
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(3) Its direct pressure against the enemy is diminished and
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disorganized. In short, overimpulsiveness runs counter to
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effective aggressiveness.
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Upon contacting any such fortified position, where direct enemy fire
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by automatic weapons supplies proof of the intention to defend, the rifle
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platoon or company should thereafter immediately dispose to keep its
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strength and numbers (weapon power and men) latent and under cover to the
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full limit permitted by the environment. It may even simulate a
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withdrawal, continue desultory fire from its forward weapons, or seek the
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enemy rear when favored by terrain, weather, and light. The full length
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assault is to be avoided while the heavy fires of supporting arms are
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brought in. The careful, fire covered probe is the called-for expedient.
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The headlong rush, like the attempt at envelopment before any attempt has
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been made to feel out resistance, should be avoided absolutely.
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Where environment and weather permit such intervention, artillery
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fires should concentrate on the rear, while tactical air targets on the
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enemy camp. Otherwise the effect of bombardment is likely to be the
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premature aborting of the position. Following bombardment, the direct
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frontal assault by the single rifle company should not be pressed unless
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reinforcement is already on its way, within 20 to 30 minutes of closing, in
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strength sufficient to engage at least one flank of the enemy position.
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The attack should then proceed by the echeloning of fire teams, taking
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advantage of natural cover and concealed avenues of approach. Gradual
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advance is the one safeguard against full exposure and undue loss, as in
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the taking of a city. Holding at least one platoon in reserve is so much
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insurance against enemy attack on the flank or read.
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When casualties occur in the initial stage of encounter with the enemy
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in fixed positions, the extraction of WIA's by forward skirmishers should
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not be more than the distance required to give them the nearest protection
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from enemy fire. This stricture should include a relatively secure
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approach for the aid man. Extraction of the dead is to be delayed until
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the development of the action makes it unnecessary to be done under fire.
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Unless these rules are followed during engagement, unit action stalls
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around the attempt to extricate casualties, thereby yielding fire-and-
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movement initiative to the enemy. This effect was observed in
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approximately one-third of the company actions researched.
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The data basis clearly indicates that the one most effective way to
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deal with the enemy fighting out of the fortified camp or village is to zap
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him with the heaviest artillery and tactical air ordnance, not to maneuver
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against him with infantry only. The "finding" infantry must also carry on
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as the "fixing" force, leaving the "finishing" to the heavy weapons that
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can both kill men and batter down protective works. If overextension is to
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be avoided, the sealing-in of the position may hardly be assigned to the
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unit that has initiated the action. The sealing-in is higher command's
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problem. Additional maneuver elements are dropped to the rear of the
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position, and if need be the flanks, to block likely escape routes, strike
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the withdrawing columns, and continue the mop up once the enemy, realizing
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that our infantry in the assault will not fall victim to his subtle trap,
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wearies of the punishment. How far these reaction deployments are spread
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should depend on the topography, availability of natural cover, and all
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else connected with the enemy's ability to vanish into the landscape and
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our chance of cornering him before he does so.
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V I E T N A M P R I M E R
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LESSON TWO - WARNING AND MOVEMENT
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For the rifle platoon or company to attempt envelopment of any village
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where there is some reason to suspect that it is fortified and will be
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defended is tactically as foolhardy as to assault directly any enemy
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position in a non-built-up area not subject to ground level or overhead
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surveillance. Reports from air observers that when seen from directly
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above at not more than 100 feet the village looks unguarded and unfortified
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are not to be considered conclusive, since it has been repeatedly shown
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that the enemy's skill with natural camouflage may wholly conceal at such
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distance a truly formidable position.
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A "position" is defined for this purpose as that ground from which, on
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initial contact, volley or approximately synchronized fire from a number of
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automatic weapons is directed against the friendly unit in movement.
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Particularly, when the enemy opens with a mix of rifle and machinegun fire,
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there is positive indication that he has not been surprised and rates
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himself strong enough to invite the attack. Even when he opens with random
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and unaimed rifle fire from somewhere in the background, this is no sure
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sign that he is getting away and that therefore prompt pursuit is in order.
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Here is a much-used VC-NVA ruse to draw the attack pell mell into a well-
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concealed, defended position.
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An attempt to envelop a village with light forces, when its possession
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of defended works or lack thereof is unknown, can only lead to dispersion
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of force and a regrouping at unnecessary cost when the village is defended.
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A careful probe on a narrow front with a fire base in readiness is the
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proper method. If fired upon, the unit then has two options: (a) house-by-
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house and bunker-by-bunkers movement into the complex as in attack on any
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built-up area; or (b) the calling in of heavy support weapons, according to
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the volume and intensity of the enemy fire. Any attempt to close escape
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routes by surrounding a succession of hamlets prior to developing the
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situation by limited probing is either prohibitively hazardous or time
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wasting. Any direct fire out of a village serves warning. And, as
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previously said, so does erratic and distant fire from beyond the hamlet
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when it is time to the American forward movement and is roughly counter to
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the direction of the attack. This familiar enemy come-on is an incitement
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to rush into a well-laid ambush.
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A sudden volley fire out of the hamlet, wood patch, or any location
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must prompt caution and reconsideration rather than prompt immediate
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forward extension in the assault. The enemy does not volley to cut and
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run; almost never does he do so even when his sole object is to delay and
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disrupt pursuit, after breaking off engagement. Furthermore, the enemy
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does not employ ground as we do, with emphasis on fields of fire and a
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superior height. He may do so some of the time; his surprises are staged
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most often by his choosing a position that we would rate impractical or
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untenable. He will fortify a ridge saddle to fire therefrom in four
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directions, ignoring the higher ground. Thus he can block advance via the
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draws or engage the attackers at close quarters when they move via the
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trail which often follows the spine of the ridge. Or he may rig a deadfall
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in front of a seeming dead end where slopes to front and rear seem to cut
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|
off all possibilities of escape. In village defense, he will leave empty
|
|
his best situated forward bunkers covering the one track that leads into
|
|
the first hamlet to create the illusion of abandonment. As a result the
|
|
assault is enticed into an interior jungle of foliage covered works and
|
|
underground passages that in combination will facilitate the enemy's rapid
|
|
movement from point to point. To thwart his design, the following measures
|
|
are indicated:
|
|
|
|
(1) In the approach march, except when it is over terrain where
|
|
observation to front and flanks removes any possibility of his
|
|
immediate presence in strength, all ground should be approached
|
|
as if he were present in force. Seldom in Vietnam are there
|
|
marches over such an obviously secure area.
|
|
|
|
(2) Defended built up areas, whether of purely military character or
|
|
a native hamlet, when clearly supplied with surface works and
|
|
amplified by underground passages, are not to be reckoned as
|
|
proper targets for the rifle company or smaller unit operating
|
|
unassisted. One or two "snipers," or riflemen operating from
|
|
cover, spending a few rounds in token resistance and then
|
|
fleeing, do not constitute "defense of a village" or of a wood
|
|
line. Four or five enemy continuing to fire together at close
|
|
range from any such location after being taken under fire should
|
|
be accepted as warning that larger forces are immediately
|
|
present. If the enemy force is no larger than a platoon minus,
|
|
its advantage in position still warrants the prompt calling in of
|
|
maximum supporting fires.
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON THREE - DOUBLING SECURITY
|
|
|
|
The record of more than 100 U.S. rifle companies and as many platoons
|
|
that have been heavily engaged since May 1, 1966 shows unmistakably that
|
|
the most frequent cause of surprise, disorganization of the unit under
|
|
fire, and heavy initial losses has been excessive haste in the advance
|
|
overland and outright carelessness about security.
|
|
|
|
A great part of our shock killing losses occur in the first stage of
|
|
engagement. The enemy, fortunately, is not skilled at following up a first
|
|
advantage in surprise fire. His musketry, when large numbers of his people
|
|
engage at close range, is highly inaccurate compared to our own. Our
|
|
losses in the rifle line once the fight is joined are rarely extravagant.
|
|
The great wasting of lives comes of too much rushing in the movement to
|
|
contact or of tactical carelessness in the first stages of engagement. A
|
|
column that indulges in all-out chase of the enemy can be caught by him if
|
|
it has not taken pains to make sure that it is not being followed. Or the
|
|
column on departing its night location may expose its intent to continue in
|
|
widely separated fractions disregarding whether its every move is under
|
|
enemy observation. Or it may march blindly onto ground such as a jungle
|
|
clearing when common sense dictates extreme caution.
|
|
|
|
In every incident that has involved the destruction of a platoon-size
|
|
unit, the misfortune was due less to enemy guile than to our own lack of
|
|
judgment. The enemy is fairly well skilled at laying ambushes and using
|
|
lures and ruses to draw forces in the right direction. But he is not
|
|
superhumanly clever. Applied common sense will beat his every design. It
|
|
is not common sense to run chances by making haste when one is rushing
|
|
straight to an entrapment. Consider two recent examples of sudden shock
|
|
loss due to impetuous advance:
|
|
|
|
(1) The platoon on patrol moved out over the same route - a straight
|
|
running trail - taken by a patrol the previous day. There was no
|
|
periodic halt to scout enemy presence in any or all four
|
|
directions. No stay-behind party was peeled off to see whether
|
|
the patrol was being followed. The platoon in single file
|
|
continued on the same azimuth for two hours. That line,
|
|
projected, let to two large clearings in the jungle separated by
|
|
less than 200 meters. The column advanced across the center of
|
|
the first clearing, 125 meters wide, and on the far side of the
|
|
wood line walked directly into a well-prepared ambush.
|
|
|
|
(2) The company had passed the night in defensive perimeter adjacent
|
|
to much higher ground where observation was unrestricted by
|
|
vegetation. The Cambodian border lay directly to the west.
|
|
Although the men on LP (listening post) duty could hear enemy
|
|
moving through the grass nearby during the night, when the
|
|
company moved out shortly after first light it did not
|
|
reconnoiter the high ground to the south along its line of march.
|
|
The lead platoon advanced directly past it, and was soon 1,000
|
|
meters forward of the main body, which was also in motion. The
|
|
rear platoon was kept tied to the ground of the night position,
|
|
600 meters behind the main body. While one group of enemy
|
|
engaged and immobilized the main body, after luring it into an
|
|
ambush, another closed on the rear platoon from two sides and in
|
|
two minutes of action annihilated it with automatic weapons.
|
|
|
|
The "lessons learned" from these two experiences are so glaringly
|
|
apparent that it is not necessary to spell them out. There remains but to
|
|
examine the main reasons why the practice of "pushing on" persists at the
|
|
expense of conservation of force. They are, in order of importance and
|
|
cost:
|
|
|
|
(1) The greenness of commanders of the smaller tactical units and the
|
|
emotional confusion deriving from the momentum with which they
|
|
are projected afield via the helicopter lift followed by the dash
|
|
to form a defensive circle around the LZ (landing zone). This
|
|
sprint-start blocks understanding that the pace thereafter as the
|
|
unit deploys must be altered radically. The jolt comes of the
|
|
abrupt shift from high gear to low. It is not enough to "slow
|
|
down to a fast trot." Prudence requires nothing more or less
|
|
than a tight reining-in for a fully observant and fully secured
|
|
advance.
|
|
|
|
(2) Pressure from higher commands to "get on with it." There is
|
|
rarely any such urgency except when some other unit has become
|
|
heavily engaged and is gravely endangered. Even then, making
|
|
sure of the degree of urgency to avoid making a bad situation
|
|
worse is the primary obligation of higher command. Too often the
|
|
unit sent post-haste on a rescue act has emerged having taken far
|
|
greater punishment en route than the unit to be rescued. Last,
|
|
it should be noted that such pressures from above are exerted
|
|
much less frequently in Vietnam than in Korea or in World War II.
|
|
|
|
(3) The assignment of a predetermined "objective" that while hardly
|
|
warranting the name implies that Unit Alpha must either link with
|
|
Unit Bravo at Point Niner by 1100 or prove itself remiss. Often
|
|
no situational urgency exists, and the obstacles on the march may
|
|
be greatly unlike for the two units and not have been tactically
|
|
plotted or analyzed. There is nothing wrong with the designation
|
|
of the rendezvous point. The error is made in the assignment of
|
|
a definite hour. Each unit must be allowed to cope properly with
|
|
its own march problems. The first arriving simply take up a
|
|
defensive posture until the second closes.
|
|
|
|
(4) Selecting in advance the location of the night perimeter when too
|
|
little thought has been given to the stress and unavoidable delay
|
|
which may be imposed upon the unit by natural obstacles or minor
|
|
and harassing enemy elements. Forced marches in these conditions
|
|
are usually attributable to the designation of what the map or
|
|
prior reconnaissance has indicated would be a viable LZ. Even if
|
|
it so turns out, it may not be worth the striving, if the
|
|
marching force arrives in a state of exhaustion. A unit closing
|
|
on its night position, and having to go at its defensive
|
|
preparation piecemeal just as darkness descends, is in an acutely
|
|
vulnerable position. There are some marked examples from Paul
|
|
Revere IV, fought in December, 1966, that deserve careful regard.
|
|
The troops were put under a heavy and possibly unnecessary
|
|
handicap by an extended march and late arrival at the ground to
|
|
be defended. Their lack of time in which to organize properly
|
|
gave the enemy an opening advantage. Nonetheless, there was no
|
|
panic. The NVA surprise achieved only limited success. The
|
|
salient feature of these actions was the counter-surprising
|
|
ability of the average U.S. rifleman to react quickly, move
|
|
voluntarily and without awaiting an order to the threatened
|
|
quarter, and get weapons going while the position was becoming
|
|
rounded-out piecemeal under the pressure of direct fire.
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON FOUR - CONTENDING WITH JUNGLE
|
|
|
|
The word "jungle" is too loosely used by U.S. Army combat troops in
|
|
Vietnam to permit of broad generalizations about what tactical formation
|
|
best serves security during movement and conservation of force should
|
|
significant contact ensue. The term is misapplied every day. Men fresh
|
|
from a fight say something like this, "We engaged them in impossibly dense
|
|
jungle." Then a detailed description, or a firsthand visit to the premises,
|
|
reveals it was nothing of the kind; it was merely the thickest bush or
|
|
heaviest tropical forest that they had yet seen.
|
|
|
|
So for the purpose at hand some definition is thought necessary, rough
|
|
though it may be. If troops deployed in line can proceed at a slow walk,
|
|
with one man being able to see three or four others without bunching, and
|
|
each having a view around him somewhere between 20 and 30 meters in depth,
|
|
this is not jungle, though it may be triple-canopied forest. The
|
|
encumbrance to movement out of tangled vegetation and the extreme limiting
|
|
of personal horizon due to the obstruction of matted vines, clumped bamboo,
|
|
or banyan forest with dense undergrowth such as the "wait-a-minute" thorn
|
|
entanglement are evidence of the real thing irrespective of how much
|
|
sunlight permeates the forest top. The impediment to movement and the
|
|
foreshortening of view are the essential military criteria. When we speak
|
|
of jungle we therefore mean the condition of the forest in which forward
|
|
movement is limited to 300-500 meters per hour, and to make this limited
|
|
progress troops must in part hack their way through.
|
|
|
|
When any troop body - our own or the enemy's - is thus confronted, it
|
|
cannot in any real sense maneuver; and the use of that verb is a self-
|
|
contradiction. The troop body can only imperfectly respond to immediate
|
|
pressures which bring one man closer to another in the interests of mutual
|
|
survival and the organic will to resist. The unit so proceeding and not
|
|
yet engaged is best advised to advance single file for lack of any more
|
|
reasonable alternative. Its point - the cutting edge - should be not more
|
|
than 200 meters to the fore, to conserve energy and insure the most prompt
|
|
possible collection in emergency. Serving as both the alarm element and
|
|
the trail-breaker, the point needs to be rotated at not more than one-hour
|
|
intervals, for work sharing. To broaden the front and advance in platoon
|
|
columns doubles the risk and the work without accelerating the rate of
|
|
advance. Should both fronts become engaged simultaneously, being equally
|
|
compromised, the existence of two fronts compounds the problem of over-all
|
|
control and unified response. The column in file, hit at its front, may
|
|
more readily withdraw over the route already broken or reform forward and
|
|
align on the foremost active element, which rarely may extend over more
|
|
than a two-squad front.
|
|
|
|
The data basis on such encounters makes clear that U.S. infantry in
|
|
Vietnam can withstand the shock of combat under these supremely testing
|
|
conditions. A number of the sharpest company-size actions in the 1966
|
|
campaigning were fought and won in dense jungle, and several of these
|
|
encounters have become celebrated. On the other hand, the same data basis
|
|
indicates that this is not a productive field for our arms, and for the
|
|
following reasons:
|
|
|
|
(1) The fight on average becomes joined at ranges between 12 and 20
|
|
meters, which is too close to afford any real advantage to our
|
|
man-carried weapons.
|
|
|
|
(2) Should the top canopy of the jungle be upwards of 40-50 feet high
|
|
our smokes other than WP (white phosphorus) cannot put up a high
|
|
enough plume for the effective marking of a position.
|
|
|
|
(3) Supporting fires, to avoid striking into friendly forces, must
|
|
allow too wide an error margin to influence the outcome
|
|
decisively.
|
|
|
|
(4) Mortars are of no use unless they can be based where overhead
|
|
clearance is available. A highly workable technique being
|
|
employed by units in Vietnam is to fly the mortars into the
|
|
defensive perimeter, LZ permitting, each night and lifting them
|
|
out prior to movement.
|
|
|
|
(5) The advance of reinforcement is often erratic, always ponderous,
|
|
and usually exhausting.
|
|
|
|
(6) Medevac, where not impossible, is almost invariably fraught with
|
|
high unacceptable risk.
|
|
|
|
In the true jungle the enemy has more working for him than in any
|
|
other place where we fight him. But the added difficulties imposed by
|
|
nature cannot exclude the necessity for engaging him there from time to
|
|
time. It is enough here to spell out the special hazards of operating in
|
|
an environment that, more than any other, penalizes unsupported engagement
|
|
by the U.S. rifle unit and calls for maximum utilization of heavy support
|
|
fires at the earliest possible moment. All-important to the unit commander
|
|
is timely anticipation of the problem and the exercise of great caution
|
|
when operating in dense jungle.
|
|
|
|
On the more positive side, according to the record, the jungle as to
|
|
its natural dangers is not the fearsome environment that the imagination
|
|
tends to make it. In all of the fighting operations analyzed, not a single
|
|
U.S. soldier was reported as having been fatally bitten by a snake or
|
|
mauled by a wild animal. In Operation Paul Revere IV, one man was killed
|
|
by a falling tree during a clearing operation, the only such casualty
|
|
recorded. Leeches are an affliction to be suffered occasionally; troops
|
|
endure them and even jest about them, knowing that the discomfort will be
|
|
eased shortly. The same is true of "jungle rot," a passing ailment of the
|
|
skin that usually affects the hands and forearm; it comes of abrasions
|
|
caused by pushing through thorny jungle growth. A few days under the sun
|
|
will dry it up. Most of the fighters who get it do not even bother to take
|
|
leave; they bandage the sores while they are afield, then take the time-
|
|
and-sun cure on their return to base camp. Losses due to malaria can be
|
|
kept minimal by strict adherence to the prescribed discipline. One major
|
|
additional safeguard, within control by the unit leader, is that he
|
|
refrains from marching and working his men to the point of full exhaustion,
|
|
a common sense command practice in all circumstances.
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON FIVE - RATES OF FIRE
|
|
|
|
According to the data basis, the U.S. infantry line in Vietnam
|
|
requires no stimulation whatever to its employment of organic weapons when
|
|
engaged. The fire rate among patrols in heavy, if brief, contact is not
|
|
infrequently 100 percent. Within the rifle company, during engagement
|
|
prolonged for several hours, the rate will run 80 percent or more and the
|
|
only nonfirers will be the rearward administrative element or the more
|
|
critical cases among the early wounded. It is not unusual for one man to
|
|
engage with three or more weapons during the course of a two-hour fight.
|
|
|
|
Except during the first five minutes of unexpected engagement, which
|
|
almost impels an automatic rate, fire control is generally good. The men
|
|
themselves, even in unseasoned units, quickly raise the cry: "Hold your
|
|
ammo! Fire semiautomatic!" No U.S. infantry unit, operating in
|
|
independence, has been forced to withdraw or extract, or made to suffer a
|
|
critical tactical embarrassment, as a result of ammunition shortage.
|
|
Gunners on the M-60 go lighter than in other wars; the average carry is
|
|
1,000 rounds, with 1,200 being about the outside limit. But in no single
|
|
instance have the machineguns ceased fire during a fight because the
|
|
position had run out of machinegun ammunition.
|
|
|
|
When suddenly confronted by small numbers of the enemy, the Americans
|
|
firing their M-16's will in the overwhelming majority of cases miss a
|
|
target fully in view and not yet turning. Whether the firing is done by a
|
|
moving point or by a rifleman sitting steady in an ambush, the results are
|
|
about the same - five total misses out of six tries - and the data basis
|
|
includes several hundred such incidents. The inaccuracy prevails though
|
|
the usual such meeting is at 15 meters or less, and some of the firing is
|
|
at less than 10 feet. An outright kill is most unusual. Most of the waste
|
|
comes from unaimed fire done hurriedly. The fault much of the time is that
|
|
out of excitement the shooter points high, rather than that the M-16 bullet
|
|
lacks knockdown power, a criticism of it often heard from combat-
|
|
experienced NCO's. The VC winged but only wounded by an M-16 bullet, then
|
|
diving into the bush, makes a getaway three times out of four, leaving only
|
|
his pack and a blood trail.
|
|
|
|
As to effectiveness over distance, until recently he data basis
|
|
deriving from 6 major and approximately 50 minor operations contained not
|
|
one episode of VC or NVA being killed by aimed fire from one or more M-16's
|
|
at ranges in excess of 60 meters. Then, out of Operation Cedar Falls in
|
|
January, 1967, there developed 6 examples of such killings at ranges
|
|
upwards of 200 meters. The difference can be explained by the nature of
|
|
the terrain. Most of the kills during this operation were made in the open
|
|
rice paddy.
|
|
|
|
The M-16 has proved itself an ideal weapon for jungle warfare. Its
|
|
high rate of fire, lightweight, and easy-to-pack ammunition have made it
|
|
popular with its carrier. But it cannot take the abuse or receive the
|
|
neglect its older brother, the M-1, could sustain. It must be cleaned and
|
|
checked out whenever the opportunity affords. Commanders need assign top
|
|
billing to the maintenance of the weapon to prevent inordinate battlefield
|
|
stoppages. The new field cleaning kit assists the purpose.
|
|
|
|
The fragmentation hand grenade, a workhorse in the infantryman's
|
|
arsenal of weapons in Korea, is of limited value in jungle fighting. The
|
|
record shows that all infantry fights in the jungle are characterized by
|
|
close in-fighting at ranges from 12 to 20 meters and that the fragmentation
|
|
grenade cannot be accurately delivered because of the dense, thickly
|
|
intertwined and knotted jungle undergrowth that blocks its unrestricted
|
|
flight. In numerous cases it was reported that the grenade striking a vine
|
|
and being deflected would then rebound on its thrower, causing friendly
|
|
casualties.
|
|
|
|
The soldier enters battle with the average of four hand grenades
|
|
strapped to his already overloaded equipment. He has been taught in
|
|
training that the grenade is the weapon for close in-fighting. He learns
|
|
empirically about the difficulty attendant on using a grenade in the bush.
|
|
Many times the record shows that he had to learn his lesson the hard way.
|
|
The data basis shows that fewer than 10 percent - 6 percent being the usage
|
|
factor of World War II - of the grenades carried into battle are ever used.
|
|
The configuration of the grenade itself makes it cumbersome and therefore
|
|
dangerous, as it is carried on the outside of the soldier's equipment and
|
|
is susceptible to any vine and snag that tugs at the safety pin.
|
|
|
|
Out of this research then it may be reckoned that the soldier's load
|
|
could be lightened by two hand grenades and that all commanders should
|
|
closely analyze their unit's techniques for the employment of this weapon.
|
|
Procedures must be developed and then practiced by troops on specially
|
|
prepared jungle hand grenade courses. The trainer should bear in mind
|
|
during this instruction that post-operation analysis of World War II and
|
|
Korea showed that the soldier who had training in sports always excelled
|
|
with the grenade. The information collected in Vietnam fully supports this
|
|
conclusion. The old byword that was once synonymous with the art of
|
|
grenade throwing, "Fire in the Hole," should be brought back in use to warn
|
|
all that a grenade has been dispatched and cover must be sought.
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON SIX - COMMUNICATIONS
|
|
|
|
Not one example has been unearthed of a critical tactical
|
|
disarrangement or defeat suffered by a U.S. infantry unit of any size or by
|
|
an artillery battery because of radio failure or a break in communications.
|
|
Many RT's (radio operators) get shot up and their conspicuous equipment
|
|
invariably attracts the enemy fire. Units are avoiding this hazard by
|
|
concealing the PRC-25 in standard rucksacks. But no less invariably, the
|
|
shift to another frequency or the improvising of a relay saves the day. In
|
|
the defense of LZ Bird on December 26, 1966, all radios went out for one
|
|
reason or another during the high tide of action. Nonetheless, there
|
|
resulted no serious impairment to the action of the small infantry and
|
|
artillery fractions generating counterattack within the perimeter, though
|
|
heavy interdiction of enemy escape routes might have been brought in a few
|
|
minutes earlier had not radios failed. That failure only slightly blurred
|
|
the aftermath to one of the more spectacular U.S. victories of the year.
|
|
|
|
Despite the technological gain in our field communications since the
|
|
Korean War, and it has been truly noteworthy, a serious gap exists in the
|
|
flow of critical information during the time of combat. The pinch is most
|
|
acute at platoon and company level. Some of it is due to the far greater
|
|
mobility of operations in Vietnam, compared to anything we have experienced
|
|
in the past, and it may also be in part attributed to the peculiar nature
|
|
of the war. There are no "little fights" in Vietnam; platoon-size and
|
|
company-size engagements compel the direct attention of top command. It is
|
|
not unusual for the company commander, at the time of engaging the enemy,
|
|
to have his battalion, brigade, and division commanders all directly
|
|
overhead, trying to view the action. Each has some reason for being there.
|
|
But their presence does put an unprecedented strain on the leader at the
|
|
fighting level, and also on his radios, as everyone "comes up" on the
|
|
engaged unit's "freq" to give advice. There are frequently too many
|
|
individuals trying to use the same frequency to permit of any one message
|
|
running to length. So brevity is a rule worked overtime, too often to the
|
|
exclusion of fullness of necessary information. A rule that must be
|
|
followed is that except for rare and unusual circumstances all commanders
|
|
should follow established radio procedures and not "come up" on the radio
|
|
of the next subordinate unit.
|
|
|
|
One further glaring gap is to be noted. When the unit, having had a
|
|
hard go in combat, is relieved or reinforced by another which must continue
|
|
the fight, very rarely does the commander going out tell the full story,
|
|
giving the detail of situation, to the incoming commander. Just as rarely
|
|
does the latter insist on having it. This is an understandable human
|
|
reaction, since both men are under the pressure of the problem immediately
|
|
facing their units in a moment of high tension, the one withdrawing and
|
|
worrying about extricating casualties, the other bent on deploying under
|
|
fire without loss of time. But the danger of not having a full and free
|
|
exchange as the relief begins is that the second unit, left uninformed,
|
|
will at unnecessary cost attack on the same line and repeat the mistakes
|
|
made by the first unit. The record shows unmistakably that lessons bought
|
|
by blood too frequently have to be repurchased.
|
|
|
|
Another weakness common among junior leaders is the inaccurate
|
|
reporting of the estimate of the situation. Estimates are many times
|
|
either so greatly exaggerated or so watered-down that they are not
|
|
meaningful to the next higher commander who must make critical decisions as
|
|
to troop employment and allocation of combat power. The confusion and
|
|
noise of the battlefield are two reasons why faulty estimates are made;
|
|
overemotionalism and the sense of the drama are others. These factors,
|
|
coupled with the judgment of an impulsive commander who feels that he must
|
|
say something on the radio--even if it is wrong--are the crux of the
|
|
problem. Commanders must report the facts as they see them on the
|
|
battlefield. If they don't know the situation, they must say just that!
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON SEVEN - SECURITY ON THE TRAIL
|
|
|
|
Strictures against the use of trails by U.S. forces during the
|
|
approach may be uttered ad nauseam, with emphasis upon the increased danger
|
|
of surprise and ambush. The utterance does not, and will not, alter the
|
|
reality that more than half of the time the U.S. rifle platoon or company
|
|
is moving it will go by trail the full distance or during some stage of the
|
|
journey. In such an area as the Iron Triangle, trails are unavoidable if
|
|
one is to move overland at all; the alternative is to move around by sampan
|
|
and stream. The bush and forest-covered flats flanking Highway No. 13 have
|
|
a network of crisscrossing trails, with as many as five intersections in
|
|
one acre of ground. It is humanly impossible to move across such a tract
|
|
without getting onto a trail.
|
|
|
|
"What's wrong with it? That's where we find the VC," is an argument
|
|
with a certain elementary logic in its favor. That is, provided that
|
|
maximum security measures in moving by trail are punctiliously observed.
|
|
What measures are most effective under varying conditions is a moot
|
|
subject, awaiting statement and standardization before hardening into a
|
|
doctrine. As matters stand, the young infantry commander gropes his way
|
|
and makes his decisions empirically, according to the various pressures
|
|
bearing upon him.
|
|
|
|
For the rifle company not in file column but formed more broadly for
|
|
movement toward the likelihood of contact, the commander again has no firm
|
|
doctrinal guide. The formations adopted vary widely, and the reasoning
|
|
that supports some of the patterns is quite obscure. Within one battalion
|
|
there will be as many designs as there are companies for traversing exactly
|
|
the same piece of terrain. If it is reasonable to believe that there must
|
|
be one optimum formation that best safeguards the security of the body in
|
|
movement, then letting it be done six different ways is hardly reasonable.
|
|
|
|
"Main trails" or "speed trails" in the Vietnam bush average not more
|
|
than 3 1/2 feet in width except at intersections. When a unit goes by
|
|
trail through the heavy bush, it has no alternative to single file.
|
|
Practical working distance between the point and the front of the main body
|
|
should vary according to the roughness of the terrain and how far one can
|
|
see ahead. In Vietnam, as almost anywhere else, the flatter the ground the
|
|
straighter the trail; and if the ground is cut up, then trails are
|
|
tortuous. The scouts should be at 20 and 10 meters beyond the van of the
|
|
point squad, observation permitting. The point squad ought to be relieved
|
|
every hour to assure continued vigilance. At each relief it buttonhooks
|
|
into the bush until the main body comes up, though this in not the practice
|
|
if the column is approaching an intersecting trail or stream bed or coming
|
|
to any built-up area. Once in sight of a stream crossing or trail mouth,
|
|
the scout element (including the point squad) proceeds to check it out,
|
|
after reporting the sighting to the main body. Its surest maneuver is a
|
|
hook forward through the bush over both flanks that should close beyond the
|
|
intersection in sufficient depth to abort any ambush.
|
|
|
|
If the main body closes to within sight of the point while it is so
|
|
moving no real additional jeopardy will result, provided the column marks
|
|
time and maintains interval. During such a halt, any attempt by the main
|
|
body to form a partial perimeter will merely cause bunching. Depending on
|
|
conditions of terrain, visibility, and like factors, the rear of the point
|
|
may be anywhere from 200 to 50 meters ahead of the lead platoon's front
|
|
man. At lesser distance than 50 meters its security value dwindles. The
|
|
VC will let scouts pass an ambush to get at the point, or will pass up the
|
|
point to hit the main body, thereby doubling confusion to the column. The
|
|
double hook forward by the point cuts the danger for all concerned.
|
|
|
|
Nature itself limits the threat of lateral ambush against a column
|
|
going by jungle trail as opposed to one going through tall elephant grass
|
|
or over a path where banks or bushes on either side offer concealment for
|
|
the enemy. The bush is too thick; to put fire on the trail, the field of
|
|
fire from Claymore or machinegun would be too short; too few targets would
|
|
be within reach of any one weapon. A 5- to 10-meter break between squads--
|
|
which does not retard movement--enhances march security.
|
|
|
|
Where making its circular deployment to check out any suspected ambush
|
|
site, the scout element should be supported by the machinegun, which is
|
|
best placed with No. 2 man of the point. An alternative to this move is to
|
|
have the gunner reconnoiter the bush forward with fire; if the bush is
|
|
extra thick, the M-79 may do better. The RT is with the point's last man,
|
|
who serves as breakaway, running the word back should there be instrument
|
|
failure.
|
|
|
|
When a stay-behind party is dropped from the column to check on
|
|
whether it is being trailed, it should peel off from the front of the main
|
|
body and enter the bush without halting the latter's advance. Its maneuver
|
|
is S-shaped so that it takes up automatically a full ambush posture instead
|
|
of being a simple fire block.
|
|
|
|
The column moves on and through the stay-behind group (2 fire teams,
|
|
with a machinegun in the down-trail team). The forward team springs the
|
|
trap as the enemy party comes even. The rear team fires only if the enemy
|
|
doubles back or is too numerous for the forward weapons.
|
|
|
|
Other than in attack on road columns, the enemy does not appear to use
|
|
front-and-rear ambushes, i.e., the delivery of surprise fire from cover by
|
|
a block up front, quickly followed by an attack on rear or midway of the
|
|
column. Except along the wood line of a clearing the "impenetrable" jungle
|
|
does not lend itself to such tactic in assault against a column moving by
|
|
trail. More favorable to the design of the VC and NVA is their use of a
|
|
killing fire from out of concealment against the head of the column from a
|
|
wide spot in the trail. This may be automatic fire or a command-detonated
|
|
mine. Their Chinese made version of the Claymore mine is a potent weapon
|
|
when so employed. It may be hidden within a hollow tree or fixed with
|
|
camouflage in a clump of foliage. The mine is set to command a long
|
|
stretch of trail and is one of the hazards of moving along it.
|
|
|
|
There is no warning and no follow-through; it is a one-weapon affair.
|
|
During Operation Attleboro, a single command-detonated Claymore set in a
|
|
tree killed or wounded 26 men strung out over 40 meters of trail. It was
|
|
fired from 5 meters forward of the front man. The column was rushing from
|
|
battle urgency and the scout element did not take enough time to look over
|
|
the ground thoroughly. The first scout alone had been permitted to pass
|
|
uptrail beyond the weapon. Obviously the formation--point and the front of
|
|
the main body--had become closed too tightly. On the wide trail the
|
|
advance was moving in a fashion that served only to put more people at the
|
|
mercy of the weapon. Had they been following exactly in single file, each
|
|
body would have given more protection to the men that followed.
|
|
|
|
Periodic "cloverleafing" or some variation of that movement by the
|
|
column in movement is supposed to be SOP for field operations in Vietnam.
|
|
The object is to beat out a limited area around the base of the command
|
|
during a security halt or rest halt or before the troops set up the night
|
|
defense. Four patrols may be sent out anywhere from 100 to 500 meters for
|
|
this all-around sweep.
|
|
|
|
Among the cloverleaf variations possible, one has clearly obvious
|
|
advantages. The preferred option, "A," affords a double check timewise
|
|
both forward and rearward of the column's route of advance and makes
|
|
maximum use of the deployment. At all stages of the sweep it also exposes
|
|
a smaller element to the danger of surprise and ambush. The "buttonhook,"
|
|
used extensively by the Australians for ambushing an enemy force that is
|
|
following one of their columns, is in essence the covering of one quadrant
|
|
of the four-circle cloverleaf. It is executed usually over a much smaller
|
|
radius.
|
|
|
|
When a company- or platoon-size patrol conducts sweeps of the vicinity
|
|
before setting up for night defense, the priorities are:
|
|
(1) The arc covering its line of advance into the ground.
|
|
(2) The intervening ground between the perimeter and the LZ, and
|
|
(3) The sector judged least defensible. Particularly if darkness is
|
|
imminent, organization of the position (meaning the assignment of
|
|
sectors and placing of men and weapons, but not necessarily
|
|
digging in) precedes the dispatch of watering parties and the
|
|
placement of LP's.
|
|
|
|
Division and brigade commanders afield stoutly contend that the
|
|
cloverleaf kind of precaution is always taken by patrols, or by a company
|
|
moving cross country in search of the enemy. The same story is told at
|
|
battalion. Analysis of more than 100 company operations at the fighting
|
|
level reveals that the story very rarely stands up. The average junior
|
|
leader simply gives lip service to the principle. Just as trails are used
|
|
despite all taboos, most of the time little scouting takes place outward
|
|
from the U.S. column traversing them, despite all admonition. Contributing
|
|
to the almost habitual carelessness of junior leaders is a besetting
|
|
vagueness on the part of many superiors in stating the mission and making
|
|
it specific as to its several essentials. The unit should not be told to
|
|
"check out" a certain area, or to "run a patrol through the jungle patch
|
|
ahead and return," as if it were the simple problem of putting a policeman
|
|
on a beat. Each patrol should have a stated purpose. It risks hazard to
|
|
gain something; it must therefore be told what it is after. Prisoners?
|
|
Ambushing of the enemy? Destruction of a bridge? Caches? Location of a
|
|
suspected base camp? Observe signs of enemy movement but not engage? Seek
|
|
a trail entrance? The list of possibilities is long. But if the average
|
|
leader is given only a general instruction he will comply in the easiest
|
|
way, and nine times out of ten that means taking the trail, probably the
|
|
same trail going and coming. If he is told at the start, "Be at LZ Lazy
|
|
Zebra by 1800 for extraction," and he discovers that too little time has
|
|
been allowed to do anything well, the door is open for him to go forth and
|
|
do all things badly. Command must safeguard its upcoming patrol against
|
|
the danger of becoming trapped from having beaten over the same old route.
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON EIGHT - THE COMPANY IN MOVEMENT
|
|
|
|
One large unresolved question is what formation is best for the rifle
|
|
company in movement under the conditions of the Vietnam war where the enemy
|
|
is highly elusive, seeks contact only when he expects to stage a surprise,
|
|
is adept at breaking contact and slipping away, and operates in a
|
|
countryside that well serves these tactics.
|
|
|
|
The VC and NVA are not everywhere, though they are apt to be met
|
|
anywhere, and hence all movement should be regulated accordingly. No
|
|
deployment is militarily sound which assumes that the enemy is not close
|
|
by. If that axiom were not true, there would be no rush to form the
|
|
defensive perimeter when the unit is dropped on the landing zone. Yet it
|
|
is too often disregarded in jungle movement by leaders who refuse to
|
|
believe that the enemy can strike without warning from out of nowhere
|
|
|
|
There is a great variety to the countryside. The less-dense jungle
|
|
has more the nature of a tropical forest in the matted thorn bush, clumped
|
|
bamboo, bamboo thicket, creepers, and lianas do not greatly impede
|
|
movement. There are vast stretches of still more open country, almost
|
|
treeless, flats covered only with elephant grass standing higher than any
|
|
living thing, barren volcanic hills, paddy lands uninterrupted save by
|
|
their own banks, and dikes that stretch on for miles.
|
|
|
|
Some areas are densely populated. Others are wholly abandoned, even
|
|
by the enemy. In January, 1967 a Special Forces patrol, which had been on
|
|
its own for 32 days, marched 230 kilometers in 22 days without seeing one
|
|
human being, domesticated animal, or habitation.
|
|
|
|
Vietnam is not "mostly untamed jungle." Large and decisively
|
|
important parts of it are cultivated flat land denuded of forest and bush
|
|
except along the stream banks. Almost as much of it is fertile, relatively
|
|
flat, not heavily forested or overgrown, but still undeveloped and almost
|
|
deserted. In the central plateau there are broad lava flows where no grass
|
|
grows. Some of the volcanic hills are boulder and slab-strewn and almost
|
|
barren of vegetation.
|
|
|
|
Any of these landscapes is likely to become battleground, and several
|
|
of them in combination may be crossed by a rifle company in a single day's
|
|
march.
|
|
|
|
The question of what formation best serves military movement over such
|
|
a greatly diversified land may be answered only by thinking of what is
|
|
being sought: (1) security, (2) control, and (3) concentration of fire
|
|
power without undue loss of time and personnel. These are not in any way
|
|
separate aims; each reacts upon the others. Security and control are
|
|
desired so that fire concentration can be achieved when nothing else counts
|
|
more.
|
|
|
|
So the precept must follow: the more complicated a formation and the
|
|
more numerous its parts, the greater the danger that control will be lost
|
|
in a moment of emergency, especially when the unit is moving over
|
|
countryside the nature of which prohibits visual contact between the
|
|
various elements.
|
|
|
|
Yet "the wedge," which has numerous variations, is the formation that
|
|
the average U.S. rifle company commander prefers to use during advance into
|
|
enemy country. It is extremely difficult to control during marches over
|
|
cut-up ground and possesses no inherent advantage in bringing fire power to
|
|
bear quickly against the threatened quarter. In fact, it has several
|
|
built-in handicaps.
|
|
|
|
The forward platoon in center and the two platoons right and left each
|
|
use a point, with scouts out. So there are never less than seven elements
|
|
to control. That is several too many, should the body have to re-form
|
|
suddenly to meet an assault from an unexpected direction. Thus formed, the
|
|
company extends over a wider area than if the columns were more compact,
|
|
though the advantage is decidedly marginal. Nothing else is to be said in
|
|
favor of the wedge, for its design neither strengthens security on the move
|
|
nor favors rapid and practical deployment for combat. If the formation
|
|
should be hit from either flank, greater confusion will ensue than with a
|
|
simpler pattern. Should the enemy be set up and ready to fight on a
|
|
concealed broad front directly to the fore, all three columns are likely to
|
|
become engaged before the commander has a chance to weigh whether full-
|
|
scale involvement is desirable.
|
|
|
|
On the other hand, suppose that the company is making its approach
|
|
march in 2-column formation. The width between columns should be
|
|
approximately equal to their length when the terrain permits. If either
|
|
column is hit from the flank and faces toward the fire, the other is
|
|
automatically in place to serve as a reserve and protect against a turning
|
|
maneuver. Further, if the advance guard (scouts and point) draws fire in
|
|
volume signifying enemy determination to stand, the force is in position
|
|
either to be committed whole at once or to fight on a narrower front with
|
|
half of its strength while keeping a 50 percent reserve.
|
|
|
|
When the enemy fire and the condition of the advance element permit,
|
|
the scouts and point should displace to rearward as the company shifts to
|
|
line of skirmishers, lest the whole organization be drawn willy-nilly into
|
|
a full-scale commitment. In the Vietnam fighting, according to the data
|
|
basis, the latter initial disarrangement occurs approximately half the time
|
|
in attacks on a fortified position. The scouts or the men in the point
|
|
become engaged and take losses; the lead platoon becomes scattered and
|
|
disorganized in the effort to extricate them; the fire line thereafter
|
|
gradually becomes reknit on ground too far forward, greatly to its
|
|
disadvantage and harshly limiting the supporting air and artillery fires.
|
|
|
|
Much is heard in Vietnam about VC and NVA employment of the inverted L
|
|
ambush. This tactic gets its effects from an intensifying concentration of
|
|
fire. The enemy normally fights out of timber or other natural cover, and
|
|
the flanking side usually runs parallel to a trail. The twin-column
|
|
company formation is far more properly disposed to cope with the L than is
|
|
the wedge or any eccentric formation, particularly if it is moving with a
|
|
few flankers out, a practice it should adopt wherever natural conditions
|
|
permit. In fact, almost anywhere that the enemy can use the L ambush
|
|
practically, our people can use flankers to serve as a buffer.
|
|
|
|
The righthand column, in the correct position, needs only face right
|
|
to engage. The lefthand column moves into line against the enemy force
|
|
blocking the line of movement. The company CP is located according to the
|
|
intensity of fire and availability of cover.
|
|
|
|
So confronted, the enemy loses any initial advantage in fire or
|
|
maneuver, and his problem of collecting forces to alter the terms of the
|
|
contest is probably more complex, since he had planned to execute a set
|
|
piece. The data basis is too limited to warrant generalizing about VC-NVA
|
|
tactical arrangements for exploiting the L ambush. But in the few examples
|
|
when the fight went to a finish, the enemy reserves were placed to support
|
|
the vertical bar of the L. This is the logical way to employ them if an
|
|
ultimate envelopment is the object.
|
|
|
|
Whether to accept line-against-line engagement on these terms, however
|
|
equal, is the prime question for the U.S. force commander from the start of
|
|
action. He may not have any option initially because his position may have
|
|
been weakened by early losses before he was able to get the feel of his
|
|
problem. At any stage it is preferable that, maintaining loose contact in
|
|
the interim, he backs away with the main body as promptly as he can. At
|
|
the same time he should call for maximum striking power against the enemy
|
|
positions. The L ambush, by reason of its configuration, is an ideal
|
|
target for field artillery and tactical air operating in combination. The
|
|
vertical bar is the prime target for the artillery--gun-target line
|
|
permitting--because it can be worked over with maximum economy and minimum
|
|
shifting of the guns. The horizontal bar is the proper mark for TAC Air
|
|
because the boundaries of the run may be more readily marked manually when
|
|
a withdrawal is perpendicular to the line of advance than when the strike
|
|
parallels the line of advance and withdrawal.
|
|
|
|
There is one postscript dealing with the enemy use of the L ambush.
|
|
The examples of record indicate that the enemy reserve will maneuver in an
|
|
attempt to block our line of withdrawal. The effort normally takes the
|
|
form of setting the ambush along the first stream or trail crossing on the
|
|
immediate rear. Withdrawal over the same route used in the advance is
|
|
therefore to be avoided. The movement should be an oblique from the open
|
|
flank where the enemy has not engaged.
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON NINE - RUSES, DECOYS, AND AMBUSHES
|
|
|
|
To begin, at least one generalization is permissible. The enemy
|
|
-- VC or NVA -- has a full bag of tricks, a fair number of which we now
|
|
understand. Practically without exception they are not intricate. Most
|
|
of them depend for effectiveness on creating one of two illusions: either
|
|
(1), our side has caught the enemy off guard; or (2), he is ready, waiting,
|
|
and weak, and we have only to make the most of the opportunity.
|
|
|
|
One other generalization might well follow. The U.S. unit commander,
|
|
if he is to keep his guard up against ruses and ambushes, must be receptive
|
|
to the counsel of his subordinates and draw on the total of information
|
|
concerning the immediate presence of the enemy that has been collected by
|
|
his people. Nothing more greatly distinguishes U.S. generalship in
|
|
Vietnam than the ready communion between our higher commanders and their
|
|
subordinates at all levels in the interest of making operations more
|
|
efficient. If a general sets the example, why should any junior leader
|
|
hold back? For his own purposes, the best and the most reliable
|
|
intelligence that a small unit commander can go on is that which his own
|
|
men gather through movement and observation in the field.
|
|
|
|
On the bright side, the record shows unmistakably, with numerous cases
|
|
in point out of the 1966-7 period of fighting operations, that the average
|
|
U.S. soldier today in Vietnam has a sharper scouting sense and is more
|
|
alert to signs of the enemy than the man of Korea or World War II. The
|
|
environment has whetted that keenness and quickened his appreciation of any
|
|
indication that people other than his own are somewhere close by, either in
|
|
a wilderness or in an apparently deserted string of hamlets. He feels it
|
|
almost instinctively when the unit is on a cold trail. The heat of ashes
|
|
that look long dead to the eye, a few grains of moist rice still clinging
|
|
to the bowl, the freshness of footprints where wind and weather have not
|
|
had time to blur the pattern in the dust, fresh blood on a castoff bandage,
|
|
the sound of brush crackling in a way not suggesting other than movement by
|
|
man -- he gets these things. Walking through elephant grass, he will note
|
|
where over a fresh-made track the growth has been beaten down and bruised,
|
|
and with moisture still fresh on the broken grass he will guess that a body
|
|
of the enemy has moved through within the hour. These things are in the
|
|
record. Also in it are words like these: "We entered the village. It was
|
|
empty. But the smell of their bodies was strong, as if they had just got
|
|
out. They have a different smell than we do."
|
|
|
|
How the quickening process works, how the senses sharpen when soldiers
|
|
are alert to all phenomena about them, and how a commander may profit by
|
|
collecting all that his men know and feel about the developing situation,
|
|
is well illustrated by quoting directly from a post-combat interview of a
|
|
patrol out of 25th Division in early 1967:
|
|
|
|
Lieutenant: "I noticed that between 1700 and 1800 all traffic stopped
|
|
within the village. That was early and therefore unusual. The workers
|
|
disappeared. Women came along, rounded up the water buffalo, and quit the
|
|
area. People in the houses near the perimeter ate a quick evening meal and
|
|
go out. Everything went silent. I knew then something would happen."
|
|
|
|
Sergeant: "I saw people leaving the house to my right front about 25
|
|
meters. Then directly to my front, 150 meters off, the family left at the
|
|
same time. We took fire from the house when the enemy came on."
|
|
|
|
It is the task of the unit commander not only to stimulate a scouting
|
|
faculty in all hands but to welcome and weigh all field intelligence that
|
|
comes of so doing. Even the hunch of one man far down the line is never to
|
|
be brushed off; he may have a superior instinct for sensing a situation.
|
|
|
|
In one of the more tragic incidents during 1966 operations near the
|
|
Cambodian border, a company commander was warned by a Specialist 4
|
|
artillery observer before it happened. the company had spent the night in
|
|
defensive perimeter. An NVA soldier had walked into one of its trail
|
|
ambushes during the night, and the men working the LP's reported their
|
|
certainty that they had heard human movement all during the night in the
|
|
grass beyond them. When the company broke camp soon after first light, the
|
|
Specialist 4, viewing the ground over which it would advance that morning,
|
|
said: "Captain, don't go that way, you are walking into an ambush." This
|
|
advice was disregarded. The ambush was there. The losses were grievous.
|
|
Developments proved doubly that the Specialist 4 was a responsible soldier
|
|
whose judgments deserved respect. In the ensuing fight, the captain was
|
|
wounded and could no longer function. The Specialist 4 took charge of the
|
|
operation and with help brought the survivors through.
|
|
|
|
Whenever the enemy makes his presence obvious and conspicuous, whether
|
|
during movement or in a stationary and seemingly unguarded posture, it is
|
|
time to be wary and to ask the question: "Is this the beginning of some
|
|
design of his own, intended to suck us in by making us believe that we are
|
|
about to snare him?" This question should be asked before any operation,
|
|
whether it involves a division moving against the enemy or a small patrol
|
|
or rifle company beating out the bush in search of his presence. The
|
|
people we are fighting are not innocents and are rarely careless. They
|
|
bait their traps the greater part of the time by making themselves so seem.
|
|
|
|
In Operation Nathan Hale, June 1966, the opening onfall of the NVA
|
|
forces engaging was against three CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group
|
|
-- a paramilitary organization) companies at and around the Special Forces
|
|
camp at Dong Tre. In this, they were partially successful. The one
|
|
company outposting the nearby hills was overrun and took heavy losses. The
|
|
NVA was waiting outside the camp to strike the expected relief column; but
|
|
the CIDG Force, located inside the Dong Tre camp, was saved from disaster
|
|
when its ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) commander wisely resisted
|
|
the temptation to send it to relieve the beleaguered company. During the
|
|
day that followed air observers over the general area reported seeing enemy
|
|
groups in large numbers threading the valleys leading away from Dong Tre,
|
|
all moving in one direction. That was the picture the enemy intended
|
|
should be seen; he had already chosen his battle ground. As the U.S.
|
|
reaction expanded and the general fight developed, our forces deployed into
|
|
well-prepared and extremely hot LZ's where our softening-up fires had had
|
|
mainly the effect of drawing attention to where the landings would take
|
|
place. That in the end Operation Nathan Hale could be rightly claimed as
|
|
an American victory does not alter the fact that much of it need not have
|
|
been won in the hardest possible way. North Vietnam made much of it, and
|
|
in documents published to troops boasted that more than one thousand
|
|
Americans had been killed, an approximately 10 to 1 exaggeration. With a
|
|
more perfect collation of available intelligence from the start and in the
|
|
first days as the units deployed, it might have been a more resounding U.S.
|
|
victory.
|
|
|
|
Here, one clear distinction is in order. The NVA and VC are neither
|
|
everywhere nor phantomlike. Though they try to appear so, they are of
|
|
human flesh and must respond to their own nature, irrespective of the
|
|
disciplines given them within military organization. On the trail, or
|
|
during any movement in which they have no reason to suspect the near
|
|
presence of a U.S. or allied force, they are incessant chatterers and
|
|
otherwise noisy. Repeatedly they get sandbagged for carelessness. As to
|
|
their being everywhere, it would be easier to dispose of them if that were
|
|
true. Some of our line commanders at the lower levels get the idea after
|
|
fighting for a while in Vietnam that, whenever our columns move, the enemy
|
|
knows and invariably shadows them. Nothing in the data basis confirms it,
|
|
and indeed, with our vastly superior mobility due to helicopter deployment
|
|
over great distance, it would be humanly impossible for him to shadow every
|
|
assault by the rifle company or every prowl by the patrol. What the record
|
|
does say unmistakably is that a fair portion of the time he manages to get
|
|
on our heels. The moral plainly is that, in all movement afield, the
|
|
column should proceed as if detection may have occurred early, and should
|
|
take the necessary precautions to avert surprise.
|
|
|
|
It is a different problem when there is clear reason to believe that
|
|
the enemy knows of the presence of U.S. forces. Take one example of
|
|
numerous such incidents. This one is from Operation Crazy Horse. A
|
|
company column had been proceeding via a broad valley along the river
|
|
banks. At some low-lying hills it was held up for five minutes by direct
|
|
fire from two or three rifles at range of 100 meters or thereabouts. The
|
|
exchange was broken off without casualties on either side when the enemy
|
|
faded back. There was reason to suspect that the fire had come from an
|
|
enemy outpost, so placed not only to sound the alarm but to keep the attack
|
|
moving along the line of the enemy withdrawal. The suspicion was well
|
|
founded because not far beyond the initial encounter lay a well-prepared,
|
|
fortified position, with machineguns sited on ridges and the garrison
|
|
standing to, ready to defend them.
|
|
|
|
A few VC or NVA soldiers, acting as couriers, carriers, or such,
|
|
having a chance meeting with a U.S. column in movement, might get off a
|
|
quick shot or two before scuttling into the bush. But any such casual
|
|
group has a getaway on its mind primarily. This kind of haphazard fire is
|
|
quite different from steady delivery of small arms fire from one position,
|
|
though the latter is in small volume and persists for only a few minutes.
|
|
The latter, seemingly aimed to check or delay movement, may more likely
|
|
have the prime object of inviting it on. It should alert the unit
|
|
commander to the probable imminence of a prolonged fire fight, and he
|
|
should review his preparations accordingly.
|
|
|
|
So we speak here of the obvious or overt move, or attention-getting
|
|
activity in any form. Even a minor weapons exchange always alerts a unit.
|
|
But beyond that, the commander should take heed of any unusual
|
|
manifestation of sight or sound when his troops are seeking contact with
|
|
the enemy. One illustration comes out of Operation Paul Revere IV, and
|
|
while there is none other exactly like it, simple logic gives it overall
|
|
significance.
|
|
|
|
The rifle company had been moving over fairly open country not far
|
|
from the Cambodian border since first light. In late afternoon, it several
|
|
times encountered NVA soldiers moving singly and the scouts or point traded
|
|
fires with them, with varying results. Then as the company approached a
|
|
village, it heard the tumult of voices, shouts and cries, from children,
|
|
men, and women, as of many people making haste to get away before the
|
|
Americans arrived. But is it a natural thing for people fleeing for cover,
|
|
in the face of an armed advance, to call attention to their departure?
|
|
Without firing, the company deployed and surrounded the village, to find it
|
|
empty. It then moved on, following in the same direction that the
|
|
"refugees" had taken. Dark was at hand. Not far beyond the village the
|
|
company came to fairly clear ground slightly elevated that looked suitable
|
|
for night defense. Watering parties moved out to a nearby creek to
|
|
replenish supply. Before they could return, and while the perimeter was
|
|
still not more than half formed, the position was attacked by an NVA force
|
|
in company-plus strength. It had been deployed on ground over which the
|
|
watering parties moved. The most heartening part of the story is that the
|
|
U.S. company, on its first time in battle, sprang to its task, got its
|
|
defensive circle tied together quickly, and in a four-hour fight under
|
|
wholly adverse conditions greatly distinguished itself. In view of the
|
|
scenario, any conclusion that the enemy just happened to be set at the
|
|
right point is a little too much to allow for coincidence.
|
|
|
|
Mystification, like over optimistic anticipation, rates high in the
|
|
techniques of deception. We use ruses in our own cover planning; that the
|
|
enemy does the same, and that his designs are more primitive, relying less
|
|
on elaborate charades and more on the foibles of man's nature, should
|
|
occasion little surprise. Traps beset us only because of a reluctance on
|
|
the part of junior leaders to give the other side credit for that small
|
|
measure of cleverness. To outthink the enemy, it is necessary only to
|
|
reflect somewhat more deeply.
|
|
|
|
During the Tou Morong battle (Operation Hawthorne II) in June 1966, a
|
|
reconnaissance platoon had a rather unproductive morning. It came at last
|
|
to an enemy camp that was deserted. Several meters beyond it the main
|
|
trail branched off where two trails came together, both of them winding
|
|
uphill. At the intersection was a sign reading in Vietnamese: "Friend Go
|
|
This Way." There were two pointing fingers, one aimed at each uphill
|
|
trail. It was a time for caution and for reporting the find to higher
|
|
command. But the commander split his force and the divided platoon moved
|
|
upward via both trails. En route, both columns exchanged fires with a few
|
|
NVA soldiers who held their ground on both trails. There were light losses
|
|
on both sides. The two columns began to converge again as they approached
|
|
a draw commanded by a ridge fold from both sides. There they ran into
|
|
killing fire and were pinned in a fight that lasted through that afternoon,
|
|
all night, and until next morning. Before it ended, the great part of two
|
|
U.S. rifle companies and all the supporting fires that could be brought to
|
|
bear had been called in to help extricate the eight surviving able-bodied
|
|
men and the wounded of what had been a 42-man platoon.
|
|
|
|
In warfare fought largely platoon against platoon and company against
|
|
company, the true situation is not made plain in most cases until the two
|
|
sides begin a close exchange of flat trajectory fires. Until then we may
|
|
speculate, but we do not know the reality; the hard facts of reality can be
|
|
developed only stage by stage as the fire fight progresses. During the
|
|
approach, however, the leader takes nothing for granted and continues to
|
|
look for a plant. The enemy has many ruses, and if something new and novel
|
|
did not appear from day to day he would soon lose all ability to surprise.
|
|
That is why all such items in company or higher command experience should
|
|
be reported and circulated for the benefit of all concerned. It is only
|
|
through cross-checking and the accumulation of more data that the larger
|
|
significance of any one action, device, or stratagem may be given full
|
|
weight.
|
|
|
|
Two days after Christmas, 1966, two NVA prisoners fell into our hands
|
|
in III Corps Zone. They both told this story. A group of American POW's
|
|
were being held in an enemy base camp near the Cambodian border. The NVA
|
|
prisoners gave the same numbers and pointed to the same spot on the map.
|
|
The chance to liberate a group of fellow soldiers was certain to appeal to
|
|
Americans at this or any other season of the year. Nothing in the incident
|
|
itself was calculated to arouse suspicion. So with utmost secrecy, an
|
|
expedition was mounted.
|
|
|
|
But it happened that on the same day on the far side of the country
|
|
two NVA soldiers surrendered to forces of the 1st Air Cavalry Division
|
|
operating in Binh Dinh Province. They were followed in by an ARVN soldier
|
|
who told of having just escaped from an enemy prison camp. These three men
|
|
related a common experience. They had seen three U.S. soldiers of the 1st
|
|
Air Cavalry Division in captivity at a spot not far from the Soui Ca
|
|
valley. One was a "Negro with tattoos on his left arm," a detail of
|
|
description which should have raised an eyebrow, the U.S. Negro soldier not
|
|
being given to that practice. On checking the records, the division found
|
|
it had no MIA's tallying with the descriptions. But thinking the prisoners
|
|
were from some other U.S. outfit, it prepared to launch, again with utmost
|
|
secrecy, a rescue expedition.
|
|
|
|
The other rescue party had gone forth several days earlier and found
|
|
nothing. But the try had been made in battalion strength. The air cavalry
|
|
division also mounted a battalion operation and put a heavy preparatory
|
|
fire on the landing zone. This bag also proved to be empty. There was no
|
|
sign any prisoners had been at the spot indicated. The coincidence,
|
|
followed up by the double failure, is the best reason for believing that,
|
|
had one company or less been sent, it would have deployed into an ambush.
|
|
There is no final proof.
|
|
|
|
Under hot pursuit, the enemy is adept at quickly changing into peasant
|
|
garb and hiding his identity by mingling with the civilian crowd. That is
|
|
why he carries several sets of clothing in his haversack and why we find
|
|
them in his caches. The data basis shows that he will go on the attack
|
|
using women and children to screen his advance. When no option but
|
|
surrender or death is left him, he will employ the same kind of protection.
|
|
During Operation Cedar Falls, in January 1967, women and children would
|
|
come first out of a hut or bunker making the noises and gesture of the
|
|
helpless in distress. They would be followed by the VC, some with arms
|
|
lowered, others with hands empty and raised. Troops are able to cope with
|
|
this problem without any cost to life; but it requires extraordinary
|
|
alertness coupled with restraint.
|
|
|
|
Ambushing occurs only when men become careless. With any truce or
|
|
cease-fire, there comes the temptation to relax and neglect accustomed
|
|
safeguards, and the enemy takes all possible advantage of it. The
|
|
Christmas afternoon ambushing of a patrol in 1st Infantry Division sector
|
|
is one instance. The patrol advanced on a broad front sweep across a rice
|
|
paddy directly toward a tree line. The ambush was set and ready to fire
|
|
from just inside the tree line. If the patrol had to cross the paddy, it
|
|
took the one worst way to do it, particularly since the dikes and banks
|
|
afforded at least partial cover for several columns.
|
|
|
|
To advance along a trail up a draw under an open sky without first
|
|
scouting the shoulders or knobs above it, or putting strafing fires on
|
|
them, is the hard road to entrapment. Those knobs are a favored siting for
|
|
machinegun emplacements by the NVA and the VC, the draw is the beaten zone,
|
|
and the bunker roofs are seldom more than a foot above ground (fig. 18).
|
|
|
|
That the platoon leading the company column makes the passage safely
|
|
without drawing one shot by no means indicates it is unguarded. To the
|
|
contrary, the enemy by choice tends to let it pass, so as to involve the
|
|
entire company. If fire were to be placed on the point or leading files of
|
|
the first platoon, the column would recoil and then deploy for a sweep. To
|
|
spring such an ambush, the enemy will risk allowing the lead platoon to get
|
|
on his rear since in jungle country, where there is no trail into the
|
|
emplaced guns, being on the rear begets no real advantage. The platoon
|
|
must either double back over the trail at the risk of being ambushed on the
|
|
other side of the draw or it must spend an hour hacking its way through
|
|
jungle to get to the target.
|
|
|
|
The ambushing of a road column, done by maneuver bodies rather than by
|
|
fire out of fixed positions, necessarily takes a quite different form. It
|
|
is usually a double strike out of cover, not made simultaneously, but so
|
|
synchronized and weighted that the stopping-stalling effect is produced
|
|
first by the weaker element against the head of the column, the main body
|
|
then moving to roll up the force from its tail. The two moves are timed
|
|
closely enough together that the column is engaged from both ends before it
|
|
can deploy and face toward either danger (fig. 19).
|
|
|
|
The VC-NVA will spring this kind of trap only out of slightly higher
|
|
ground where there is some kind of cover for automatic guns within 50
|
|
meters of the road or less. The bunching of any column simply makes the
|
|
opportunity more favorable and the risk safer. The VC-NVA prefer a bend-
|
|
in-the-road situation for setting such a trap. The reason is obvious: out
|
|
of sight, the tail of the column does not sense what is happening to the
|
|
head in the critical moments, a handicap that increases the chance that the
|
|
column will split apart and try to fight two separate actions. Given
|
|
adequate air cover (either Air Force or Army reconnaissance aircraft or
|
|
gunships), any column would be immune to such attack. In lieu of these, an
|
|
artillery dusting of the flankward ground wherever its characteristics are
|
|
favorable to an entrapment, and just prior to the coming up of the column,
|
|
would be a great disarranger. Is artillery used that way in Vietnam? Too
|
|
rarely, which is not the fault of the gunners. The trouble is that some
|
|
commanders think of a road march as just that and nothing more; by so doing
|
|
they scorn elementary precautions.
|
|
|
|
There is still another dimension to this subject, far more sinister in
|
|
its import. That the enemy will employ the live bodies of his own men as
|
|
decoys to lure our troops forward and set them up before a hastily
|
|
contrived ambush or well-concealed but fortified position, the data basis
|
|
leaves no room for doubting. It shows, furthermore, that live decoys are
|
|
used at such short range and so fully exposed to our fire as to create a
|
|
better than even prospect that their lives will be forfeit.
|
|
|
|
If any such ruse were to be employed regularly by the enemy, the trick
|
|
would shortly wear itself out, which is true of any stratagem. It has,
|
|
however, been employed often enough that his occasional recourse to it
|
|
should be accepted as fact, though American conditioning is such as to make
|
|
us skeptical that this degree of fanaticism is possible even in the Viet
|
|
Cong. There are eight incidents in the record of this nature.
|
|
|
|
In two incidents, the physical circumstances were such as to exclude
|
|
the possibility that they just happened that way through accident rather
|
|
than by deliberate design. Taken together, their lesson is so glaring as
|
|
to warrant saying to any unit commander or patrol leader: "If you come upon
|
|
a jungle clearing and you see two or three or even one enemy soldier with
|
|
back turned, or you are moving fairly in the open, and you see a few NVA or
|
|
VC moving at distance with backs turned, never facing about, watch out!
|
|
The chances are very good that you are being led into a trap."
|
|
|
|
The turned back is the surest sign. It is positively enticing. It
|
|
reads like the invitation on the small airport truck: "Follow Me!" The
|
|
effect is to nourish the hope that the maneuvering formation has caught the
|
|
enemy unaware and is on the track of something big. That may be half true,
|
|
but the something big is as the enemy planned it.
|
|
|
|
Incident No. 1. A 1st Infantry Division platoon with 32 men was
|
|
patrolling not far from War Zone C. Several hundred meters short of its
|
|
turnaround point, it entered upon a jungle clearing, keyhole-shaped, about
|
|
150 meters from tree line to tree line. In column, the patrol strung out
|
|
along the trail until all but the last four men were in the open. By then
|
|
the head of the column was two-thirds of the way across the clearing. At
|
|
that juncture, the point saw three VC soldiers, backs turned. They stood
|
|
15 meters to the fore, 10 meters short of the tree line. Without turning,
|
|
they darted away obliquely toward the trees. The lead files twisted about
|
|
to pursue. The M-79 gunner got off a round and thought he hit one or two
|
|
of the men just as they disappeared into the tree line. The turning of the
|
|
column in pursuit of the men spread it neatly in front of the killing
|
|
ambush, arrayed just inside the tree line. Is it conceivable that with the
|
|
ambushers watching the approach of the column over several minutes and
|
|
getting ready to blast it down, the three pigeons standing with backs
|
|
turned not more than 30 meters from them were unwarned?
|
|
|
|
Incident No. 2 An American company was on a search-and-destroy
|
|
mission close to the Cambodian border. Its scouts saw two NVA soldiers
|
|
standing 200 meters away on a small hill, their backs turned
|
|
(at A). These decoys walked off to the westward without ever turning.
|
|
The company followed. Getting too close to the Cambodian border, the
|
|
commander called for artillery fires on the bush into which the two decoys
|
|
had disappeared (at B) rather than take the chance of pursuing them into
|
|
neutral territory. The company then turned back to the pivotal point from
|
|
which it had started westward, feeling the chance was lost. It paused
|
|
there a moment before marching south. Just then an NCO happened to look
|
|
back at the hill where the two NVA's were first sighted. There stood two
|
|
more figures in khaki, wearing military helmets (at A). They too had their
|
|
backs turned, though the U.S. company had been moving about conspicuously
|
|
in the open for almost an hour. The two pigeons stood right where the
|
|
others had been, within killing range, not more than 200 meters away. The
|
|
company did not fire them -- and that was a mistake. The two NVA's never
|
|
did face about. Deploying, the company advanced toward them, moving
|
|
broadside against the face of the hill (at C). It got within a stone's
|
|
throw of the base before there was any fire. Then it broke like a storm
|
|
-- automatic, grenade rocket. On the crest of the low hill was a major NVA
|
|
force in concealment, with earth protection. The U.S. line was pinned at
|
|
once. In the three-hour engagement that followed, it took a bloody
|
|
beating. In the end, what was left of the enemy garrison withdrew to
|
|
Cambodia. Accident? Coincidence? Common sense rejects the idea. The
|
|
enemy baited a trap, perhaps not too skillfully. But it worked.
|
|
|
|
The enemy does employ agents and double agents. He does contrive to
|
|
plant stories through them which are accepted at face value. He does
|
|
resort to such stale devices as planting a fake operations order on the
|
|
corpse of an officer. Such hoaxes are occasionally swallowed whole instead
|
|
of being taken with a grain of salt, better yet, a shakerful.
|
|
|
|
These, then are the ruses, decoys, and ambushes that hurt worst, not
|
|
the narrow fire blocks rigged at the turning of a jungle trail, which
|
|
seldom take more than a small toll. In these small affairs, engagement
|
|
usually takes place at not more than 10 to 20 meters' range. At any longer
|
|
distance than that, particularly in night operations, fire is not apt to be
|
|
successful. The enemy has no special magic in that setting, with that
|
|
tactic. We can beat him at his own game; the record so proves. The big
|
|
ambushes, in which he contrives to mousetrap anything from a platoon-size
|
|
patrol to the greater part of a battalion, are his forte, his big gambit,
|
|
his one hold on the future. Foil these, deny him surprise on the defense,
|
|
frustrate the designs by which he inflicts shock losses in the first stage
|
|
of encounter, and there will be nothing going for him that will offset his
|
|
dwindling power to organize and press hard in the attack.
|
|
|
|
The job can be done. We can manage it by a more careful scrutiny of
|
|
the seeming opportunity -- the thing that looks too good to be true. We
|
|
can avoid the staged entrapments of the enemy by reacting always, to any
|
|
and every indication of his presence, as if he is right there in the
|
|
foreground in main strength.
|
|
|
|
Simply for the sake of emphasis, it is here repeated that in this war
|
|
a lone rifle shot means little or nothing. An automatic weapon opening
|
|
fire usually means business. When two or more automatic weapons open at
|
|
one time at close range, something big is almost certain to begin.
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON TEN - FIELD INTELLIGENCE
|
|
|
|
In the battle of Bu Gia Map fought in May 1966, a reinforced battalion
|
|
from the 101st Airborne Division engaged for two days against a large enemy
|
|
force one day's march from the Cambodian border. By making the wisest
|
|
possible use of supporting artillery and air power, the commander destroyed
|
|
the greater part of an NVA battalion. It was a resounding victory.
|
|
|
|
Yet it pivoted altogether on a persistent questing for intelligence by
|
|
men in the unit at the time of the operation. To begin, the battalion had
|
|
no target of real promise, and after the first few days of searching the
|
|
mission seemed futile. On a hunch, the commander made a personal
|
|
reconnaissance by Huey to an abandoned airstrip 30 minutes flight distance
|
|
from his base.
|
|
|
|
There he drew fire. He quickly redeployed his battalion into this
|
|
area by airmobile assault. Then all companies, save the security force at
|
|
the new base, began "checkerboarding," or combing out the general area in
|
|
all directions. The commander stressed one thing above all else; "We must
|
|
get prisoners." The first night ambushes succeeded in taking one NVA
|
|
private alive, but he was emotionally overwrought and his information
|
|
proved of no great value. An ambush patrol on the second night struck pay
|
|
dirt and captured another NVA soldier. This POW was sick from malaria.
|
|
The battalion commander's philosophy was "treat POW's as nicely as
|
|
possible," for this "gentle" treatment of prisoners had paid off before.
|
|
After the prisoner had received medication, warm blankets, and food, he
|
|
sang like a canary, located his unit on the map, and volunteered to lead a
|
|
force there. Through no fault of his, when the friendly forces surrounded
|
|
his unit's camp, they found it abandoned. The bird had escaped the cage
|
|
minutes before. On the fourth day, with the commander still pressing his
|
|
men to "take them alive," a patrol wounded and captured an NVA sergeant.
|
|
He described the enemy force that lay in ambush directly to the westward
|
|
and gave the location of the fortified hill as being one kilometer away --
|
|
a position until then unsuspected. The capture had occurred on a new trail
|
|
leading to the defended hill. The success of the expedition turned on this
|
|
one small event.
|
|
|
|
In the Tou Morong campaign of June 1966, four battalions made a great
|
|
sweep for three days over a far spread of difficult country and converged,
|
|
toward closing out the operation, still empty-handed. Nowhere had they
|
|
encountered enemy in force. On the afternoon of the third day, with full
|
|
withdrawal imminent, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, on
|
|
reaching the Tou Morong outpost (the purpose of the sweep was to relieve
|
|
the garrison there) talked to a sublieutenant of Popular Forces who had
|
|
been long in the area. The American asked him: "Where do you think the
|
|
enemy is?" The map was brought out. The Vietnamese put his finger on a
|
|
village and said: "Whenever we patrol, we find NVA around there." The
|
|
American believed him, or at least felt the information warranted a second
|
|
try. So the plan was altered. The battalion of the 101st Airborne
|
|
Division stayed in the area and began grinding away. The battle of Tou
|
|
Morong -- a highlight of U.S. campaigning in 1966 - developed from this one
|
|
incident.
|
|
|
|
Operation Thayer-Irving, mounted in the 1966 autumn, was in its early
|
|
stages underproductive. During the first weeks, troops beat out much
|
|
country, spent much energy, and took light losses for little gain. A
|
|
feeling of futility developed. In the second phase the search turned
|
|
toward the coast line of Binh Dinh east of Highway NO. 1. In early morning
|
|
a troop commander of cavalry making a reconnaissance by gunship saw three
|
|
khaki-clad figures standing in the street of a fishing village. Too late,
|
|
they ducked for cover. Capitalizing on this seemingly insignificant scrap
|
|
of intelligence, Operation Irving became a shining battle success. And not
|
|
only in terms of enemy losses: more prisoners were taken than in any show
|
|
of that year. The abrupt change in fortune came of one piece of fresh
|
|
intelligence collected by one man.
|
|
|
|
From the data basis could be lifted numerous other encouraging
|
|
examples of the same kind, though on a smaller scale. However, there are
|
|
also negative aspects to several of the operations which we have already
|
|
considered in a favorable and positive light.
|
|
|
|
In one campaign, on the evening before the conversation that turned a
|
|
futile exercise into a productive battle, fighting developed "off the map,"
|
|
along the low ground of the flat and treeless valley south of the mountain
|
|
area being worked over by the maneuvering battalions. One U.S. artillery
|
|
battery had been deployed there by helicopter to provide covering fire for
|
|
a rifle battalion. A rifle company was sent along to guard its base. At
|
|
the same time an ARVN battalion was marching up the main road, over flat
|
|
ground, toward its objective. Less than 700 meters from the U.S. position,
|
|
the ARVN battalion became heavily engaged when it turned aside to bivouac
|
|
on the finger of a low-lying ridge. Several U.S. advisers were along. Men
|
|
of the two U.S. units deploying into the LZ could not hear the sounds of
|
|
the fight over the noise of Hueys and Chinooks landing and leaving. Within
|
|
a few minutes, the U.S. rifle company also became engaged with an NVA force
|
|
on the wooded nose of the nearest finger of the same low-lying ridge, not
|
|
more than 300 meters from the American battery. The artillery weapons were
|
|
never turned around and they took no part in the fight. The U.S. advisers
|
|
with the ARVN battalion and the command at the artillery base were on the
|
|
radio telephone, talking to one another. But only fragmentary information
|
|
was exchanged between them. Neither force got an understanding of the
|
|
other's immediate problem and situation, though one was not more than a 10-
|
|
minute walk from the other and the broad valley was clear of enemy forces.
|
|
Had either been more perceptive, more disposed to talk things out fully, an
|
|
NVA platoon might have been taken whole or destroyed and the significance
|
|
of the attack on the ARVN battalion by at least two NVA companies would
|
|
have come clear.
|
|
|
|
In Operation Thayer, which became largely a dry well, a 12-man patrol
|
|
from the cavalry division moved along with an interpreter from the National
|
|
Police. While it paused by a stream to wash feet and break out rations, an
|
|
aged Vietnamese woman came along the trail next to it. She was asked:
|
|
"Have you seen any VC?" She replied: "There are three right now in my
|
|
village down this trail." The cavalrymen followed along, engaged and
|
|
killed an enemy outguard of several men, took losses themselves in the
|
|
exchange of fire, then learned there were outguards posted generally around
|
|
the village. They concluded that the place was held by an enemy force in
|
|
at least company strength. The time was late afternoon. Because other
|
|
problems pressed the brigade, the opening was not taken. The patrol was
|
|
withdrawn before there was any real testing of enemy strength, and by next
|
|
day the bird had flown. The point is only that what had at first seemed an
|
|
unlikely source of information about enemy presence proved to be wholly
|
|
valid.
|
|
|
|
The besetting problem in Vietnam is to find the enemy. It is like
|
|
hunting for the needle in the haystack only if the unit commander views it
|
|
as a task primarily for higher levels and does not have all of his senses
|
|
and all of his people directed toward systematizing the search so that it
|
|
will pay off. His scout elements are only a first hold on the undertaking;
|
|
they probe over a limited area of a large countryside prolific with cover
|
|
and natural camouflage. Out of their truly productive contacts resulting
|
|
directly from maneuver emerges only a small fraction of the hard
|
|
information leading to our most successful finds and strikes. The greater
|
|
part of it derives from careful interrogation of people met along the way,
|
|
interrogation that neither overlooks nor discounts any possible source.
|
|
One new unit, operating in Paul Revere IV, took over a village in late
|
|
afternoon. Finding the people gone and the livestock fresh, it concluded
|
|
that an NVA force was probably close at hand. So the men killed the pigs
|
|
and left the chickens, figuring that if the enemy returned by night, the
|
|
fowl might sound the alarm. The gambit failed; the enemy, attacking the
|
|
American perimeter next to the village in early evening, avoided the
|
|
chickens by moving in from the other side. The men had a good idea
|
|
nevertheless; even animals can be used as early warning in Vietnam.
|
|
|
|
These things are said in Vietnam about intelligence flow by commanders
|
|
and men who fight there:
|
|
|
|
(1) It comes in greater volume than in any other war.
|
|
|
|
(2) Not more than 10 to 15 percent of it leads to anything worthwhile
|
|
-- though each lead must be followed through to hit pay dirt.
|
|
|
|
(3) Where there is a payoff, in nine cases out of ten, the
|
|
information which led to the introduction of tactical forces into
|
|
a certain area proves to be wrong in whole or in part, and
|
|
something quite else, but still worth the effort, develops from
|
|
the deployment.
|
|
|
|
(4) Development and exploitation therefore depend chiefly on what the
|
|
tactical unit learns and does.
|
|
|
|
(5) Most of the intelligence which leads to worthwhile results in
|
|
battle is collected by tactical units after they have deployed.
|
|
|
|
These are broad propositions. They call to mind the epigram of the
|
|
late Justice Holmes: "I always say that no generalization is worth a damn,
|
|
including this one." But if it is granted that statements (4) and (5) are
|
|
only partially true, they put the unit commander at dead center of our
|
|
combat intelligence collecting apparatus. It is a task that he cannot
|
|
shrug off; there is only the question of whether he will be thorough or
|
|
slipshod in his work. Working closely and continuously with his
|
|
interpreters while in the field is one prerequisite of success.
|
|
|
|
Nothing will be said here about the collecting and use of enemy
|
|
documents. The unit commander gets full instruction on this subject from
|
|
higher authority within Vietnam, and to add anything would be superfluous.
|
|
|
|
Our primary concern is with his attitude toward all people who may be
|
|
sources of information that will help him to make contact. They are of
|
|
many kinds. These things are to be said of them:
|
|
|
|
(1) Captured NVA soldiers, more so than hardcore Viet Cong, and not
|
|
unlike the Japanese in World War II, are constrained to cooperate
|
|
and tell most of what they know. When they have the inclination,
|
|
they give without being manhandled. There is no example in the
|
|
record of an NVA captive who, in responding readily to
|
|
interrogation, gave false information that set up a U.S. unit in
|
|
front of a trap. The initially sullen enemy soldier is not apt
|
|
to change and respond with worthwhile information.
|
|
|
|
(2) The people of the countryside, be they Vietnamese, Montagnards,
|
|
Chinese, or any other, friendly or hostile, often know more about
|
|
enemy presence or movement that they will voluntarily tell. They
|
|
must be sought out and questioned, or obviously there will be no
|
|
answers. The questioning is best done in a friendly and
|
|
initially indirect manner. Paying some attention to the children
|
|
sometimes wins cooperation. Without an interpreter, the exchange
|
|
is made extraordinarily difficult, though there are several
|
|
examples in the record of large results achieved through sign
|
|
language. The characteristics vary from tribe to tribe, but most
|
|
Montagnard villagers have no understanding of numbers, time
|
|
according to the clock, distances when computed in terms of miles
|
|
or kilometers, and other basic units of measurement as we know
|
|
them.
|
|
|
|
(3) All CIDG companies and their Special Force advisers doing regular
|
|
duty and patrolling daily within any region naturally know more
|
|
about enemy presence within it and the problem of fixing it than
|
|
any field force likely to be committed there suddenly on such a
|
|
mission. Acquiring such knowledge is their specialty, their
|
|
reason for being. Any tactical commander who bypasses the
|
|
opportunity to learn all he can from them when he is in their
|
|
vicinity is not doing his best for his people or himself.
|
|
|
|
(4) The same thing is to be said of ARVN, Nationalist Police, ROK,
|
|
and other allied forces, officers and men, who have served in any
|
|
area being entered for the first time by a U.S. tactical unit.
|
|
Not to profit from their experience by seeking them out and
|
|
asking what they know is a mistake. It has happened many times
|
|
that they had a good fix on an enemy force but withheld from
|
|
moving to contact because their strength was insufficient.
|
|
Experience has also shown that, if requested, these veteran
|
|
allies will readily provide personnel to act as scouts and guides
|
|
for U.S. units deploying in their area of operation.
|
|
|
|
The record indicates that the Special Force teams in Vietnam have
|
|
developed sophisticated search and surveillance systems now uniquely their
|
|
own. These could be made of more general application by the field army to
|
|
the benefit of all. Any tactical unit commander is well advised to make
|
|
contact with Special Force field personnel when opportunity affords to
|
|
learn more about such things. Some of these operations are of a classified
|
|
nature though the methodology and the working rules are not a highly
|
|
sensitive subject. The soldier troubling to make such a visit might learn
|
|
some useful new tricks besides sharing good company, usually supplied with
|
|
cold beer, for a spell.
|
|
|
|
In the tall bush, jungle, or tropical forest, the NVA and VC make
|
|
effective, though irregular, tactical use of tree roosts, as did the
|
|
Japanese in World War II. The upper branches serve for observation; in the
|
|
lower limbs are concealed platforms for sniping. The enemy sets these
|
|
forward of main positions, placing them to the flank or rear of our lines
|
|
when we close. In Operation Attleboro our people learned of this technique
|
|
a little late and several men were killed by fire from overhead until a
|
|
gunner sensed what was happening, dusted the trees with automatic fire, and
|
|
brought several of the snipers down. Tied to the trunk by long ropes, the
|
|
bodies dangled in mid-air. In a campaign fought near the Cambodian border,
|
|
a brigade commander complained about this enemy practice, as if it were
|
|
unfair. His general asked him: "Well, did you think to do it, also?" It's
|
|
a good question. According to the record, Americans as individuals
|
|
sometimes make tactical use of trees, as when an inspired battalion
|
|
commander directed his fighting line from the upper crotch of a banyan
|
|
during Operation Geronimo II because he was trying to take prisoners and
|
|
the voice on the bullhorn would carry farther that way. But trees are not
|
|
used for sniping and superior observation on any organized basis, though
|
|
the opportunity is there. Why? Too many commanders simply fail to think
|
|
of it.
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON ELEVEN - THE DEFENSIVE PERIMETER
|
|
|
|
Procedures used in forming the defensive perimeter vary greatly along
|
|
with their effectiveness from unit to unit. There is uniformity within a
|
|
brigade or a battalion when command at these levels continues to insist
|
|
upon it and inspects to see that the work is properly done in the field.
|
|
Left to his own devices, the young company commander, most of the time, is
|
|
careless about perimeter organization. That the unit repeatedly deploys
|
|
without contact tends to lull the unit into a state of indifference. This
|
|
the attitude prevails, "If we got by last night without digging, why dig
|
|
tonight?'
|
|
|
|
To some extent, all infantry units try to follow the tested and proved
|
|
principles and techniques of defense taught at the service schools. But
|
|
too many do not try very hard; if they did, there would be fewer losses due
|
|
to failure to dig in deep, or to dig at all, when there was time for
|
|
digging and the men were not physically exhausted.
|
|
|
|
The record shows conclusively that the unit disciplined to follow the
|
|
rules has never suffered a serious tactical disarrangement and invariable
|
|
sustains relatively light losses when considered against the volume of
|
|
enemy fire and the intensity of the attack. Its production of fire is
|
|
steadier and better controlled than that of the unit that has failed to
|
|
make the best use of ground. The movement of weapons and ammunition from
|
|
the less-threatened sectors of the perimeter to the foxholes under direct
|
|
pressure, when ammo runs low and weapons are being knocked out, is
|
|
systematic, not haphazard.
|
|
|
|
We have cases in the book in which the rifle company was so lax about
|
|
elementary precautions in organizing for defense that there appears no
|
|
other explanation of how it escaped destruction in the fight that ensued
|
|
except that the average enemy soldier has no real skill with the rifle and
|
|
other had weapons.
|
|
|
|
There are far more examples on the bright side. Representative of
|
|
them are company actions out of the 4th Infantry Division's experience in
|
|
Operation Paul Revere IV in late 1966. Yet these units were having their
|
|
baptism of fire. The NVA attacks ranged from company-size to assault by
|
|
the reinforced battalion. Some of the attacks were supported by heavily
|
|
concentrated mortar fire, so accurately placed as to suggest that the
|
|
weapons had been preregistered on the position. One mortar barrage on a
|
|
single position in a fight of less than one hour was reported as hurling
|
|
between 500 and 700 rounds; through group interview of the unit, the figure
|
|
was subsequently scaled down to 300-350 rounds. Yes, the unit under this
|
|
fire took heavy losses. But in view of the powerful barrage that struck,
|
|
it came through splendidly. "We had dug in right up to our chins," one
|
|
sergeant said. Close questioning of the men established that this was no
|
|
exaggeration.
|
|
|
|
The mortar barrage had been set to disorganize the defense preparatory
|
|
to a battalion-size assault that under cover of dark had already closed to
|
|
within approximately 200 meters of the position. Its repulse was total.
|
|
Not only did it fail to break the perimeter; it did not get close enough to
|
|
trade volume rifle fire with the defenders. There can be no doubt that
|
|
deep digging, and one other tactical precaution to be discussed later,
|
|
saved this rifle unit and the supporting artillery battery. A general rule
|
|
now being followed in Vietnam is to stop moving early enough to allow for
|
|
sufficient daylight in which to establish a solidly organized, well-dug
|
|
defensive perimeter.
|
|
|
|
The ROK forces have had similar success on the defense since their
|
|
first major encounter with NVA troops in the rice paddies of south Tuy Hoa
|
|
(Hill 50) in January 1966. Two battalions of NVA tried to overrun two ROK
|
|
marine companies. The fight went three hours; when it ended, more than 400
|
|
enemy dead lay outside the ROK perimeter, while inside it the losses were
|
|
light. ROK units have never taken a reverse while on defense in Vietnam.
|
|
They employ no defensive tactics that are peculiarly their own; there is no
|
|
secret to their success. What they do has been taught them by U.S. Army
|
|
advisers and can be found in our manuals. The Korean soldier works at his
|
|
position like a mole. The holes are dug deep and reinforced with
|
|
protective overhead over. Tactical wire is placed to the front and
|
|
interlaced with trip flares, mines, and other anti-intrusion devices.
|
|
Outposts are set along likely avenues of approach, far enough from the
|
|
perimeter to provide a sufficient warning interval. Patrols are dispatched
|
|
to scout possible sites for enemy supporting weapons. (The enemy normally
|
|
prepares such positions well before the infantry attack comes on.) The
|
|
position prepared, it is then manned by an alert and well-supervised
|
|
soldier. Usually, one-third of the defenders are at the ready, listening
|
|
for noise of the enemy. Noise, light, and fire disciplines are sternly
|
|
enforced. "Stand-to" is conducted at dusk, dawn, and, when keyed to
|
|
intelligence, in the middle of the night.
|
|
|
|
With the average U.S. rifle company in night defense, nominally every
|
|
third man is on the alert, and the watch is two hours. Because of the high
|
|
mobility of operations, tactical wire is not used, though the unit stays in
|
|
the same position two days or more. It would seem prudent to harden the
|
|
base whenever any prolonged stay is in prospect, but the practice is not
|
|
generally applied. Such a rule should be in order, most particularly when
|
|
the perimeter encloses artillery, which is high on the list of enemy
|
|
targets. In the fight on LZ Bird, 26 December 1966, already praised here
|
|
as a highly valiant and successful defense. American losses would have
|
|
been less and the enemy attack could not have impacted with such pronounced
|
|
initial violence, had this precaution been taken.
|
|
|
|
The average U.S. rifle company on defense uses the buddy system, or
|
|
two men to a foxhole. The record fully sustains this practice as having,
|
|
in this mode of warfare, an added value beyond those of affording
|
|
companionship, steadying the individual nerve, and contributing to unit
|
|
alertness. We are dealing with a fanatic enemy, capable of acts of seeming
|
|
madness and utter desperation. Often, the lone fighter is not prepared to
|
|
cope with the frenzy of an attacker thus possessed. Two men can; one man's
|
|
courage rubs off on the other. From Paul Revere IV and earlier operations,
|
|
the record has numerous entries of foxhole buddies, working together,
|
|
manhandling, and at last vanquishing a demonic adversary, where one man
|
|
would have failed. Example: The NVA soldier charges directly in and jumps
|
|
into the foxhole. One man, tackling him around the knees, wrestles him
|
|
down, works on him with a machete, and cuts through the shoulder to the
|
|
bone so that the arm dangles by flesh. The American by then is atop the
|
|
still-struggling enemy. His buddy, trying to help, but having no clear
|
|
shot at the target, puts three bullets from his M-16 into the enemy's legs.
|
|
The figure goes limp. The two Americans toss the body out of the
|
|
perimeter, thinking the man dead. It lands on the back of a company aid
|
|
man who grabs the nigh-severed arm and is astonished to see it spin a
|
|
complete circle. The corpse comes alive and struggles with the aid man.
|
|
He is killed at last, beaten to death with an entrenching tool.
|
|
|
|
Some companies use the three-man foxhole; there are sound arguments
|
|
for it and the results seem more satisfactory, insuring maximum rest
|
|
combined with the required degree of alertness. Terrain -- the possession
|
|
of high ground for the defensive position -- has little value in Vietnam
|
|
compared with former wars. What is important is that the position be
|
|
compact; weakness, vulnerability come rather from overextension, trying to
|
|
cover too much ground, thereby shortening the field of fire, and lessening
|
|
mutual support, foxhole to foxhole.
|
|
|
|
Trip flares and other alarm or anti-intrusion devices, including the
|
|
Claymore, are not employed regularly and consistently by all units on the
|
|
defense, though they are invariably carried along. There is no general
|
|
explanation other than lack of command insistence. The Claymore is
|
|
employed more than any other fixture outward from the perimeter. Lately
|
|
the NVA enemy has acquired the nasty habit of sneaking forward a few hands
|
|
in the early stages of a fight who wriggle in on their bellies to where
|
|
they can cut the Claymore wires. The Viet Cong enemy frequently improves
|
|
on that trick. In January 1967, for example, a platoon from 25th Infantry
|
|
Division conducted a small night operation on the outskirts of Vinh Cu and
|
|
was attacked while in defensive position. Reports the witness: "I went out
|
|
to get my Claymore only to find that the mine had been turned around.
|
|
Faced as it was, it could have wiped out the people in four of our
|
|
positions had we fired it during the fight." (The battery-powered,
|
|
tripwire-type anti-intrusion device has little appeal and goes almost
|
|
unused. In all operations, we found only one lieutenant who thought it
|
|
worthwhile and strung the wire regularly.)
|
|
|
|
Outposts, giving way to listening posts after dark, are set generally
|
|
and routinely by platoons and rifle companies on defense along each likely
|
|
avenue of approach, with about this one exception: a unit rigging ambushes
|
|
on trails adjacent to the perimeter rarely sets up outposts as well. Two
|
|
or three men usually compose an OP or LP. They do not dig in as a rule.
|
|
One man is supposed to stay alert; the others sleep. Though frowned upon,
|
|
smoking on OP and LP, and within the perimeter, is common. (An exception
|
|
is in Special Force detachments on patrol where smoking is prohibited. The
|
|
rule is respected because, among other effects, "smoking makes the sense of
|
|
smell less acute.") Sometimes the LP is connected with the perimeter, and
|
|
sometimes not; this variation is arbitrary and in no way related to the
|
|
distance between the post and the main body. Where there are four platoons
|
|
on perimeter, there will usually be four OP'S or LP's. Generally each
|
|
platoon sets out one LP to cover the main approach into its sector. When
|
|
the RT is used on LP duty, a prearranged signal (so many clicks on the
|
|
push-to-talk button) warns of the approach of enemy force and gives its
|
|
size.
|
|
|
|
LP's located at real distance from the defensive perimeter are not
|
|
only of vital service to security but invariably safer for their occupants.
|
|
At least half the time in Vietnam, according to the record, the defense is
|
|
established on ground that permits siting LP'S for maximum effectiveness.
|
|
Yet rare indeed is an LP posted more than 50 meters from the foxhole line;
|
|
far more frequently, where the terrain and vegetation outward from the
|
|
perimeter are clear enough for the men on LP to run back to the main body
|
|
the posting is too close to be of much use or there is none whatever.
|
|
|
|
In the 4th Infantry Division's fight near the Cambodian border in late
|
|
November 1966, three men were on LP duty 350 meters west of the perimeter.
|
|
They heard an NVA rifleman as he crawled over a pile of logs not more than
|
|
10 meters away. Certain they had not been seen, they slipped backward a
|
|
few feet to get a clearer view of him and have more freedom of action. All
|
|
three then blasted him with the greater part of three magazines of M-16
|
|
fire. Their volleying tripped off the enemy mortar attack before the NVA
|
|
line had advanced to more than even with the LP. The mortars started,
|
|
fired a few rounds, then broke off when the enemy realized that something
|
|
had gone wrong. (It is assumed that small arms fire was the prearranged
|
|
signal for the enemy mortarmen to begin their supporting fires.) The NVA
|
|
line was still far short of closing distance. Thus the attack became
|
|
unhinged. The three Americans, going on a dead run for the perimeter, made
|
|
it in time to alert the defenders to what was coming.
|
|
|
|
In another perimeter defense in Paul Revere IV one LP, equipped with a
|
|
radio though it was only 30 meters from the foxhole line, was dead in the
|
|
way of the enemy line of advance. One soldier got off the warning; it
|
|
helped not at all because by then the attack had broken against the main
|
|
body, and within seconds the soldier was down and dying and crying for an
|
|
aid man. Initial confusion in a sector of the perimeter arose out of
|
|
distress over the man and the desire to rescue him. Temporarily, it
|
|
inhibited fire in decisive volume from the one platoon that was under the
|
|
heaviest and most direct pressure, though it shortly got going,
|
|
semireconciled to the loss of the lone man on the LP.
|
|
|
|
According to the record, this is a not uncommon incident. Something
|
|
of the sort happens often enough to warrant raising the question: do LP's
|
|
placed at only 20 to 35 meters from the perimeter have sufficient warning
|
|
value in this form of warfare to justify their use? The extra danger to
|
|
men so placed is hardly debatable. The brief time interval is not enough
|
|
to allow the alerting of the armed circle. Time after time, because the
|
|
LP's have been overrun, greater jeopardy is visited on the main body. The
|
|
command places a certain amount of reliance on them though they have little
|
|
chance to do the work for which they are intended.
|
|
|
|
There is no evidence on record in Vietnam that any U.S. rifle company,
|
|
having set up for night defense by perimeter, has been wholly overrun,
|
|
though the story was too frequently otherwise in Korea. Many such
|
|
positions in Vietnam have been cracked, and others have taken hard
|
|
punishment, but the ground has always been held until the enemy withdrew or
|
|
the command decision was made that it was no longer worth the fight. The
|
|
unit sometimes gets out; none has ever been driven out. The same cannot be
|
|
said of platoon perimeters, the reason being they do not have enough fire
|
|
power to withstand a hard-pressed attack. They are as insecure as was the
|
|
company perimeter atop a Korean ridge. The comparison rather clearly
|
|
bespeaks the scale of the war and the relative ineffectiveness of the
|
|
enemy, NVA or VC, in the attack. Use of the company perimeter as the basic
|
|
defensive element, careful tying-in of weapons, and alertness will beat him
|
|
every time.
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON TWELVE - POLICING THE BATTLEFIELD
|
|
|
|
Policing of the battle field, or tidying-up as the British say, is an
|
|
ancient custom in armies, and more of a necessity in Vietnam than in wars
|
|
of our past. The reasons are already well known to troops before they
|
|
arrive in Vietnam. Not only is the debris of war so repulsive and
|
|
unwholesome that having as little of it about as possible is just another
|
|
part of good housekeeping, but denying to the enemy anything and everything
|
|
that may be of use to him is the interest of self-preservation.
|
|
|
|
So there is nothing novel or unreasonable about the requirement put
|
|
upon troops that they strip the scenes of action and the routes over which
|
|
they move of everything that the enemy might turn to a fighting purpose or
|
|
use to help his forces in any other way. Every dud grenade or unexploded
|
|
artillery shell left behind is a gift to the Viet Cong. Any discarded C-
|
|
ration tin can be transformed into a booby trap. The enemy is good at such
|
|
tricks, and nine times out of ten he will return to the field to look for
|
|
free items he can add to his bag soon after we depart it.
|
|
|
|
A fundamental consideration in any discussion about policing the field
|
|
is the soldier's load, for it goes to the heart of the problem. Why does
|
|
the field get lettered? Even though the soldier's load has been discussed
|
|
and analyzed by experts perhaps more than any other subject in warfare, the
|
|
record in Vietnam still shows that the average infantry soldier crashes
|
|
through the jungle weighted down like a pack mule. When he finds the
|
|
enemy, he must always unload the rucksack or the heavy pack in order to
|
|
move more quickly about the battlefield. It is not uncommon to find
|
|
soldiers saddled with five days' C-rations, which weigh about 15 pounds.
|
|
Their commanders proudly report, "Five days' rations give my men freedom
|
|
from resupply; they can move with the speed and stealth of a guerrilla."
|
|
In actual fact, mobility is decreased because of these heavy loads and the
|
|
soldier is physically worn down by midday. Fatigue affects alertness,
|
|
making him vulnerable to the enemy's designs.
|
|
|
|
The good commander takes a hard look at every item that his soldiers
|
|
carry. What they do not absolutely require he eliminates. At all times it
|
|
should be a main aim to lighten the load of his men. For the soldier in
|
|
Vietnam like the soldier of World War II and Korea will throw away or lose
|
|
anything he does not need, or thinks he may not need tomorrow -- and before
|
|
another day has passed the enemy will have picked it up.
|
|
|
|
These lines from a book published by the Department of Defense should
|
|
be read again by unit commanders in the light of our Vietnam experience:
|
|
"Extravagance and wastefulness are somewhat rooted in the American
|
|
character because of our mode of life. When our men enter military
|
|
service, there is a strong holdover of their prodigal civilian habits.
|
|
Even under fighting conditions, they tend to be wasteful of water, food,
|
|
munitions, and other vital supply. When such things are too accessible
|
|
they tend to throw them away rather than conserve them in the general
|
|
interest."
|
|
|
|
Because of this fault in our makeup, combat leaders in Vietnam have to
|
|
keep prodding their men to police the premises before quitting the
|
|
perimeter and moving on. The distinguishing feature of this discipline is
|
|
the heavy accent that has to be given it because we are fighting a
|
|
guerrilla enemy and no piece of open country is likely to be held by our
|
|
people for very long.
|
|
|
|
What is new and different about the war in Vietnam is the emphasis put
|
|
upon the tallying of enemy dead at the same time that the field is being
|
|
policed. Where circumstances permit and members of the unit are not
|
|
subjected to additional jeopardy, they are required to tally the manpower
|
|
losses of the enemy as conscientiously as they are required to set about
|
|
possessing the weapons that he leaves on a field from which his forces have
|
|
withdrawn.
|
|
|
|
These two requirements need to be discussed and understood in one
|
|
context. The heavier burden put upon troops adds up to a somewhat onerous
|
|
task and not one they would undertake of their own volition. Like so much
|
|
of war's drudgery, however, it is still acceptable, so long as doing the
|
|
job does not subject the men to extremes of risk.
|
|
|
|
None but a foolhardy soldier would voluntarily charge forward against
|
|
fire from an enemy rifle line so that he might wrest an AK47 or SKS from
|
|
Viet Cong hands to claim it as a souvenir, though he would be denying the
|
|
enemy that one weapon. Body count is governed by the same principle that
|
|
underlies this negative example. It should not be ordered when there is
|
|
clearly present the prospect of increased risk for the unit or the
|
|
likelihood of more casualties; nor should it be ordered when there is a
|
|
more pressing military object immediately to be served.
|
|
|
|
Time and tactical opportunity wait on no man. Take one example. A
|
|
U.S. unit in perimeter defense clearly witnesses the temporary withdrawal
|
|
from the immediate vicinity of the enemy force that has been pressing the
|
|
attack. Given the choice in the breathing space of one or the other, only
|
|
an unthinking commander would put the counting of bodies outside his lines
|
|
ahead of possessing the weapons scattered there. The enemy may swarm back
|
|
and, by pressing home the attack again, manage to extract the bodies. But
|
|
if the weapons are left there and he recovers them, they could help him
|
|
overrun the position. The bodies do him no good; they merely burden his
|
|
withdrawal. And all we lose by letting him get away with them is a
|
|
comforting statistic.
|
|
|
|
We are pointing out only that body counting at the wrong time, or at
|
|
the sacrifice of real tactical opportunity, can be both dangerous and time-
|
|
wasting. It is not a task or object of such transcendent importance as to
|
|
warrant taking additional casualties, though any small-unit commander may
|
|
make it such by getting confused about his priorities. Emphasizing body
|
|
count until it obscures the more legitimate interest of security and
|
|
mobility is ever a mistake on his part. In its possible consequences it
|
|
differs in degree from the requirement to police the combat field. When
|
|
the young commander, having won his fight, pushes out his tidying-up
|
|
patrols before he has done a proper job of reconnoitering for enemy
|
|
presence just beyond the foreground, he is wrong, dead wrong.
|
|
|
|
Examples that make the point dot the record. Item. A fight is not
|
|
even halfway along. Pressure on the unit leader is mounting by the minute.
|
|
But already higher command is putting additional pressure on him to police
|
|
the field and get the bodies counted in the proper time. It is his duty to
|
|
bear with it: he is still the judge of the right time and circumstance.
|
|
Item. A U.S. rifle company in a good defensive position atop a ridge is
|
|
taking steady toll of an NVA force attacking up hill. The skipper sends a
|
|
four-man patrol to police weapons and count bodies. Three men return
|
|
bearing the fourth, who was wounded before the job was well started.
|
|
Another patrol is sent. The same thing happens. The skipper says, "Oh, to
|
|
hell with it!" Item. In Operation Nathan Hale three men working through a
|
|
banana grove were hit by sniper fire. They were counting bodies.
|
|
Item. In Operation Paul Revere IV a much-admired line sergeant was killed,
|
|
two other enlisted men were wounded, and a lieutenant barely escaped
|
|
ambush, when the four together were "tidying up" the field. They ran into
|
|
a stay-behind party planted in a thicket on the morning after the fight.
|
|
|
|
Small-unit leaders have to understand that the requirement, though
|
|
urgent, is not that urgent. Body-counting is of lesser moment than the
|
|
chance to kill and capture still more of the enemy in the hour when
|
|
effective pursuit is possible. As Marshal Foch said, "If you reach the
|
|
stop one minute after the bus is gone you miss it." One of the comments
|
|
often made by Americans fighting in Vietnam is that the enemy has greater
|
|
skill at breaking contact than any soldier ever engaged by our forces. A
|
|
unit commander only adds to the enemy's reputation when he rates keeping
|
|
contact and maintaining pursuit as secondary to counting bodies simply
|
|
because such tallying is a duty on his checklist.
|
|
|
|
No solution to fit every possible variation of this problem can be
|
|
recommended. A few suggestions are put forward to assist the small-unit
|
|
commander in arriving at his own solution. He is the man on the spot and
|
|
the best judge of the situation, and it is his decision that will cure or
|
|
kill. To him belong the options involving the immediate safety and best
|
|
interest of this command, in the light of what he knows about the
|
|
situation. If he believes that a present, but unmeasured, danger forbids
|
|
body counting or that a more urgent military object should come first, he
|
|
need only have the courage of his own convictions in coming to that
|
|
decision. No one may rightly press him to trade lives for bodies.
|
|
|
|
Out of data based on more than 100 actions by rifle companies and
|
|
platoons, it can be fairly estimated that the physical and tactical
|
|
difficulties besetting a unit in the hour when the fight ended precluded
|
|
the possibility of a body count at least 60 percent of the time. Still
|
|
more significantly, and with very rare exceptions, where a body count had
|
|
been reported and was therefore entered into the record, analysis of what
|
|
really happened in the fight leads to the conclusion that the enemy
|
|
actually lost more dead than the number reported. Overall, what was
|
|
claimed and reported, on the basis of the data afforded by the fight
|
|
itself, appeared to be an understatement of the casualties inflicted on the
|
|
enemy.
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON THIRTEEN - TRAINING
|
|
|
|
Our mistakes in Vietnam are neither new nor startling. They are not
|
|
something we can blame on the mysteries of the warfare. They are the same
|
|
problems that have been haunting small-unit commanders since before Gideon.
|
|
The mistakes we are talking about will not likely cause a unit to take a
|
|
beating. But they will inflict on it needless casualties. In peace or war
|
|
these errors spell the difference between professionalism and mediocrity.
|
|
|
|
Many young leaders, enchanted by the Hollywood image of war, approach
|
|
combat with the good-guy-versus-the-bad-guy attitude. But there is no
|
|
similarity between what John Wayne gets away with on the screen and the
|
|
hot, hard facts of the fire fight. A small-unit leader in combat cannot
|
|
afford to have a film hero's devil-may-care attitude toward training,
|
|
discipline, and basic soldiering.
|
|
|
|
In the recipe for battle victory, well-led and disciplined soldiers
|
|
are the main ingredient, soldiers who have been conditioned by thorough
|
|
training to react by habit when confronted with the searing realities of
|
|
engagement. The habits learned in training -- good or bad -- are the same
|
|
habits that move the soldier in combat. A leader, then, must insure that
|
|
each of his soldiers is well trained and has developed good habits --
|
|
habits so deeply ingrained through correct reaching and intensive practice
|
|
that even under the pressure of fear and sudden danger each soldier,
|
|
automatically, will do the right thing.
|
|
|
|
There is no magic formula or sweatless solution by which one can
|
|
achieve this goal. Leaders may approach training for combat only with
|
|
intense dedication, accepting as gospel the timeless truth that better-
|
|
trained men live longer on the battlefield.
|
|
|
|
No military unit is ever completely trained. There will always be a
|
|
weak area that requires additional time and effort. The wise commander
|
|
uses all available time to train his unit; he never says, "Good enough."
|
|
In Vietnam he can continue to train constantly -- in the assembly area, in
|
|
the reserve position, and during the execution of the mission. Leaders
|
|
must accept the old but absolute maxim: "The more sweat on the training
|
|
field, the less blood on the battlefield."
|
|
|
|
An alert leader constantly stresses essential battlefield arts and
|
|
skills: fire and maneuver; marksmanship; camouflage and concealment;
|
|
communication; maintenance; noise, light, and fire discipline; scouting and
|
|
patrolling; woodcraft; mines and boobytraps; and field sanitation. And he
|
|
makes on-the-spot corrections with the same precision as he does in
|
|
dismounted drill.
|
|
|
|
If a soldier is firing from the wrong side of a tree, the leader tells
|
|
him what he is doing wrong, and why. If the soldier is wandering around
|
|
without his weapon during an exercise, the leader tells him that he is
|
|
being fired on by an enemy sniper and that he should take cover and return
|
|
the fire. When the soldier looks at him dumbfounded and says, "I can't
|
|
because my rifle is over there," then the leader tells him he is "dead" and
|
|
makes him lie where he was "killed" for a couple of hours.
|
|
|
|
The good leader forms a checklist habit. Combat is too serious a
|
|
business to permit easy excuse of even one mistake. If a unit is going on
|
|
a patrol, setting up an ambush, establishing a defensive position, or
|
|
conducting an airmobile assault, he should pull out his checklist and
|
|
insure that every point is checked off. Many checklists are available
|
|
throughout the Army and in Vietnam, but in the main they are far too
|
|
complicated and tend to fog up the issue with unnecessary details.
|
|
|
|
A simple checklist which underscores the salient points of the
|
|
operation at hand will stimulate recall. Battle experience has
|
|
conclusively proven that fatigue, fright, and preoccupation with the
|
|
routine tend to cloud and distort the memory.
|
|
|
|
The good leader practices giving a five-paragraph operations order.
|
|
He is never so much of an "old pro" that he can do without the tried and
|
|
proven form. He makes sure his people use it too, and he listens to
|
|
subordinates issuing their orders. If he knows his business, he will know
|
|
whether they are following correct troop leading procedures and whether
|
|
they have heeded their lessons. To plan his operation and issue his orders
|
|
in the same detail and with the same precision as if he were taking his
|
|
first ATT (Army Training Test) and an umpire were breathing down his neck -
|
|
- that should be the object. The voice of experience might well say to
|
|
him: "Never quit checking. Check everything all the time -- weapons for
|
|
cleanliness, aidmen for supplies, sentries for alertness, and the camp for
|
|
field sanitation."
|
|
|
|
Many young leaders in Vietnam think that if they will it, the thing
|
|
will be done. Seldom did we find one who adequately checked to see if his
|
|
orders were being carried out. The order-giving process has three main
|
|
elements: (1) formulation; (2) issuance; and (3) supervision. All are
|
|
interrelated and act upon one another. The successful leader will look to
|
|
all three elements and make sure they are in balance before he concludes
|
|
that his unit has been readied to the best of his ability for the impending
|
|
action.
|
|
|
|
V I E T N A M P R I M E R
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LESSON FOURTEEN - THE STRANGE ENEMY
|
|
|
|
A more bizarre, eccentric foe than the one in Vietnam is not to be
|
|
met, and it is best that troops be told of his peculiar ways lest they be
|
|
unnerved by learning of them for the first time during combat. He may blow
|
|
whistles or sound bugles to initiate the assault; or he may trip the fight
|
|
with a flare or the beating of a bongo drum. But he does not come on in a
|
|
"banzai charge." That description of him, for example in stories about
|
|
Operation Attleboro, is a bit of press fiction. The "banzai charges" in
|
|
reality amounted to about 50 men walking forward in line against a two-
|
|
platoon front. They did not yell; they screamed only when they were hit.
|
|
Then meters from where they started they were mowed down or turned back.
|
|
In the second "banzai charge" only 30 men so acted; the third time there
|
|
were 12.
|
|
|
|
It is in many small ways that the enemy in Vietnam deviates from what
|
|
we consider normal, sometimes to the stupefaction of our people. Nerves
|
|
get jangled when in a fire fight joined at close range men hear maniacal
|
|
laughter from the pack out there in the darkness just a few feet beyond the
|
|
foxhole. Catcalls, the group yelling of phrases and curses in English, the
|
|
calling out of the full name of several men in the unit -- such
|
|
psychological tricks are likely to be trotted out at any time.
|
|
|
|
In one of the company fights in Paul Revere IV, a voice from a bamboo
|
|
clump not more than 10 meters from the foxhole line shouted, "Hey, how's
|
|
your company commander?"
|
|
|
|
One American, not at all jumpy, yelled back, "Mine's great; how's
|
|
yours?"
|
|
|
|
The voice replied, "No good; you just killed him."
|
|
|
|
During the hottest part of the defense on LZ Bird, with the NVA in
|
|
large numbers inside the perimeter, the Americans still in the fight were
|
|
astonished to see enemy skirmishers break into their tents, emerge arms
|
|
laden with fruit cakes, boxes of cookies, and sacks of candy, then squat on
|
|
the fire-swept field and eat the goodies.
|
|
|
|
In that same fight one U.S. rifleman, not in anyway hurt, feigned
|
|
death when an enemy party came upon him. The NVA took none of his
|
|
possessions and did not try to roll him. The soldier lying next to him,
|
|
already wounded, was shot dead and his pockets were picked clean.
|
|
|
|
In Operation Paul Revere, an NVA soldier walked into a U.S. outpost of
|
|
two men after dark, sat beside one of them who was half asleep, and started
|
|
talking to him in perfect English. The interloper even leaned on the
|
|
American, who in his stupor thought this was his buddy who was sprawled out
|
|
sleeping several feet away. The monologue went on several minutes. By the
|
|
time our man finally became aware of what was happening, the North
|
|
Vietnamese was strolling away. He made it clean without a shot being
|
|
fired.
|
|
|
|
In Operation Cedar Falls, enemy soldiers hid in water holes along the
|
|
creek banks like so many muskrats. The entrances were below the surface.
|
|
Our skirmishers could hear their voices a few feet away but could not find
|
|
them. In the same fight, within the Iron Triangle, a party on ambush at
|
|
night sensed a particularly pungent smell in the air which only one man
|
|
could identify. "I know it," he said. "That's pot [marihuana]." It was a
|
|
first warning of enemy presence.
|
|
|
|
In one of the mad scenes in Operation Irving, more than a platoon of
|
|
enemy vanished into subsurface water holes along a river bank. Bamboo,
|
|
bored through to form a pipe, serves as louvers for these chambers. U.S.
|
|
cavalrymen spotted the telltale signs, stripped naked, got down into the
|
|
stream, and fished the NVA out of the holes.
|
|
|
|
On a long patrol in January 1967, a Mike Force led by Special Force
|
|
personnel, was shadowed for 10 days by one Viet Cong. He kept a copious
|
|
diary, relating that he could not understand what the column was trying to
|
|
do or where it was heading because of its zigzag movement. But along with
|
|
his diary entries he had carefully written down the plan and maneuver to be
|
|
used by several enemy battalions gathering to envelop the Mike Force. On
|
|
the eleventh day, making one false move, he was shot dead. The diary was
|
|
found on him, and the column walked away from the trap.
|
|
|
|
Another snapshot from Operation Cedar Falls. Nine Americans were in
|
|
an ambush position. One group of 14 Viet Cong kept circling the ground for
|
|
two hours. Then one of their number walked to within five feet of the
|
|
muzzle of the machinegun, knelt down, and lit a candle to look at a wounded
|
|
man struck down by the same gun a few minutes before.
|
|
|
|
An ambush patrol from 1st Infantry Division, based at Di An, was in a
|
|
night operation near War Zone D. The men had already made a killing, and
|
|
because their leader had an intuition that the Viet Cong were out in force
|
|
that night they rapidly shifted position to stronger ground. The leader
|
|
asked for illumination and Smokey the Bear (a flare ship) came over. When
|
|
the lights popped on, instead of having a view of the river banks 250
|
|
meters to their fore, the men were "dazzled by an array of shining objects
|
|
that seemed to be moving" between them and the stream. This dazzling band
|
|
was about 100 meters wide and six feet tall. Feeling themselves
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threatened, for want of anything better to do the troops opened fire with
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M-16's and machineguns. The shining objects began falling. Then fire came
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against the Americans. At last they understood. These were Viet Cong --
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several platoons of them. The VC had been advancing, each one carrying in
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front of him a sheet of roofing tin that screened his body wholly. Why?
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No one ever found out. It was just another mystery, wholly baffling to the
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Americans. One of them said, "It was screwier than Macbeth."
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There are these tales and many more about our odd foe. The full
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measure of his strange nature is yet to be taken. We will continue to
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endure it in its military manifestations so long as the fighting goes on.
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To accustom the American soldier to expect the unexpected may be too much
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to expect, but he can be braced to the probability that when he engages the
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VC or NVA the most unlikely things will happen. Getting to know them
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better is a large part of the game. INDEX
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17th Parallel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Ambush. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 13, 14, 18, 22-24, 26, 27
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Ambushes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13, 23
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Ambushing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
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Artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8-10
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Attack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 9-11
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Automatic fire use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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Automatic weapons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 11, 14
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Battle losses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
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Bunker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Bunkers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-9, 11, 12
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Casualties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 10, 19
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Casualty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
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Claymore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23, 43
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Combat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
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critique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
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Communist aggression, pivots of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Delta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Escape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 10, 11
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Excessive loss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
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Exhaustion of the troops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14, 17, 41
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Fortified areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Fortified base camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Fortified base camps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Fortified bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Fortified villages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Frontal assault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
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Grenade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19, 34, 45
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Grenades. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
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Guerrilla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Hamlet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11, 12
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Hamlets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 11
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Heroism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
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Intelligence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5, 28, 29, 36-38, 42
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Jungle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12, 16, 17, 19, 25
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Jungle canopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
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Jungle clearing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
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Jungle fighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17, 19
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Jungle movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25
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Jungle rot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
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Jungle warfare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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Landing zone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14, 25, 32
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Leeches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
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Loss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10, 13
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Loss rates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Losses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8, 9, 13, 17
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LZ (also see landing zone). . . . . . . . . .14, 17, 20, 24, 29, 37, 42, 50
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M-16
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60 meter rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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ability to take abuse or neglect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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blood loss with wounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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compared with M-1 Garand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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firing in a foxhole. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
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ideal weapon for jungle warfare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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Killing at 200 meters or more. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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knockdown power of 5.56mm bullet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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long range accuracy not required . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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missing a target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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shooting high in panic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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tripping off an enemy mortar attack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
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use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44, 51
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M-60 ammo quantities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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Machinegun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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ammunition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
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Malaria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17, 36
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Medevac in the jungle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
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Mine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23, 43
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Mines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42, 48
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Mortars
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attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
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barrage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
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fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
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use in jungle canopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
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North Vietnamese Army 7, 9, 11, 14, 18, 23, 25-34, 36-39, 41-44, 46, 50, 51
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NVA . . . . . . . . . 7, 9, 11, 14, 18, 23, 25-34, 36-39, 41-44, 46, 50, 51
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Operation Attleboro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23, 40, 50
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Operation Cedar Falls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18, 32, 51
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Operation Crazy Horse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30
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Operation Geronimo II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
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Operation Hawthorne II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
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Operation Irving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37, 51
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Operation Nathan Hale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29, 47
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Operation Paul Revere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
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Operation Paul Revere IV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17, 30, 41, 42, 47
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Operation Thayer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
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Operation Thayer-Irving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
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Panic firing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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Perimeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 13, 14, 17
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position (defined). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
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PRC-25. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
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Rates of fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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Rifle
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company. . . . .5, 9, 12, 13, 18, 22, 25, 26, 29-31, 37, 41-44, 46, 47
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fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11, 30, 42
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line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13, 46
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long shots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
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platoon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 11
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shooting high too often. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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skill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
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unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 17, 42
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Rifle accucracy in a fire fight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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Rifleman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15, 18, 44, 50
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Riflemen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
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ROK (Republic of Korea) forces/units. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39, 42
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Semiautomatic fire use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
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Sniper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12, 40, 47, 48
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VC-NVA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
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Viet Cong (VC).5, 7, 9, 11, 18, 22, 23, 25-28, 30, 32-34, 37, 39, 43-46, 51
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Vietnam . . ii, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16-20, 22, 24-26, 28-30, 33, 38, 39, 42-50
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Vietnamese. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31, 36, 37, 39, 50
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Withdrawal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7, 9
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Wounded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18, 23, 29, 31, 36, 47, 50, 51
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Wounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
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