NLF and PAVN battle tactics
While they might be forced into an unwanted battle by an ARVN/US action, most of the time was spent in population control, training, intelligence gathering, propaganda indoctrination or construction of fortifications, with PAVN/VC troops typically only fighting an average of 1 day in 30.
Control of an area was achieved because the moving VC/PAVN formations generally kept within striking distance of the civilian population and were thus in a position to harvest intelligence, liquidate opposition, intimidate the reluctant, and enforce demands for taxes, labor and other resources.
[9] Life in camp followed the military routines common to all armies, including early morning reveille, weapons training, building fortifications, duty details assigned individuals and groups, and daily strength and readiness reports required of officers.
[4] Identified by a variety of markers for friendly forces, these devices slowed operations, diverted resources towards security and clearance activity, damaged equipment and poisoned relations between soldiers and the surrounding civilian population.
[21]The VC/PAVN fighters sought to neutralize US and ARVN firepower by "hugging" enemy troops (Vietnamese: Nắm thắt lưng địch mà đánh)—fighting so close that artillery or aircraft strikes had to be restrained for fear of friendly fire casualties.
At the lowest level, one study noted that PAVN gunners were trained to use small arms against all types of aircraft and special firing cells were established that could shoot up to 1000 rounds in 3 to 5 seconds at fast-moving jets.
[25] US forces sometimes employed sophisticated airmobile tactics, using integrated helicopter landings, artillery support, and troop insertions to surround enemy contacts and close off escape routes.
Destruction of the helicopter lifeline could derail an operation or maneuver, and the need to air-transport men and material to remote locations meant every new arrival of medevac, supply, transport or troop flights gave the VC/PAVN opportunities to cripple missions and machines.
According to some historians of airpower, costs were sometimes not commensurate with gains, and US airmobile operations might boil down to hugely expensive machines and their support systems chasing a handful of teenagers or second-string militiamen armed with cheap rifles.
These transport choppers would sometimes carry "people sniffer" technology designed to detect chemical traces or fumes left from human waste, smoke or sweat- indicators that PAVN/VC troops might be hiding nearby.
These locations could be a double-edged sword: they gave clear fields of fire against American infantry but the adjacent rice paddies sometimes created convenient enemy landing zones, and the water escape routes could become bottlenecks.
As noted by some airpower historians, relatively small bodies of local fighters armed with inexpensive rifles, could divert and tie down expensive and massive allocations of men, material and time deployed by more sophisticated opponents.
US/ARVN reports claimed some 13,000 PAVN deaths and destruction of tons of material, but the ARVN was forced to withdraw, a maneuver that turned into a humiliating rout, salvaged only by unrelenting American airpower.
[40] American airmobile tactics caused substantial casualties to the VC and PAVN in thousands of such confrontations, but the North's strategy of attritional, protracted war, aided by plentiful manpower, was designed to absorb these losses, while wearing down their opponents over time.
"[42] Bigger set-piece assaults on installations and bases as well as ambushes were sometimes executed, but the general pattern was one of protracted, attritional warfare, conducted by relatively small formations over a wide area.
Rehearsals for the attack: If the objective was deemed feasible along political and military lines, detailed planning for the actual operation began, including construction of sand tables, and string and stick mock-ups of the target.
Fall, Street without Joy; Michael Lee Lanning and Dan Cragg, Inside the VC and the NVA; and United States Army Center of Military History: Vietnam Studies.
Presented in sequence the doctrine can be summarized as follows: Slow Plan – This involved a steady but low-key logistical build up in forward supply areas, being positioned ahead of the fighting forces to make a solid base for the operation.
Situated on a mountain peak that was considered too tough to assault, the facilities were manned by a small force of USAF technicians on top, and about 1,000 Hmong and Thai irregulars deployed further down the slopes.
[47] These include extensive preliminary recon and rehearsals, vetting and clearance by Communist Party operatives, numerical superiority at the point of attack (3,000 versus 1,000), a secure advance to the objective (avoiding or hiding from civilian traffic), detailed sub-division of tasks for each assault element, rapid movement once the battle began, and cooperation between special forces (sappers), regulars, and local guerrillas.
Initial positions were sometimes made to appear deliberately weak, including unmanned bunkers and light sniper-type resistance to bait enemy forces inside the killing zone.
Firing a few rounds and withdrawing could not only lure enemy troops into a trap based on civilian structures but could also induce US/ARVN forces to unleash hasty artillery and tactical air strikes after relatively token provocation.
However it also put tremendous psychological pressure on the small groups of US soldiers dangled as "bait" before the opposing VC/NVA, who continually whittled down American strength and morale with mining and booby traps, and consistently ambushed US formations in the field.
A typical assault began with a detailed recon of the target- pinpointing bunkers, ammo dumps, command and communications centers, barracks, power generation facilities and other vital points.
A Fire-support group might be used to lay down covering fire via RPGs, mortars or machine guns at key points such as when the penetration elements cleared the wire, or at a set time, or via a pre-arranged signal.
This was seen in instances like the Attack on USNS Card and the USS Westchester County, the latter causing the United States Navy's greatest single-incident combat loss of life during the entire war with 25 sailors killed and another 27 wounded.
While final victory was aided by absence of American airpower, the PAVN/VPA armies were no longer the light-infantry formations mauled at the Battle of Ia Drang in 1965, but a tough, proficient, well-equipped modern force.
The Ho Chi Minh Trail was increasingly a network of paved roads easing the logistical flow for the Offensive and tactical concentration and coordination of infantry, armor and artillery was much tighter.
While ARVN forces achieved a number of impressive successes,[80] they were, on balance, clearly outclassed by the PAVN armies, which suffered from weaknesses in certain areas, such as airpower and the handling of armor- illustrated particularly in the 1972 Easter Offensive.
[35]: 316–415 Subsequent campaigns in Indochina however, illustrate a number of PAVN strengths – from the rapid victory of 1975, to the initial 1979 invasion of Cambodia which saw well coordinated corps-sized combined arms operations including an amphibious assault against the coast.
