Although I’ve been interested in WWII for my entire life, I’ve only recently got interested in the Vietnam War. I’m reading a book (Days of Valor) about what happened in '67-'68 (before the Tet Offensive) and I am totally confused!
The area of operation by the 199th Light Infantry Brigade described in the book is just above Saigon. I know that Saigon fell in '75. So, was the North Vietnamese Army so close to Saigon in '67? Does it mean that most of Vietnam was controlled by the Vietcong in '67? I always thought that in '67-'68 the front line was around the DMZ in the middle of Vietnam.
the fighting would just “pop up” almost anywhere in the country at any given time
Da Nang or Chu Lai could get a rocket attack,then a day later after that was defeated,an outpost close to the Ho Chi Min trail would get hit,or farther south
if you think of how Montana would be attacked by 1,000 people while being defended by 100,000 troops,that was about how the attempt was made to end the civil war in VietNam (sort of a reverse of the movie “Red Dawn”)
the fall of Saigon was different than most of the war before that time period,that was a traditional “large force advances on a goal” type of fight,without the US participating in the attempt to halt it
US troops really controlled the piece of ground they were standing on (usually), out to the max-effective range of an M-16 (460 meters, or as far as they could see, which was about 25 meters in the bush), along with the ground inside the wire… Everything else was Victor Charlie’s AO (prior to the '68 Tet Offensive)… When you stepped outside the wire and went into the bush, out of sight of the wire, you were in Charlie’s yard…
The DMZ was basically the border between North and South Vietnam as a result of the French Indochina War, roughly running just South of the 17th parallel, and was supposed to be off-limits to all military personel (hence the name), North and South (The NVA ignored that part)…
Now I understand. So, it was not like the US Army vs. the North Vietnam Army per se. It was more like the US Army vs. a group of Vietcongs who would pop up anytime anywhere.
It was US Army/USMC vs VC anywhere in the south, and USA/USMC vs the NVA more traditional set piece battles, when the NVA could be brought to battle, usually in the outying regions of South Vietnam where they had established strongholds. Both sides fought a war of attrition to tire out the other, while trying to capitilize on their own strengths and minimize that of their enemy’s. Add in the condtions of safe havens for the communists where ground forces could not pursue and engage, and the specter of Chinese or Russian ground forces intervention if the US escalated beyond some point that was never known by the civilian leadership.
What confused me was that I always thought ground combats occurred near the DMZ, far from Saigon, in '67 & '68. Anyway, I cannot put down the book. I just ordered a copy of “When Thunder Rolls.”
In 1967 the US strategy was to engage the NVA in the countryside away from the populated areas so that “secure” zones could be brought under RVN government control and the VC infrastructure eliminated thru various programs. Many of the “big” battles of that time were out along the borders of the DMZ at “the Rock” and Khe Sanh, and areas along the Cambodian and Lation borders such as Dak To. Others were “Search & Destroy/Sweep & Clear” operations in areas such as the “Iron Triangle” closer to Saigon intended to remove the NVA/VC from areas that threatened the capital. But small unit patrol action firefights could occur anywhere, ‘from the Delta to the DMZ’. Plus all the clandestine cross border operations. There is plenty of good reading and model building to be done in regards to the Vietnam War.
I actually wrote a paper in college about the role that the USS New Jersey played in Vietnam, and the information I found was staggering.
As anybody who’s studied the conflict in any depth knows, disrupting the north’s logistics network was always like punching sand. Bombed bridges turned into people carrying stuff across rivers. Caves were safe from those same bombs because the mud absorbed the impacts, and so on.
The New Jersey was brought in to put an end to that, at least along the coast. And it’s impact was massive. Those 16" shells beat the crap out of the supply lines, bunkers and so on, and did so with basically the closest thing to stealth in those days. Since the shells travelled faster than the speed of sound, they’d impact before the sound wave, so they basically came in silent. No warning. No telltale roar of a jet engine overhead, etc. And the oomph allowed it to knock out bridges and other infrastructure that bombs had trouble with.
I’ve read testimonials from (I think it was) Marines on the ground to the effect of the New Jersey’s presence basically making the coastline peaceful for the time it was there.
Ultimately, it was so effective that the North Vietnamese demanded the Navy remove it from the theater as a precondition to peace talks.
I used to work with a guy who found some targets for New jerseys’ guns in that time/area. Intersting stories. I would love to see a kit of New Jersey in her Vietnam or Korean War fitting.
This is the kind of war you get when politicians are in charge instead of generals.
This line in Shakespeares Julius Caesar “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip (loose) the dogs of war” pretty much sums up the way to do it if you really want to win a war.
In many ways, there are some parallels to be drawn between this scenario from the Vietnam era and what we face (faced) in Afghanistan and Iraq today. Not a one to one comparison by any stretch, but the same type of assymetric warfare that means there really is no ‘front’ - the enemy can, and will, attack anywhere, anytime.
I was part of the gun fire support crew on my cruiser . We did fire missions in support of mostly the USMC up and down the coast of south Vietnam 1964 - thru 66 . As part of the gun fire crew i was able to go ashore in Da Nang and visit with some of the Marines that we had been supporting at a location north of there. Their location was on a hill top overlooking a peaceful valley . The Marine i was with told me that some of those people out there would be attacking their position at night . Sure enough it happened . Its kinda like trying to kill an ant hill one ant at a time with 12 gauge shot gun when it enters your yard and then not eliminating their ant hill because you can only blow up their supply routes …
By the numbers and in theory the US was winning the war in Vietnam.
The goal was to succeed by attrition and force the North into treaty talks. With a ratio of over 10 to 1 enemy troops KIA vrs US combat losses the strategy failed to work for several reasons. The main one being men and material pouring in from neighboring countries, which also provided sanctuary from attack. Unofficially the North was backed by Russia and China.
Even with a flawed strategy the US fielded superior equipment and air support which the North did not have. Added to this was the sheer volume of artillery support from land and sea.
The Vietnamese theory of attrition was time. In conflict already for decades the population with a defiant, stubborn attitude fully backed their leader. Ho Chi Min realized eventually even a superpower would tire of war in his country. Dug in for the long haul his strategy of going underground and fight a Gorilla style hit and run war was the only way to survive and resist. Yet the one factor stronger than steel and lead tipped the balance.
For the first time in history the media was allowed to film and photograph all aspects of the conflict. Shocking images filled the news each night and public disapproval with mounting troop losses over 10 years caused the US to withdraw.
Without getting into the politics- a few clarifications to Suppresion Fire’s pot:
North Vietnam was officially backed by Russia and China politicially and militarily. It was far more than mere lip service and moral support of unofficial support. Military hardware from bullets to the latest MiGs and SAMs, tanks and heavy artillery, were provided to the North, as well as technicians, advisors, etc.
US active involvement on the ground was roughly 8 years. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was passed in August 1964 and can be seen as the point where active overt commitment began. Regular ground force combat units ( not SF or Advisors) first arrived in country (South Vietnam) in March 1965. The last ones were withdrawn in early 1973, roughly 8 years later.
And the North actually tried regular force on force engagements twice while US forces were involved, with the hope/aim of inspiring the “general uprising” of the populace of the South. Tet 1968 and the Easter Offensive of 1972 (a full on Soviet style conventional invasion across the DMZ and out of Cambodia) during the US withdrawl. In both cases after achieving initial gains they were soundly defeated on the battlefield in the long run with heavy losses and forced to revert to guerilla (not gorilla) warfare to rebuild their forces with Soviet and Chinese assistance.
and it is choice inspirational material for lots of great modeling subjects from leftover WWII aircraft to the highest technology land sea and air weapons from the US and USSR of that era. [;)]
If you can, read “We Were Soldiers Once…And Young” written by retired Lt. Gen Hal Moore. Excellent reading about then Lt. Col. Hal Moore leading the 7th Air Cav. at the Battele of Ia Drang Valley. The movie is good but a few events differ from the book.