How Effective Were the Guerrilla Tactics of the Viet Cong

The vietnam war had a few main opposing force one of them being the Vietcong of communist Vietnam. In the words of Fred Nash “The Viet Cong basically are the peasants that worked in the paddies, they could be people that would be, back then, we hired a lot of them to do our laundry.” (Nash). What this is saying is that the Vietcong looked like normal civilians but in reality they were the ones who were fighting the soldiers. They also were trained by other soldiers “The overwhelming majority of the Viet Cong were subsequently recruited in the South, but they received weapons, guidance, and reinforcements from North Vietnamese Army soldiers who had infiltrated into South Vietnam.” (Britannica). What this quote is saying is that the vietcong were trained and armed by

The United States battle tactics did not fare well against an unseen enemy, who rarely presented himself in a full-scale battle, but rather picked at units one by one. A conversation between a colonel in the U.S. army and a colonel in the Vietnamese communist army summed up the guerilla warfare tactics used: "You know you never defeated us on the battlefield," said the American Colonel. The North Vietnamese Colonel pondered this remark for a moment. "That may be so," he replied, " but that is also irrelevant." The revolutionaries in Vietnam used hit and run attacks. They would assault small groups of soldiers, by sneaking up on them. This worked well, because it allowed the Viet Minh to avoid bigger battles, which they were not trained for. They knew that the U.S. soldiers were unfamiliar with the battlegrounds and jungles, so they used this weakness to their advantage, by being able to move more quickly and stealthily than the U.S. troops. They also knew how to

According to Tim O 'Brien, the Viet Cong 's and United States ' fighting tactics were a waste of people 's lives. The Viet Cong used guerrilla warfare tactics which resulted in Americans being killed and in turn caused innocent civilians to die. The Viet Cong planted mines along the paths and in the jungles to injure American soldiers. The Viet Cong were never out in the open and had the sympathy of the Vietnamese living there. Many young Vietnamese children and women planted mines, spied, and killed American soldiers. The American soldiers could not tell the difference between the enemy and the innocent, so the soldiers indiscriminately killed everybody. The American strategy was to find the Viet Cong and kill them. The American soldiers walked from village to village in search of the Viet Cong. As they went from place to place, soldiers would

“You could never tell who was the enemy was … therefore you treated everyone with suspicion”- Thomas Giltner, US Soldier “Contested Spaces”The foreign US soldiers had no knowledge of the geography of Vietnam (jungles, mountains, rainforests, and climate) but the VC did, and used it to their advantage. The US, by engaging in massive firepower, killing many non-combatants, destroyed the US credibility in the minds of the people. The VC sympathised with the people’s hardships and this was effective as they won the people over. The VC had extensive knowledge of guerrilla warfare, it was their war, and the US fought tractional conventional warfare which did have some effected, but eventually the US ran out of will. The military operations were

“If the tiger ever stands still, the elephant will crush him with his mighty tusks. But the tiger does not stand still. He lurks in the jungle by day and emerges by night. He will leap upon the back of the elephant, tearing huge chunks from his hide, and then he will leap back into the dark jungle. And slowly the elephant will bleed to death.” This quote by Ho Chi Minh emphasises his belief that Guerrilla tactics would be what would result in a win for the Vietcong. The Vietcong made use of tunnels, known as the Cu Chi Tunnels , which was a network of underground tunnels that the Vietcong resided in, and used to store supplies and care for the sick and injured. The use of underground hiding places meant that the US was unaware of the Vietcong’s whereabouts from ground level, allowed them to be

Vietnamese army had a major advantage over the U.S; they knew the forests well, and had

The North Vietnamese soldiers were dedicated to fight for their independence and for communism. They were conscripted forces and they were aggressively faithful to their leader, Ho Chi Minh. The Viet Cong were more motivated to fight and win the war than the Americans as they were defending their own motherland. The Viet Cong were aided by the North Vietnamese leaders with military supplies and philosophy support. They also had the backing from China and the Soviet Union who were also communist

attacks, the American soldiers were trained for open battle. The Vietcongs had underground tunnels as well where the Vietcongs

The American War was a test given to Vietnamese people to test their loyalty to the government. Before that nearly ten centuries under Chinese rule this country has never fallen apart. This clearly proves that warfare can be overcome by trust among the people and the strength of them working

Fighting in Vietnam started well before the actual “Vietnam War”. The Vietnamese people had been under French rule for several decades until Japan invaded in 1940. In 1941, when Ho Chi Minh came back from his travels there were two foreign powers occupying the Vietnam territory, the French and Japanese. Ho Chi Minh established the Viet Minh in hopes to rid Vietnam of these two powers. On September 2, 1945 the Viet Minh established the Democratic Republic of China after getting support in northern Vietnam. This action spawned the French to fight back to keep control of their colony. Ho Chi Minh wanted support from the United States against the French; he went as far as to supply the United States with information about the Japanese during WWII. The United States kept with their Cold War foreign policy of containment as to prevent the spread of Communism, fearing the “Domino Theory” that said “if one country in Asia fell to Communism then surrounding countries would soon fall”.

The Viet Cong, also known as the National Liberation Front, and the People 's Army of Vietnam were the main forces fighting against the South Vietnamese Government and the United States (Todorovic). Much of the fighting was not face to face. Most of the fighting was done using the tactic of guerrilla warfare. This is when a small group of soldiers attacks a larger one, usually using their most advanced type of technology, and running away after attacking. They also commonly used minefields and snipers to take out American Troops without putting themselves in danger (PBS.org). One minefield could take out an entire group of U.S. soldiers. Another very important part of the

Likewise, the Vietcong received weapons, supplies, and heavy armaments, such as tanks, from the Russians and Chinese which made the resistance even greater than the U.S. and its allies' forces put together. This was evidenced clearly during the Korean war when the U.N. and U.S. forces arrived to Korea and forced the North Korean forces back to the 38th parallel and were even about to take North Korea as well, but as this was about to occur, the "human waves" created by the Chinese soldiers were introduced into Korea, retaking North Korea and forcing the allied forces out of Korea absolutely. Correspondingly, when the U.S. introduced its forces into Vietnam, the Vietcong received much support from Russia mainly but also from China, which turned the tide of the encounter and lead the communist Vietnamese to victory. On a more detailed level, during the mid of the conflicts, there were also several similar points. Operations on behalf of the U.S. had similar results, such being the case with "Rolling Thunder" and "search and destroy" tactics during the Vietnam war and the attack on North Korea after having taken the 38th parallel during the Korean War.

When the war started, North Vietnam took side with the communist party which includes China, Viet Cong, and supported by many other communist countries such as the USSR as the main supporter of armour vehicles, explosive, and weaponries such as Type 59, Type 62, T-55, T-54, T-34, however tanks such as those were proven inefficient due to jungled biome and the needs to cut down trees could jeopardise secret operations and ambushes. Guerrilla warfare was proposed by Viet Cong it helped the communist to attack or defend territory with repeat succession when fighting against the

The North Vietnamese Communist leadership's ability to reassess and adapt during the Vietnam War was reflected in how well they combined guerilla and conventional operations to achieve their strategic goal of unifying Vietnam under communist rule. Throughout the conflict, the Viet Cong (VC) were employed to conduct guerilla operations while North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and VC "main force" units were used to transition to conventional operations. Guerilla operations enabled Hanoi to inflict a steady flow of casualties on US forces which increased anti-war sentiment in America. NVA and VC main force conventional operations reinforced the US Army's conventional approach to the fight which caused the Americans to alienate the people of South

The Guerrilla warfare was definitely the main Vietnamese benefit. The US battalions faced plenty of difficulties while trying to reach their foe due to the fact that the Viet Cong army had no uniforms, front lines and it consisted of a few hundred men. The biggest issue for the American commanders was not how to defeat the enemy, but how to locate them. The US tactic “search and destroy” puts thousands of American troops searching the Viet Cong army into the jungle. The purposes were to find and destroy as much as possible enemies and capture their resources .By occupying these main points the Americans were able to weaken the foe. Plenty of the war experts and the officials argued that the western superpower forces should have used counter-insurgency strategy, which allowed to put guerrillas in to a conventional war.