The Battle of An Loc

The company of 60-70 US men entered My Lai and destroyed houses, livestock, and all inhabitants they could find in less than 20 minutes.

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

Lt. Colonel Honeycutt, commander of 3/187, ordered two of his companies to the north and northwest ridges of the hill. Bravo company started pushing up the hill while meeting large amounts of North Vietnamese soldiers. Because of the resistance, they called in close air support to aid in moving up the hill. Miscommunication caused the air support to confuse the landing zone for an NVA camp resulting in them opening fire and killing two and injuring thirty-five of their own. Unfortunately, this was the first but not the last friendly fire incident during this battle. The thick vegetation caused for so much miscommunication and inability to properly identify targets. Honeycutt continued to launch assaults against the NVA. Theses assaults would face heavy resistance with many casualties. Lt. Colonel Conmey, commander of the 1st Battalion 506th Infantry regiment shifted his assaults to the southern base of the hill. American pushes were caused to fall short due to the thick vegetation, this also effected the capabilities of the American’s heavy weapons. Those hindrances gave huge advantages to the NVA. Because of all the vegetation, they called in approximately 270 Air Strikes in a ten-day period. These strikes dropped 890 tons of explosives and 115 tons of napalm. These air strikes and napalm eliminated many of the NVA bunkers and trenching system (Hickman,

The United States of America, one of the most powerful nations in the world at the time, was completely unprepared for the war that it had joined in Vietnam. The terrain was unlike any we had ever fought in. From mountains to jungles to rice paddies, it was wet, hot, cold, and completely unforgiving. To say that the political situation was tenuous would be a drastic understatement. Not only could officials not make up their minds, neither could the general populace. The media had an influence in this war that was heretofore unseen. All of these factors were a great obstacle in and of themselves and then we put into play the greatest obstacle of all: the enemy. This was an enemy like we had never seen. The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Vietcong (VC) were fast, agile, adaptable, and extremely unpredictable. The VC hid among the common populace and fought like demons. The NVA were well supplied, well organized, and did not restrict themselves the way many large armies do. This forced us to have to rapidly adapt and develop new tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) in order to counter all of these obstacles. Due to these needs and the rapidly advancing technology and versatility of helicopters, the Air Cavalry was born. The Air Cav was composed of several types of airframes including transport aircraft, attack aircraft, and reconnaissance aircraft. The reconnaissance aircraft were also known as Aeroscouts and were known for their boldness, audacity,

prevent. The estimated losses of American soldiers were all over the place; starting at 23,000 all

This was the first battle between the U.S. Army and the People 's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) of North Vietnam. This two part battle occurred November fourteenth through the eighteenth of November 1965. The location was at the Landing Zone X-Ray and Albany in La Drang Valley. Although ample casualties on both Vietnam and U.S. side, each side adduced the battle was a victory of their own. The action of La Drang Valley was considered essential as it set the layouts for approaches for each side during the conflict. The U.S. troops continued to depend on air mobility and arms fire to acquire their combat zone objectives-achievement of the so called “body count”. Viet Cong learned by quickly engaging their combat forces close to the antagonists (while at close range) the could abrogate American advantages. The battle of La

The landscape seemed difficult because the insurgents were heavily fortified in the buildings and mosques, and there would be the possibility that they could use civilians as a human shield. Since the very beginning of the

In theory, utilizing helicopters could relocate their forces fast enough to keep the enemy from conversing on any one unit. On the contrary, an American Force discovering an NVA unit would fix its position while the reinforcing battalion flew in to cut off the enemy's retreat and annihilate them (E-History, 2012).

of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and U.S. forces, but fire had also been directed at

By 1968, after fighting for 7 years, America won almost every battle they fought with a death ratio of 1:10. But in January 1968, during the Vietnamese Lunar, Tet, the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong attacked the American and South Vietnamese forces violating the Tet Mau Tanh ceasefire agreement which the North

destroyed everything where the hypocenter was. Severe damage was caused within 2 kilometers of the explosion and moderate to “light” damage was caused from 2.1 to 5.6 kilometers within the explosion(11). This undoubtedly ended the war, but

In places where they were well supported with airpower the ARVN fought well and could repel attack after attack from the NVA, in other areas the ARVN turned tail and ran to be eventually chocked off by the NVA and laid siege to. These actions would be a preview of what would happen as soon as the American air power was not there to help support the ARVN ground troops. Although in many areas moral was high due to fighting off the NVA in others it was destroyed by huge losses of people, equipment, and

All landmarks shown on reference maps had been obliterated; roads, trees and most buildings were reduced to dust. Nonetheless, the attack goes according to plan.

The Battle of the Ia Drang Valley was the first major battle of the Vietnam War that engaged regular forces of the United States Army ushering in a new era of combat. Air Assault of Artillery and Close Air Support used together for the first time in Vietnam allowed an agile small force to be successful against a much larger enemy contingency. Operation Silver Bayonet pitted the Third Brigade of the First Cavalry Division: 1st Battalion and 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, and the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Cavalry Regiment, against a much larger Vietnamese force to include the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong guerilla fighters. The fighting lasted from 14 November to 18 November 1965.

The focus of the battle plan was a huge artillery bombardment, backed up by mines, collapsed