The Tactics Used by the U.S and the N.L.F in the Vietnam War Essay

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

Kara Hinson The war in Vietnam started in 1955 and lasted until 1975. Many Americans believed it was a pointless war that had no meaning. The United States became involved in the Vietnam Warbecause they wanted to stop the spread of communism. This war took 50,000 lives and wounded 300,000 American men. Due to the My Lai massacre which killed hundreds of innocent and unarmed Vietnamese civilians, protests about the draft start all over the country, because of draft dodgers and draft deferment, and the government misleading people back home, this was known as the credibility gap, Americans are turning against the war in Vietnam. This leads to anti-war protesters, known as doves springing up across the United States demonstrating their opposition to the war.The Vietnam War is one of the most known wars in history, many innocent people were killed that had no involvement. United States soldiers came up with strategies to kill off the Vietcong, but occasionally the United States was not sure who were Vietcong and who were not. Napalm was a jellied gasoline that explodes when dropped in large canisters the napalm was usually dropped on villages. When the napalm was dropped on the villages, the Vietnamese houses and vegetation were destroyed. Napalm burned men, women, and children who were in the villages the clothes would burn completely off their bodies. Agent orange another substance used this was sprayed by an aircraft over the jungle. Agent

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,

The U.S. was going to the extreme using chemical warfare tactics; this was counterproductive, riddling fields useless and sickening or killing not only the Viet Minh but also the Reunified Vietnam. At this point, they could not distinguish the enemy from the people they were trying to save. They angered the people of the Reunified Vietnam to the point of where they were switching to the communist side with a goal of getting the United States out of their country. Many United States citizens worried about what would happen if we pulled out of the war. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of the State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, wrote in a speech “if they [Viet Minh] achieved military or political success, it is certain that they would subject the people to a cruel Communist dictatorship taking its orders from Peiping and Moscow.”(Document F). He like many others knew that if the U.S. abandoned the Vietnam War they would encourage communism to continue its infectious spread through Asia and Europe. Ultimately, The United States intermeddled with countries in attempt to help but failed, giving them over to communism

Napalm is a highly flammable sticky jelly used in incendiary bombs and flamethrowers, consisting of gasoline thickened with special soaps, they were very deadly weapons used during the war. Operation Agent Orange is a herbicide and defoliant chemical, one of the tactical use Rainbow Herbicides. This devastating chemical sprayed more than 20 million gallons all over vietnam, Cambodia and laos from 1961 to 1971. The chemical contained these diseases Al Amyloidosis, Chronic B-cell Leukemias, Diabetes Mellitus type 2 and many more diseases but whoever survived this I feel sorry for.

Over two million Vietnamese died on both sides during the war and many more suffered horrifying injuries. Approximately half of all Vietnamese casualties were civilians and the major cause of their deaths was massive US bombing and shelling of villages in NLF- controlled areas. Many Vietnamese suffered terrible burns from the napalm, super- naplam and phosphorous bombs that were dropped by US planes.

President Johnson, Johnson ordered Operation Rolling Thunder from March 1964 to October 1968. Vietnamese didn’t attack the U.S

The war in Vietnam was, and continues to be, one of the most controversial hot button topics in American history. The military’s use of dangerous pesticides, like Agent Orange, is a major part of this controversy. Agent Orange is a defoliant that was widely used to deforest dense jungle areas to reduce both hiding places and food sources for the Vietnamese. During the war, American B-52 bombers released over nineteen million gallons of Agent Orange over the Vietnamese countryside. After ten years of continuous dumping, 1971 finally marked the end of America’s use of Agent Orange and other herbicides. In 1974, the United States government, headed by Richard Nixon, swore the country would never again use chemical weapons in a first strike. (Levy and Scott-Clark)

There have been many wars throughout American history and millions of lives have been lost fighting for the land of the free. On November 1st, 1955, one of the most controversial wars in American history began; the Vietnam War. The politics behind the Vietnam War are very in-depth and important, but the issues being addressed now are based on the weapons used during the war and how they affected veterans; more specifically, the weapon is one that had more long-term effects and did not kill the enemy at the point-blank exposure. The U.S. created a newer chemical weapon known as Agent Orange. Agent Orange is a very lethal and harmful chemical that the U.S. used on the Viet Cong to try to weaken them by depriving their food source and cover. Now, over five decades after the war, veterans from both sides are still being greatly affected by this war tactic and the goal is to understand more about the human effects during and after the war.

The Vietnam War was one of the most intense, stressful and exhilarating wars to fight due to the factors of fear and not knowing the surrounding environment. Vietnam’s land is a jungle filled with natural dangers. Monsoons were common on the Vietnam land, which made harsh wet and hot fighting conditions. Animals such as snakes and scorpions made it dangerous to wander blindly in the jungle. On top of all the natural dangers and conditions of the land, the communist enemy known as the Vietcong were known for their use of booby traps such as bear traps, wooden stakes applied to dangerous designs, and use of poison. American soldiers found these factors made it hard to fight a war and found it even harder to fight when the U.S Army couldn’t discriminate the enemy from civilians. The Vietcong and South Vietnamese were the same people with different views, so this made war hard to fight when it is nearly impossible to identify the enemy. The use of guerrilla warfare made it difficult to beat the enemy in a foreign jungle terrain. The Vietcong having the upper hand in almost every aspect of the war made warfare conditions very stressful for American soldiers. Most of the American soldiers were already experiencing anxiety and stress due

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 failure of the United States against North Vietnam was due to their inefficient use of military machines” (Gibbons, 2014:107). These tactics used by the US soldiers included bombs that the soldiers did not use efficiently, because if they used the military advantage that they had, this would have been a victorious war for the US. However, due to their use of these military machines inefficiently, they were left in humiliation. “The US threw bombs on Vietnam and was equipped with every existing kind of weapon, engaged in the longest and most brutal war” (Buttinger, 1977:169). The US army should not have bombed strategic routes of the Viet Cong because they wanted to get back at them, but they should have attacked with bombs and weapons on the battle once the Viet Cong had started attacking. Their lack when to use their tactics led to their failure. “One of the US’s mistakes which led to their defeat was the bombing of Laos when they launched the defoliant Agent Orange which destroyed homes” (Kaiser, 1973:412). Due to this action, the US lost not only the support of Laos citizens but also the rest of the Vietnamese people, because this was evidence that the only important factor for the US soldiers was to win the war against the Viet Cong and not the lives of the Vietnamese

Around midnight on August 4, 1964 American aircrafts began sixty-four sorties (one plane attacks) over North Vietnamese patrol boat bases and a major oil storage depot. During the sorties more than twenty Vietnamese vessels were destroyed, while the oil depot became an inferno of flame and smoke. The events that took place in the Gulf of Tonkin added to years of tension between the United States and North Vietnam.