Veitnam war first lessons

Victories like the previous one encouraged Americans to continue the same tactics. These were:

Use the helicopter to provide necessary mobility in a mountainous area and jungle. Thus arose the first helicopter gunship, the AH-1H known as Cobra and UH-1H or Huey (most people associate it with Vietnam and both were still in service at the beginning of this century).

Great display of artillery, including helicopter transport if necessary.
Search the enemy in the open and force him to practice a “conventional” fight.
Use of infantry and light cavalry for ill suited land. Thus, heavy vehicles like the tank Sheridan were easy targets for anti-tank weapons.

There soon became available air cavalry battalions and a lot of helicopters. But the Viet Cong took careful note of these tactics to not repeat the mistake twice. However, authors and editors of Nam, a chronicle of the Vietnam War, say that the Vietnamese learned much more than its opponent. A large number of the Vietcong and General Giap adapted and learned from their mistakes, rectifying their way of fighting. The Vietnamese followed the following guidelines:

In tunnels large contingents of Vietnamese could live and fight. Many, like the Cu Chi became a museum and were photographed in 1997, as part of the tourism industry of Vietnam. They refused to fight in open fields or on land readily graspable. They always fought as close as possible to prevent enemy artillery fire.

They didn’t stay too long in one position and leave opponents offering too much resistance. Continued the construction of tunnels in both the plains and hills to provide a relatively safe haven to the Viet Cong and the EVN to rest, get some medical care and “evaporate” before the enemy. Share all the same living conditions and make them feel part of a common struggle.

So the officers used to live in the same holes that the soldiers, members of the politburo in Hanoi used to penetrate the Ho Chi Minh City to encourage the sappers and shock troops of the Special Youth. No doubt this was a great achievement as testifies the Journal of Vietnamese Duong Thi Xuan Quy.

When walking alone in the woods, I realized how vulnerable he was. It was very quiet, there was no one ahead or behind, she was all alone on the path. But I felt safe knowing that my comrades were close, walking together toward the front. These tactics dislodged much of the high command of the coalition, its officers and the soldiers themselves. A Special Forces member said years later, “I liked it better in 65 and 66. Then you were against them. Now you sit and wait to jump into the air or do it yourself.”

Thus the Vietnam War became a series of lengthy down time or travelling interrupted by some moments of struggle, which tore the nerves of the soldiers and greatly enraged them. The result was that the ambush became an obsession and turned out to be one of the first priorities of men, rather than orders or obedience to their officers. The tedium in the jungle and at the same time the tension of a possible attack, destroyed a lot of nerves and more than half of U.S. troops ended up as junkies. This was another cause that would come at a cost.

If the tactic was hard for soldiers, it was not much less for the high command. The desire for a pitched battle became a particular obsession for the Pentagon, which organized operations in order to locate the headquarters of the Vietcong. They were fixed in their mind that the guerrillas would defend hard.

But for most operations they conducted a CGVC (assuming CGVC was not really an office in Hanoi). However, the first year of the war saw the U.S win all the battles fought. This made them think of a quick victory, but they could gain experience in combat for police officers so they decided to send all potential there.

This proved to be another error that led them to defeat. The officers were rotating every 6 months instead of every 12, though the statistics reported that a military operation began to perform well at three months and reached its optimum operating at 10.

This made the units commanded by rookies permanently unfit, which made them candidates for feared ambushes, in which case the soldiers did not hesitate to kill their bosses and any recruit not too clever. The calculation of nearly 800 officers killed by his own men is considered very optimistic.