Those Orcs Who Distinguish Themselves Enough in the Arts of War to Be Trained as Grunts

Got firepower? Well, and so use it!

As far back every bit the American Revolution, when British regulars haughtily dismissed the Continental Army, foreign adversaries accept questioned the fighting power of the American soldier. In Vietnam, the U.S. war machine'south extensive use of firepower encouraged a new generation of skeptics to speculate how the average American "grunt"—Army and Marine infantrymen—would have fared against the Viet Cong and N Vietnamese Regular army without heavy artillery and air support.

Enemy forces browbeaten back past U.S. firepower tried to make the example that Americans relied on the might of their weapons because U.S. grunts lacked the skills and courage to achieve battlefield victories on their ain. In William Broyles Jr.'s "The Road to Loma 10: A Veteran's Return to Vietnam," a 1985 article in The Atlantic, an unidentified communist veteran said Americans were "afraid to leave their base, their helicopters, their artillery."

Similarly, an early on Viet Cong assessment of American troops stated that Americans had "no spirit of combat" and e'er depended "on modern weapons so they lose initiative and cocky-confidence," equally quoted in Otto Lehrack'southward The Outset Boxing: Operation Starlite and the Starting time of the Claret Debt in Vietnam. Gen. Van Tien Dung, main of the Northward Vietnamese General Staff, argued that American troops, "when deprived of the fire support provided by aircraft, armoured cars and artillery, are not better, even worse, than puppet [South Vietnamese] soldiers." Dung added that his troops, though "junior in firepower," were superior in fighting spirit and combat power.

Dung's deputy, Gen. Vuong Thua Vu, echoing his boss, denigrated U.Southward. combat troops in David Maraniss' acclaimed book, They Marched into Sunlight. "Their basic fighting methods are the following: Seek ways to speedily get away from liberation troops and determine enemy and friendly lines in gild to call for help from air and artillery units," he wrote. "This is a very monotonous and outmoded fighting method of a cowardly but ambitious army."

Top American commanders, however, considered their approach to be intelligent warfighting in the context of the Vietnam battleground. U.S. forces faced an elusive adversary and were tethered to an overall strategy that shunned major assaults aimed at an all-out victory and instead kept American troops primarily in a defensive posture, with aggressive deportment usually express to search-and-destroy patrols. That meant American units were typically forced to fight at a time and place of the enemy'due south choosing, placing their men at a singled-out disadvantage.

One report plant, unsurprisingly, that more twoscore percent of battles occurred when an American unit on the move had been ambushed or encircled or had encountered enemy forces in dug-in or fortified positions. Further, the enemy rarely attacked without a significant numerical advantage. 1 Viet Cong veteran recalled in Michael Lee Lanning and Daniel Cragg'south Inside the VC and NVA that his unit preferred to avoid contact unless "nosotros were absolutely superior in numbers before starting the attack." Any sensible U.Due south. ground commander would welcome fire back up in those circumstances.

Moreover, American political and cultural sensitivities all simply demanded overwhelming burn down support exist used when ground troops made contact with the enemy. "In Vietnam, more than any other war in American history," wrote Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr. in Firepower in Limited War, "the preservation of soldiers' lives was the overriding tactical imperative." So much and then that commanders were asked to justify instances when they did not asking burn support.

Platoons and companies nether burn were advised to resist the urge to assault or outflank the enemy and instead call on artillery and air support. By emphasizing firepower over maneuver, infantry units could inflict maximum damage on the enemy while avoiding unnecessary casualties.

American infantry units were to notice and set the enemy so that firepower could destroy him. Like many officers, Lt. Col. Boyd Bashore admitted that firepower made his task easier. "I've been rich and I've been poor and believe me, being rich is better," noted the 25th Infantry Partitioning veteran. "As an infantry commander I have assaulted fortified base camps both ways: the traditional endmost with the enemy and the let-the-arms-and-air-do-information technology, and believe me, the latter is meliorate."

Col. Sidney B. Berry agreed. Following an eventful tour equally a brigade commander with the 1st Infantry Division in 1966-67, Berry explained in a 1968 article for Armed forces Review that "commanders at all levels should seek the enemy with minimum forces and so use maneuver units to cake the enemy'due south withdrawal and supporting firepower to destroy him. They should seek to avoid heavy infantry attack on, or engagement in, enemy fortified positions. The key to success…is the massive use of supporting firepower."

Operations predicated on massive firepower certainly played to American strengths. Far from a stumbling colossus, the U.S. military excelled at highly technical combined-arms warfare.

Lt. Col. George Shuffer, who commanded the second Battalion, second Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Segmentation, argued in a December 1967 piece published in Armed services Review that firepower had displaced troop maneuvers on the battlefield. "In fact, once a boxing is joined in Vietnam," he wrote, "firepower outweighs maneuver as the decisive element of combat ability." Shuffer harnessed the destructive effects of artillery, helicopter gunships and stock-still-wing aircraft to defeat a large Viet Cong force almost the Mekong Delta town of Nha Mat in in 1965.

Although firepower eventually emerged as the principal instrument of American gainsay power in Vietnam, some officers—peculiarly early on in the war—refused to pull back into a perimeter and instead dispatched troops to assault or outflank the enemy. Far as well ofttimes, nonetheless, those troops would movement out, merely to become pinned down themselves. Wary of additional maneuvering, yet unable to button through the enemy force, those officers had little selection only to bring in supporting firepower to spring-start the advance or cover a withdrawal.

There were instances when traditional infantry tactics proved decisive on the Vietnam battleground. In May 1966, 2 companies from the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Partitioning (Airmobile), encountered units of the NVA 22nd Regiment in the jungle-covered hills e of the Vinh Thanh Valley in Southward Vietnam's Central Highlands. Around sundown the NVA withdrew to defensive positions on a hill some 700 feet abroad. Fighting well into the night, the Americans charged forrard, assaulted the enemy bunkers and overran the position, killing nigh 60 NVA soldiers.

Similarly, the Marines earned a pair of victories in the hotly contested Que Son Valley in northern South Vietnam in 1967 past flawlessly executing "fire and maneuver," a bones infantry tactic in which one friendly
element suppresses the enemy with fire while some other maneuvers to destroy him.

While patrolling the valley that June, Bharat Company of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, observed about 50 NVA troops, armed with two machine guns, preparing an ambush. The Marines, afterward establishing a base of operations of fire with two of their own machine guns, quickly dispatched 2 platoons to envelop the enemy. The Americans killed 30, captured 20 and routed the would-exist ambushers—without suffering a single casualty. Later that summertime, Lima Visitor of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Sectionalization, stormed a hill and killed several dozen North Vietnamese, some in vicious hand-to-paw combat. No Americans were killed in the fighting.

In the jump of 1968, the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Sectionalization, fought through a blizzard of enemy pocket-sized-arms, mortar and artillery fire to assail, using "fire and maneuver," i NVA fighting position after another in and around the village of Dai Do, in northernmost S Vietnam. "The Marines, outnumbered but superbly led and already battle hardened, dug [the NVA] out spiderhole by spiderhole," wrote Vietnam historian Keith Nolan. The victory at Dai Do may have prevented an NVA assault on the Marine base at Dong Ha, a major supply and logistics eye.

American infantrymen clearly were neither unwilling nor incapable of fighting and fighting well in a traditional role using traditional tactical maneuvers. On balance, still, infantry actions alone could never kill the enemy fast plenty—and keep friendly casualties depression enough—to satisfy the demands of the political leadership in Washington. Firepower provided the only viable means of winning the war at an acceptable cost.

American grunts fought the way their superiors deemed best, just like communist soldiers trained to grab enemy troops "by their belts"— moving in very close to an American unit of measurement to discourage the use of airstrikes and artillery fire that would also kill U.South. troops. Hanoi and its commanders in S Vietnam were ruthlessly willing to expend the lives of their soldiers, while Washington was casualty averse. The U.South. favored firepower, non to compensate for a supposedly cowardly and ineffectual infantry, but rather to conserve American lives.

Grunts by and large fought well even when the delivery of supporting fire was complicated by circumstances such as dense vegetation, rugged terrain and the enemy's power to get close apace. An splendid case is the functioning of the 4th Infantry Partition in the Central Highlands in May 1967. Over a ix-day catamenia the partitioning counted 367 dead NVA soldiers, virtually killed, non by supporting firepower, simply by minor-arms fire in bitter fighting that produced a 6-1 kill ratio.

"Rather than performing a normal close-in support part," explained military historian George MacGarrigle, "near of the 31,304 artillery rounds and the 219 tactical air strikes had been used to contain the battle area and hit enemy escape routes." Col. Charles A. Jackson, commander of the brigade involved in the fighting, later remarked in Edward Hymoff'south Fourth Infantry Division in Vietnam that the battles had been won "within a 50 yard area of heavily jungled terrain where the fighting was human being to human, our guys against the bad guys."

In 1969, the 173rd Airborne Brigade fanned out beyond the northern districts of Binh Dinh province in South Vietnam's key coastlands. Dispensing with large search-and-destroy operations backed by overwhelming firepower, small detachments of Heaven Soldiers pushed into communist-dominated hamlets, engaged the enemy and chop-chop improved security in the area.

"The brigade accomplished all this without suffering heavy casualties, although its troops were dangerously dispersed and fought without the total do good of their superior firepower due to [the operation'south] stringent rules of engagement," wrote Kevin Boylan, author of a study on the war in Binh Dinh. "When it came to actual combat, the Heaven Soldiers consistently outfought their adversaries, even when battling the NVA." Unfortunately, successful small-unit deportment similar those of the 173rd Airborne in Binh Dinh have largely been forgotten.

American forces in Vietnam were inappreciably alone in their use of firepower to support troops in gainsay confronting the communists. A company from the sixth Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, greatly outnumbered and under heavy attack in 1966 at Long Tan northeast of Saigon, requested artillery fire and air support and pulled into a defensive perimeter, much the aforementioned manner a U.S. Army or Marine visitor would have responded in similar circumstances. The monsoonlike weather condition prevented the Australians from calling in airstrikes, but American 155 mm howitzers and Australian and New Zealand 105 mm howitzer batteries pounded the Viet Cong. "The artillery fire back up and the arrival of APCs [armored personnel carriers]," wrote Australian historian Jeffrey Grey, "had undoubtedly saved D Company."

Access to all style of fire support was every bit important to the Australian infantry equally it was to American grunts. "In keeping with the advantages enjoyed by all allied forces in Vietnam, soldiers in the chore force [1st Australian Task Strength] often expended prodigious quantities of ammunition, especially in set-piece assaults against bunkers," Greyness added. "They could phone call on a full suite of fire back up options, including helicopter gunships, field, medium, and heavy artillery, fixed fly air support and, on occasion, naval gunfire offshore."

Australian units routinely summoned supporting fire to destroy enemy bunkers and often turned to tanks in those battles. "In a statistically supported study of 161 engagements in Vietnam that involved fighting against enemy in prepared defenses—especially bunkers," reported Lt. Gen. John Coates, onetime chief of the Australian army general staff, "the greatest deviation, both in lowering friendly casualties while massively increasing enemy casualties, was brought nigh by the employment of tanks."

Acknowledging the advantage of potent burn support in Australian operations certainly does not ignominy the graphic symbol, courage, or skill of the Australian soldier in Vietnam. Information technology does, however, place the relationship between the American soldier and American firepower in context.

South Korean units in Vietnam adopted a like approach. Highly regarded as hard-fighting, professional soldiers, they nonetheless were "sensitive near keeping casualties down, which resulted in a deliberate approach to operations involving lengthy preparations and heavy preliminary fire," Gen. William Westmoreland, the acme commander of U.South. combat forces in Vietnam, noted in his memoir.

Gen. Creighton Abrams, Westmoreland's successor at Military Aid Command, Vietnam, noticed that the South Koreans had a penchant for full-bodied firepower. "An example of this would be when they [South Koreans] decided to surround and set on a hill," Abrams recounted in a study of allied participation in the war. "A task of this sort would take ane month of training time during which a lot of negotiating would have to be done to get the support of B-52s [bombers], artillery and tanks."

Abrams, likening the tactics allied forces employed in Vietnam to musical instruments, posited that information technology was "sometimes advisable to emphasize the drums or the trumpets or the bassoon, or even the flute." South Koreans, he added, seemingly preferred the "base of operations drum." The commander of the South Korean 9th Infantry Sectionalisation confirmed equally much when he conceded that "the concentration of firepower on successive objectives" had been something of a hallmark of his division. The commander argued that enemy forces were to be "neutralized within the ring of encirclement with continuous bombardment to forbid organized resistance."

Due south Korean troops involved in Operation Hong Kil Dong, a 1967 assault in the central coastlands, operated under an elaborate umbrella of arms burn down, helicopter gunships and close-air support (244 sorties) throughout the weekslong offensive. Nevertheless, Gen. Yu Byung Hyun, commander of the Southward Korean Capital Division during the offensive, encouraged his subordinates to be circumspect in their use of firepower to avoid fostering a "psychological dependence on the part of the [ground] units."

Yu's remarks reflected the South Koreans' belief that their forces waged a war that incorporated infantry-intensive operations and energetic "pacification" efforts to win the support of South Vietnamese villagers through security enhancements and social services.

In that location tin can be no doubt, however, that firepower assisted the South Koreans in recording body counts and kill ratios on a par with U.S. forces, demonstrating that the Koreans, like the Aussies, were more than willing to use firepower to facilitate operations and reduce casualties.

Interestingly, N Vietnamese commanders Dung and Vu, in their pointed criticism of the American soldier, neglected to note the extent to which the communist Vietnamese used heavy firepower whenever information technology was available. For example, in 1954, during the fight to complimentary Vietnam from colonial rule, communist-led Viet Minh forces battered the beleaguered French garrison at Dien Bien Phu with 120 mm mortars and 105 mm artillery fire.

"We are all surprised and inquire ourselves how the Viets accept been able to find so many guns capable of producing an artillery fire of such ability," lamented 1 French Legionnaire in the acclaimed study Valley of the Shadow: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. "Shells rained downward on us without stopping similar a hailstorm on a fall evening. Bunker after bunker, trench after trench collapses, burial nether them men and weapons." Another violent avalanche prompted a physician at Dien Bien Phu to consult his watch and exclaim, "They're firing sixty shells a minute!"

Nor were Due north Vietnamese gunners along the Demilitarized Zone shy about using the big guns confronting Americans on the other side of the border. On the evening of March 20, 1967, NVA artillery near the banks of the Ben Hai River running through the DMZ shelled Marine positions at Gio Linh with nearly 500 105 mm howitzer rounds.

Mortars, rockets and larger-caliber guns (130 mm and 152 mm) were eventually deployed to the DMZ, and by July 1967 the Northward Vietnamese were capable of providing directly fire support to their units fighting in the Con Thien area.

Firing in support of an NVA infantry assail on July 6, communist artillery batteries hammered two Marine battalions only south of the DMZ. One of the U.S. units, the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Partition, received virtually ane,000 enemy rounds. NVA arms fire accounted for half of the 159 Marine deaths and 345 wounded in most two weeks (July two-14) of bitter fighting around Con Thien.

Generously equipped with Soviet tanks and arms, the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam in 1972 with a largely conventional force. Fourteen combat divisions, accompanied by an estimated i,000 tanks, attacked in northern S Vietnam, in the Primal Highlands and at Loc Ninh due north of Saigon. Communist forces expended more than than 220,000 rounds of artillery, tank and heavy mortar ammunition in that failed offensive, but three years later, the NVA over again relied on massed artillery and combined-arms attacks—not local guerrillas armed with outdated rifles—to vanquish the South Vietnamese army.

In 1978-79, the reunified Socialist Commonwealth of Vietnam made brilliant utilize of superior numbers, mobility and firepower in a "blitzkrieg-similar" invasion of Cambodia. Tanks, artillery, naval gunfire and even airstrikes delivered by captured American fighter-bombers were employed without hesitation against the outnumbered and outgunned Khmer Rouge rulers of Cambodia. It is doubtful that any Vietnamese officer would judge the Khmer Rouge superior to his own troops simply because this fourth dimension the enemy had to fight without the fire support bachelor to Vietnamese forces.

When assessing an infantryman's combat capabilities, access to firepower is not the only matter that matters. Another consideration is the length of fourth dimension private soldiers are required to serve in a gainsay zone. Communist soldiers in Vietnam understood that their battleground service would cease in victory—or death.

"I only knew that every bit long equally I lived I would accept to fight the state of war," said one VC private in Lanning and Cragg's volume on the NVA and VC. American infantry served tours of either 12 (Army) or 13 (Marines) months. It is impossible to know, of course, if a fixed tour would accept affected the NVA and Viet Cong. On the other paw, it is not difficult to imagine a communist short timer "playing it safe," as American grunts oft did in the final days or weeks of their gainsay tour.

By any objective measure out, the American soldier and Marine fought courageously and effectively in Vietnam and deserves a more memorable tribute than many have accorded him.

Warren Wilkins writes almost the Vietnam State of war in books and magazine articles.

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Source: https://www.historynet.com/u-s-grunts-in-combat/

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