Vietcong Tactics

• Guerilla Warfare

  • Small groups
  • Retreat when attacked
  • Attack when your enemy retreats
  • Raid enemy camps whenever you can
  • Opportunistic fighting
  • Designed to destroy the morale of enemy troops
• Ho Chi Minh Trail

  • Supply route from North Vietnam into the South
  • Supplied Vietcong with food and weapons
  • Ran through Laos and Cambodia - hard to find
  • Estimated that the Vietcong received about 60 tonnes of supplies a day via the trail
  • As many as ten different routes between two points
  • Americans couldn't disrupt the supply network
  • Launch a surprise attack from any location
• Punji Traps

  • Brutal
  • Well suited for Jungle Combat
  • 10% deaths down to Punji Traps
  • Punji Traps were often covered in feces, increasing suffering and infection
  • Punji Trap spikes would ribbon the flesh of soldiers' legs
• Bouncing Betties

  • Little bombs that detonate 1 meter above the ground
  • Designed to explode at the stomach and genital height
  • Really affects morale as hard to see
  • Losing manhood really affects morale
  • Would often detonate behind the person who triggered it, so kills a comrade instead
  • Soldiers feel massive guilt
• Tunnel System

  • Vietcong realised anything above ground could be bombed or maybe found
  • Built massive underground bases
  • Made it really difficult for US to find
  • Lowered morale
  • 300km used to get around jungle and avoid American soldiers
• Propaganda

  • Convince the Vietnamese population that the US were invaders
  • Used terror tactics to punish or initimdate into supporting Vietcong
  • Killed 20000 civilians
• Advantages of VC tactics

  • Took US by surprise
  • Damaged US morale
  • Psychological war (in fact the Vietcong would use the US weapons against them)
• Disadvantages of VC tactics

  • Civilians killed by US soldiers
  • Never fully defeat the USA