View Full Version : Did U.S. infantry improve as the Vietnam War dragged on?
You always read about the "classic" Vietnam firefight: a unit is moving through the jungle and walks into an ambush, then there is an epic shootout with arty and CAS called in, kind of a "hair of your ass" scenario.
Did American infantry units (Marine or Army) improve their tactics as the war went on? Not talking about Recon/SOG/LRRP, but line infantry units. Or did the 12 month rotation rob a unit of the accumulated knowledge?
I remember reading about an infantry company (101st IIRC) in about '69 or '70, that had gone into the Ashau Valley and the parent unit lost radio contact. It turned out that the company CO had decided to maintain radio silence when he went into the abyss, no doubt to prevent from being heard or tracked. Thought to myself "That's some thinking involved that was attained via experience". I also would assume that this infantry company would have used the tightest noise and light discipline, moving as carefully as possible with 70+lb loads.
The NVA have often been touted as the *best* light infantry in the world in modern times. Did the average American infantry unit become equally adept?
ETA---I'm not being critical at all. I was a grunt in Panama and spent 3 years down there. I know how difficult the jungle can be, and I didn't even have hardcore little brown guys trying to kill me in the process!
I don't see how they wouldn't have. You would have guys with multiple tours teaching the new guys who would then gain experience and so on and so on. Tactics evolve as you learn what works and what doesn't.
crusader377
09-10-13, 22:08
I have always had a great deal of interest in the Vietnam war due to my father serving in the war during 67-68.
I would argue that regular U.S. infantry probably reached its peak somewhere between mid 1967 to late 1968. My reasoning is that during that period you had a good balance between the regular professional army and draftees. Plus discipline was still good whereas later in the war form late 1969 on discipline started to really go downhill.
I don't think the NVA were the best light infantry in modern times but they certainly were formidable opponents. Their strengths were their field craft, toughness, ability to operate with limited supplies, and foot mobility. On the other hand, in a more stand up fight they didn't do particularly well against U.S. infantry due to superior firepower and battle discipline of U.S. troops.
Failure2Stop
09-10-13, 23:34
The Vietnam war represents a very interesting look into transitional tactics with a unique personnel composition.
While similar and emotionally evoking to contemporary warfare, it is what it was, and equally misunderstood and misinterpreted in my opinion.
Typos brought to you via Tapatalk and autocorrect.
Never underestimate the will of a guy fighting on his own turf.
Never overestimate the willingness of a conscript.
I don't see how they wouldn't have. You would have guys with multiple tours teaching the new guys who would then gain experience and so on and so on. Tactics evolve as you learn what works and what doesn't.
This. With more real world experience spread throughout those units, tactics, survivability, and lethality certainly would've improved greatly.
I would argue that regular U.S. infantry probably reached its peak somewhere between mid 1967 to late 1968. My reasoning is that during that period you had a good balance between the regular professional army and draftees. Plus discipline was still good whereas later in the war form late 1969 on discipline started to really go downhill.
The conscript variable is one I wouldn't have thought about. However, I think that whether you want to be there or not, you'd want to do whatever you could to win the battles day in and day out in order to get home in one piece. BUT I wasn't there so I'll defer to the brothers that came before me.
I believe they did improve. If I recall correctly, some units had a crash course style preparation that they ran guys through for a couple weeks before shipping out to the line units. Also, as has been mentioned previously, you would have older, multiple tour NCOs that would(hopefully) be able to use their experience to bring the fight to the enemy more efficiently. Much of our Light Infantry tactics was borne of that conflict.
MountainRaven
09-11-13, 09:01
Or did the 12 month rotation rob a unit of the accumulated knowledge?
Not sure if this is what you meant or not, but my understanding was that the units stayed in, it was the individuals who were rotated in and out. And that the problem was that it was unit cohesion that suffered as a result, with platoon and squad composition constantly in flux as old guys cycled out or were wounded or killed while new guys (produced by newer, shorter, worse boot camps) were cycled in to replace the wounded, dead, and the guys returning home. Bad enough when it's "just" a private (or a bunch of them) but worse still when it's your NCOs and officers, too.
Not sure if this is what you meant or not, but my understanding was that the units stayed in, it was the individuals who were rotated in and out. And that the problem was that it was unit cohesion that suffered as a result, with platoon and squad composition constantly in flux as old guys cycled out or were wounded or killed while new guys (produced by newer, shorter, worse boot camps) were cycled in to replace the wounded, dead, and the guys returning home. Bad enough when it's "just" a private (or a bunch of them) but worse still when it's your NCOs and officers, too.
Very valid point about the personnel rotation. I had forgotten about that aspect, but you are correct in that it was a problem and hence why we see whole units rotating now.
Love your sig line by the way. One of my favorite authors.
The personnel rotation problem plagues the US 2nd Infantry Division to this day -- we haven't been in Korea for 60 years...we've been there on 60 1-year assignments.
Very valid point about the personnel rotation. I had forgotten about that aspect, but you are correct in that it was a problem and hence why we see whole units rotating now.
Love your sig line by the way. One of my favorite authors.
Excellent point. IIRC back when OEF and OIF were kicked off and rotations were eventually needed it was decided to do it on a unit basis, not individual and the Vietnam experience was mentioned as a reason.
I have a book about Dak To. Some VERY gritty fighting in that AO, circa late '67.
In regards to a specific infantry tactic it mentioned some companies using a "cloverleaf" way of movement: they'd move so far then squads would loop out to the front right, front left, rear right, and rear left, then back into the formation. It was s-l-o-w moving but considered relatively safe. If there were NVA lying in wait the cloverleafing squad would would make contact and then the company could react and manuever as opposed to the entire company being enveloped in the ambush and pinned down.
Another tactic, used when they were 110% sure that the NVA was out there was to advance behind a protective sheaf of artillery called in an arc around them. This too was slow moving but considered relatively "safe".
The Vietnam War has always been mentioned in the regards of "guerrilla warfare". In the VC areas, sure. But the majority of American casualties came from what were, in effect, violent small-unit engagements in tough terrain against an enemy regular force. Kind of a hybrid between conventional and "guerrilla" warfare.
crusader377
09-11-13, 11:36
Very valid point about the personnel rotation. I had forgotten about that aspect, but you are correct in that it was a problem and hence why we see whole units rotating now.
I actually think a bigger problem was the rotation of the officer corps and the decline of the NCO training by late in the war. IIRC the Army made a very deliberate policy of ensuring every officer had some Vietnam experience and solved this problem by doing 6month rotations for officers in line units. I think this caused a decline in the leadership quality received by soldiers in the field.
I actually think a bigger problem was the rotation of the officer corps and the decline of the NCO training by late in the war. IIRC the Army made a very deliberate policy of ensuring every officer had some Vietnam experience and solved this problem by doing 6month rotations for officers in line units. I think this caused a decline in the leadership quality received by soldiers in the field.
This is true. My Father-in-Law did 8 months in the field as a Battalion Surgeon with an Infantry unit, and 4 at a hospital in Saigon. Believe it or not, he was drafted right after graduating medical school. he says that 2 weeks after being inducted, he was sitting in the middle of a jungle LZ with crates of unkown medical supplies, and a rifle he didn't know how to use. You are also correct about the NCO Corps. The reason the Army developed the NCO Academies was to rectify this situation and create better trained NCOs.
MountainRaven
09-11-13, 14:48
I actually think a bigger problem was the rotation of the officer corps and the decline of the NCO training by late in the war. IIRC the Army made a very deliberate policy of ensuring every officer had some Vietnam experience and solved this problem by doing 6month rotations for officers in line units. I think this caused a decline in the leadership quality received by soldiers in the field.
In other words...
You had the average private having to trust NCOs of dubious quality, taking orders from officers who have never led them before (and would be going home before they did), while surrounded by a bunch of other privates who were complete strangers.
crusader377
09-11-13, 23:09
In other words...
You had the average private having to trust NCOs of dubious quality, taking orders from officers who have never led them before (and would be going home before they did), while surrounded by a bunch of other privates who were complete strangers.
Basically yes. Probably the NVA couldn't devise a worse personnel policy that the U.S. Military eagerly adopted in Vietnam.
A complete contrast was the late WWII German Army. Even though the Germans took over 3 million killed in WWII and were definitely scrapping the bottom of the barrel by late 1944 in terms of new recruits, were still able to field very capable military units that fought hard against the far more numerous and better equipped Allied forces. The big difference was that the Germans never compromised on small unit leader selection and training and basically ensured that their small unit leaders not only knew their jobs but one or two levels above them.
An interesting comparison I'd like to know the answer to is this: while there were no doubt many guys who went to Vietnam more than one tour and therefore carried over their experience, how does that compare to the number of guys from OIF/OEF who did more than one tour?
I'd *guess* (and that's all it is) that as a percentage of the total combat force that we had more 2nd or 3rd tour vets in OEF/OIF than in Vietnam. Vietnam's peak force was ~ 500,000; OIF/OEF was like a little over 210,000 at peak deployment during the Iraq surge.
Another aspect to consider is that in our recent wars you could enlist for 4 years and deploy twice easily (using the Army's 12+ month rotations), and possibly a third time with a stop loss.....which wasn't used during Vietnam.
The German Army in WWII had a much better policy of rotating whole units out of combat for rest, refit, and integration of new troops.
The US Army's policy of individual replacement meant two things: new troops had a much higher causality rate than the veterans and since units could be kept of to strength by keeping a fresh supply of new meat coming in, the veteran troops got little rest away from combat, causing them to break down.
One of the things German troops hated was to be snagged into an 'emergency group', where everybody at the rail depot (for example) is drafted into a hasty unit.
From everything I've read, the American Army did get better as time went by in Vietnam. But, by the mid '60s, the Vietnamese had been fighting the Japanese, French, and Americans for 25 years.
As a friend of mine one said: 'Don't fight the same people for too long. The survivors will get really good at fighting you.'
By 1965 most all the slow, inept, or just unlucky NVA were long dead.
H
Germans were organized in units tied to geographical areas, a practice common in western armies then and still extant in Europe. The kind of cohesion you can get when all of your privates just completed school together and have known each other for their whole lives is apparently fairly phenomenal.
Downside is killing off a whole town with one arty barrage.
In other words...
You had the average private having to trust NCOs of dubious quality, taking orders from officers who have never led them before (and would be going home before they did), while surrounded by a bunch of other privates who were complete strangers.
What could go wrong? :eek:
The Wehrmacht had excellent small unit cohesion, too bad for them that they suffered under a command structure that did not necessarily reward personal initiative.
Some units were better than others. Standing order in the Afrika Korps: "In the absence of orders, find something and kill it."
MountainRaven
09-14-13, 11:42
My understanding of the Wehrmacht's command structure was that, typically, instead of telling someone when they were to take a hill, how they were to do it, and how to dig in on it once they had; they would tell them to take the hill, when they needed to have the hill taken, what resources they had with which to achieve the objectives, and to hold the hill. With wide leeway given (typically) over how the objectives were achieved.
And typically, in the Wehrmacht (and I believe in the Bundeswehr today), it was SNCOs who led platoons, and not freshly minted Lts.
(Apparently, in the Bundeswehr, it takes six years to turn an officer candidate into a lieutenant. During which time, they spend a good deal of time as regular enlisted soldiers in the Bundeswehr and receive a master's degree... and officers are not served in mess halls before the enlisted men, but with the enlisted men.)
Accounts that I read about the German Army of WWII stated that they did not have a continous line of leadership as the US Army did.
In the US Army, there was a clear line of leadership from the greenest private on up, so that when officers became casualties, NCOs knew to step in and take over and when NCOs bcame casualties, the privates knew to step in and take over according to seniority.
One account described the German WWII Army as units led by lieutenant giving the orders and the NCOs kicking the privates asses into action. When officers werre killed, the NCOs often didn't have a battel plan. When the NCOs were killed, the privates didn't know who was to take charge.
After the war, they interviewed German officers to find out their opinion of the allied troops they fought. The officers stated that it was easy to predict what the British would do and to plan for it because the British had SOPs for battle they'd always follow. The German officers said the same about their own Army.
The Americans, on the other hand, were impossible to predict because their fighting style was chaotic and they never knew which way we'd jump.
US troops did become more effective during Vietnam. Because of modern deployment technologies, they said the average line troop was engaged with the enemy something like 100 or 200 days (I forge the number quoted) out of their 12 month tour, compared to the US GI of WWII engaging the enemy something like 30 days out of 2 years because of time spent in training and in transport. It was said the use of the helicopter was a big factor in increasing the amount of time the average GI spent actually fighting.
I remember the Tet Offensive being reported on the news. I remember Walter Cronkite declaring the US has lost the war as a result. Years, after the end of the war, it was discovered it was quite the opposite. Before Tet, the NVA was able to deploy batallion size groups against the Americans. So many of the NVA were destroyed during Tet that afterwards, it was rare to see the NVA deployed in units as large as company sized
Something that's very important when talking abut the German Army in WWII is what period you're talking about.
The Germans started the war with excellent soldiers who would take the initiative at all levels and react faster than their opponents could counter. This was especially true when they first invaded the Soviet Union. The Soviet forces were repeatedly surrounded and destroyed by fast German action.
By the late war period, it's the Germans who can't do much of anything without orders from higher command. Meanwhile the Soviet Army is pulling off massive coordinated combined arms operations that stun the Germans with their speed and skill.
H
MountainRaven
09-14-13, 21:29
Something that's very important when talking abut the German Army in WWII is what period you're talking about.
The Germans started the war with excellent soldiers who would take the initiative at all levels and react faster than their opponents could counter. This was especially true when they first invaded the Soviet Union. The Soviet forces were repeatedly surrounded and destroyed by fast German action.
By the late war period, it's the Germans who can't do much of anything without orders from higher command. Meanwhile the Soviet Army is pulling off massive coordinated combined arms operations that stun the Germans with their speed and skill.
H
Don't forget about the Soviets crushing Japanese forces in Manchuria in less than a month. A feat that might even beat out the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and definitely outshines the German invasion of Poland in 1939.
ThirdWatcher
09-15-13, 17:33
Some units were better than others. Standing order in the Afrika Korps: "In the absence of orders, find something and kill it."
Evidence of Gen. Rommel's leadership. IMO, micromanagement has always been the undoing of any fighting unit.
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