Losing Vietnam (13 page)

USSAG responded quickly to the DAO and JGS request for an analysis of artillery expenditures. We initially calculated artillery allocations for 29 June through 6 December 1973. We took the number of tubes in each military region into consideration and computed the total rounds per tube fired. The results were eye-opening; some military regions, particularly MR-2, used far more artillery ammo than others, even considering the level of combat. As a result of this initial analysis, the joint staff set about drafting an ammunition conservation memorandum, issued to corps commanders on 24 January 1974. The staff also asked USSAG to develop an ammunition conservation program. It required a formula for what could be considered a reasonable response to enemy activities, using as its base the four aforementioned types of combat. It was important to keep in mind the interrelationship of ammunition and tactics. The Army Field Manual 101-10-1 states: “Ammunition directly influences tactical operations. Therefore, tactical commanders must plan their operations and commit their forces with full awareness of the support capabilities of the ammunition service support structure … an imbalance of either tactics or ammunition service may decisively influence operations…. Ammunition demands vary in direct ratio to the intensity of combat.”
²⁹⁶
The joint
staff recognized the interrelation of tactics and ammunition when it succinctly stated in its memo that ammo consumption must be related to enemy actions. No conservation plan is sound unless correlated with combat activities, and, conversely, there can be no understanding of ammunition expenditures without concomitant knowledge of the tactical situation.

Considering the tactical situations as they related to artillery ammo, I arrived at a formula that primarily provided a measure for the level of combat intensity.

It must be pointed out in the strongest terms that no formula will provide an exact measurement. A major advantage for calculating periodic combat intensity factors (CIFs) was that they provided meaningful measurements of combat intensities over time. It was obvious from the streams of combat data that the North Vietnamese were increasing their combat levels. They conducted many more attacks by fire, and at the time the scope of their ground attacks was escalating from regimental to divisional units. Therefore, we believed that measuring and reporting on the intensities of combat would allow the parties in Washington to judge whether or not additional funding was required to enable the South Vietnamese to combat the increasingly blatant communist aggression. The CIF was developed as a macroscopic measurement of the combat level and was considered an average over many units within a military region. We emphasized that the recommended rates were gross estimates only and should be used as such.

This measurement of the combat intensity level related artillery responses to combat activities. It provided limited artillery allocations for counterbattery, close ground support, and 15 percent for interdictions. It was event oriented in that it considered the number of attacks by fire and ground contacts, and intensity oriented in that it provided additional artillery for major contacts depending upon casualty rates. Battle casualties are the most realistic measures of combat intensity, and 25 percent of all RVNAF losses were from ABFs (
table 16
). When the ABF
portion of the CIF was computed for four six-month periods it varied from 22 to 25 percent, closely correlated to actual battle casualties.

To provide the ARVN with a conservation plan aimed at determining a reasonable level of artillery capabilities, it was necessary to relate expenditures to the level of combat, choose a baseline for computation purposes, take measurements weekly for each MR and the country as a whole, and take measurements that provided absolute as well as relative criteria. The chief of the joint general staff had issued his ammo conservation memorandum to the corps commanders on 24 January 1974. Consequently, the baseline was taken from 29 June 1973 to 24 January 1974, a period without any conservation. Five weeks were allowed for the units to adjust to the new conservation program, and the conservation period was then measured from 1 March 1974 through the final data input on 27 March 1975. We computed the levels of combat, and thus the artillery allowances, every week for each military region and the country as a whole. This enabled absolute as well as relative comparisons to be made. In that way, the JGS could compare conservation results among the military regions.
⁵²

The army made great progress conserving ammunition in the first twenty-four weeks of the conservation period, 1 March 1974 to 15 August 1974. It reduced artillery expenditures by 40 percent, although troops were still firing in excess of the computed allowances. Regardless of their progress in conservation, however, by August 1974 ground ammunition was a very pressing problem. The ARVN's FY 75 ammo budget was only $262 million; in July expenditures amounted to $28 million and in August $50 million, an annual rate of expenditures of about $470 million. Thus, in two months it had spent 30 percent of its budget, creating a potentially serious drawdown of stocks. But the level of combat had increased greatly because of a substantial increase in both friendly and enemy initiatives.

So again, in September 1974, the JGS felt compelled to issue still another memorandum, subject: “Ammo Conservation.”
⁵³
It considered “ammo … a decisive factor on the battlefield besides morale,
so it cannot be deprived or short of in combat
.” Noting the enormous annual expenditure, it stated, “Conservation is the most urgent action of all possible courses of action.” Addressing what ammo conservation meant, the JGS wrote, “Ammo conservation does not mean privation
or shortage of ammo
to destroy the enemy when we see him, find him or when he comes to attack us
. We have to use ammo
in the right place at the right time and accurately
.”

In December 1974, I prepared a “SEA Ammunition Perspective” for CINCPAC and the JCS in Washington to provide a background for all concerned in coming to grips with Southeast Asia's most pressing problem—greatly reduced funds which, due to high inflation, reduced the amount of ammo available to use in escalating combat in Southeast Asia.
⁵⁴
We had previously requested, as had the DAO and Military Equipment Delivery Team Cambodia (MEDTC), additional funds generated through a reduction of Department of the Army–directed funding offsets (set-asides) or an increase in the current appropriation level.

We noted that both countries had implemented stringent conservation programs and that the FY 75 ammo expenditure rates were approximately the same as for FY 74, even though the levels and intensity of combat had increased appreciably. As requested, we provided a forecast of annual expenditures for ground and air ammunition for FY 75 computed at the current levels of combat, not for general offensives. Ammunition expenditures would amount to approximately $845 million, several hundred million dollars in excess of available funding, which would mean a serious drawdown of stocks.

As the USSAG deputy commander, I traveled monthly to Phnom Penh to attend the tripartite deputies meetings. Phnom Penh was a bustling city of about 3 million people located on the Mekong River, with vestiges of its French colonial past everywhere. A big benefit of these meetings was that I could coordinate with MEDTC, which was providing logistical and training support to the Cambodian armed forces. USSAG was actively assisting this small, overworked organization with both operational planning and logistical management.

The tripartite concept was that South Vietnamese and Cambodians could improve their resistance to the communists by coordinating their military activities. To this end, the deputy commanders of the South Vietnamese, Cambodian, and U.S. forces met monthly, always at Phnom Penh, for face-to-face discussions. These were formal meetings
with papers prepared and presented in three languages. The first order of business was to review and discuss the past month's military operations. We also attempted to resolve any actual or perceived interoperability problems between the two countries.

These were two different wars. In Cambodia, President Lon Nol had withdrawn his forces into the major population centers and rarely conducted offensive operations, leaving the countryside largely under communist control. In South Vietnam, President Thieu insisted on protecting all of his far-flung hamlets and villages and pacifying the countryside, so the ARVN was consistently on the offensive to keep the enemy off balance, thus securing the population. Until now, the superior ground and air firepower of both countries had inflicted heavy losses on the enemy whenever it massed to attack.

The major advantage the Vietnamese and Cambodian armed forces had over the communist enemy was in firepower. Since the January 1973 cease-fire in Vietnam and the 15 August 1973 bombing halt in Cambodia, this comparative advantage had been reduced more than 50 percent, if one considers tons of steel on target. Even though firepower had been reduced, the results obtained by our allies had been much greater than is generally recognized. In the previous twelve months (December 1973 through November 1974), the Vietnamese and Cambodian armed forces had killed approximately 23 percent of the combat forces of the enemy. More precisely, in Vietnam, of between 190,000 and 215,000 enemy combat personnel, 49,500 (24 percent) were KIA, and in Cambodia, of 59,850 enemy combat personnel, 13,800 (23 percent) were KIA.
^52
,
55
Until December 1974, whenever the enemy moved to initiate a major attack, the allied artillery and airpower had generally chewed it up and the enemy losses in those situations were great. For that reason, combat had become a war of attrition, with a large number of small, enemy-initiated, limited-objective ground attacks and a large number of standoff attacks by fire. It is a fact that the major single inhibitor to enemy-initiated all-out major assaults on strategic targets had been allied firepower.

To date, allied firepower had been very effective. But the balance was changing rapidly as the enemy accumulated more and more equipment and supplies, particularly antiaircraft guns, which negated the air force's potent punch, and long-range artillery, which could outgun
the ARVN's pieces. Besides, the RVNAF had to reduce greatly its firepower and mobility because of severe funding restrictions.

The daily expenditure rate continued to exceed the authorized supply rate in both countries; this was the root of the ammo problem. Both countries faced considerable drawdowns in stocks, perhaps to dangerous levels. Funds dictated the authorized supply rate, and the authorized supply rate mix should approximate the daily expenditure rate. Either excessive line-item expenditures had to be reduced or the authorized supply rate had to be adjusted to reflect the combat situations—that is, each country needed to obtain an increase in funding. The required supply rates, the amount of ammunition the tactical commanders would like to have to conduct their respective wars, were far greater than the authorized supply rates, but in reality they were much less than the previous U.S.-Vietnam expenditures.

The daily amount of ammunition expended on targets in Vietnam from all sources in 1969 was 6,410 short tons. This compares to the RVNAF's stand-alone 1974 expenditures of 808 short tons, which, incidentally, was less than the 983 short tons the RVNAF itself expended in 1969. Both the ARVN and the VNAF, whose weapon densities the Vietnamization program had appreciably increased, were expending less munitions in 1974 than they had in 1969 while now fighting a much better equipped enemy whose battle strength was 50 percent greater (see
table 1
), and they no longer had the support of the free world forces. The allies spent eight times the ammunition in 1969 that the RVNAF alone spent in 1974.

In February 1975, the South Vietnamese were expecting a major North Vietnamese dry-weather offensive to commence in late February or early March. We knew that there would be a great increase in combat intensity in South Vietnam (already for 6–12 December 1974 the factor had reached an all-time high of 98,821), which could result in substantial ammo expenditures. Therefore, in an attempt to prevent a complete drawdown of stocks, we calculated an intensive combat rate to enable us to properly forecast ammunition requirements. The calculated ground ammo intensive combat rate of 1,809 short tons, or 54,270 short tons per month, was well below ARVN's expenditures of 75,700 short tons per month between April 1972 and February 1973 (when the formidable U.S. firepower had been available).

As we at NKP anticipated the NVA dry-weather offensive, it became clear that by the end of FY 75 the ammunition situation in South Vietnam would be desperate. Notwithstanding all the discussions and message exchanges Headquarters USSAG had with CINPAC and Washington, we never really got their attention on the criticality of ammunition in Vietnam. There was a large amount of ammo stored on the ground in South Vietnam, and it was difficult to visualize the severe drawdown an all-out enemy offensive would cause.