Losing Vietnam (3 page)

This study summarized a historical perspective of the Vietnam conflict as well as the enemy's view of our allies. The North Vietnamese analysis divided the war into eight different periods, commencing with the 1954 post–Geneva Accord political struggle and continuing through the 1973 post-cease-fire episode. The NVA called its 1972 episode “The Period of Ending the War,” and it opted to launch a spring-summer campaign, hoping to shatter the Vietnamization plan and pave the way to ending the war. In the post-cease-fire episode, it regarded the political struggle as its primary stratagem and armed attacks as its supporting means. It estimated the Vietnamese armed forces would be “utterly confused” at the initiation of the cease-fire and it intended to exploit the situation to grab more land and gain a larger population.

After its historical review, the J-2 study continued to compare the communists' assessments of their opponents in specific areas such as organization, equipment, and combat capabilities.
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With respect to combat capabilities, the communists viewed the South Vietnamese strengths the same as did the DAO's enemy capabilities versus RVNAF potential review—that is, their strengths were in air and artillery firepower, greater mobility, ability to reinforce the battlefield, and effective logistical support. Thus, the North Vietnamese were well aware of the South's strengths, and with respect to their own shortcomings they had drawn valuable lessons from their mostly failed 1972 campaign.

The North Vietnamese thought the RVNAF overemphasized tactics based on using modern equipment, resulting in reliance on strong firepower instead of infantry to conduct assaults. They stated that the army often deployed in circle formations rather than defense-in-depth, and consequently their formations could be easily broken. They saw a lack of coordination between mobile units and main attacking units.

The North Vietnamese Army was oriented offensively, both tactically and strategically. To the NVA, the defense was a transitory phase
to be used to rebuild, reorganize, and refit resources. These assessments originated in the North Vietnamese's offensive operational viewpoint: they saw the RVNAF as a basically vulnerable, defensive, reaction-oriented force. In sum, the communists thought the allied forces relied too much on modern weapons and overlooked the individual fighting spirit.

Notwithstanding this high-level assessment, debriefs of prisoners of war and ralliers (those enemy who surrendered to the GVN) in November 1973 revealed several positives concerning the capabilities of the individual South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) soldiers. One prisoner of war “considers the average ARVN soldier to be daring and dedicated.” Another who had fought in two engagements with ARVN stated he found “enemy troops to be spirited fighters.” An enemy lieutenant from the political staff of Military Region 3 (MR-3) “considers ARVN … now superior to the communists in both spirit and equipment.” A source from MR-4 thought “ARVN's use of firepower strong and logistics to be superior to the Communists.”
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One sunny day I visited one of the RVNAF hospitals. It was hot, and there was no air-conditioning. The patients were dressed only in boxer shorts, bare from the waist up. I stopped to chat with a wounded army noncommissioned officer. I could see several ugly scars on his torso from previous wounds. He told me he had been fighting for seven years and had been wounded five times, yet he was anxious to return to his unit and the war. Considering the length and brutality of the war, the spirit and courage of South Vietnamese soldiers was compelling. Many of the North Vietnamese combatants had been far from home for as long as four or five years. For all involved it was a long war.

The North Vietnamese Army initiated its all-out 1972 Easter Offensive on 30 March 1972, and it culminated by the end of the dry season in late June and early July. The communists launched major attacks on three fronts. At the demilitarized zone, they initially committed three divisions supported by tanks and heavy artillery to seize Quang Tri Province and Hue. Ultimately, eight divisions and fifteen separate armor, artillery, infantry, and sapper regiments were employed. In the central highlands, two divisions with tanks and artillery attacked Kontum. In the area north of Saigon, three enemy divisions from Cambodian
sanctuaries struck south along the Saigon River to threaten the city. The communists attacked over a large area in the populated delta, attempting to gain population and territory, but the efforts of their two divisions were easily blunted and the enemy strength in the delta was significantly diminished.
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Although initially successful in its efforts, the enemy was forced to commit almost all its forces, and the South Vietnam air forces, tanks, and artillery—superbly supported by U.S. air power, particularly the B-52s—took a terrible toll on the communists' manpower, supplies, and equipment. The RVNAF's counteroffensive late in the year gained back most of the territory it had lost. As a result of the fighting about 750,000 people were displaced, requiring the already stretched South Vietnamese government to provide housing and food. Nevertheless, of the 20 million people in South Vietnam, 92 percent were under government control. Efforts by the communists to control territory and population, thereby thwarting the South Vietnamese pacification program, were to increase greatly at year's end.

The 1972 campaign taught the North Vietnamese several very valuable lessons. First, to fight a conventional war they had to match the South's tremendous firepower. To do this, they would have to infiltrate a great amount of armor and artillery. Second, they would have to nullify the awesome power of the U.S. Air Force, which made the finalization of the peace talks a necessity. Third, they would have to offset the close air support provided by the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) by greatly expanding their air defense capabilities. Fourth, they needed a sustained combat capability, which necessitated protected lines of communication all the way from the demilitarized zone to the delta area of South Vietnam, as well as fully stocked and protected base areas close to their combat objectives. And finally, given the manpower, equipment, and supplies necessary to launch a conventional campaign successfully, they would have to master the art of coordinated combined arms tactics.

So much for the military side of the equation. What was the communist political thinking in early 1973? The North Vietnam chief of
general staff outlined the nation's political-military strategy in a series of briefings to key Central Office South Vietnam (COSVN) cadres, which were subsequently reported by friendly agents. The guest lecturers were the North Vietnam chief of general staff, Col. Gen. Van Tien Dung, the Provisional Revolutionary Government's chairman, Huynh Tan Phat, and its lieutenant general, Tran Van Tra. These lecturers emphasized that the Paris Agreement had not changed the original communist objectives in South Vietnam and pointed out that the agreement had achieved the important party goals of getting U.S. forces out of South Vietnam and stopping U.S. bombing raids over North Vietnam and communist bases in South Vietnam. They described the joint talks under way between the communists and South Vietnam as propaganda and stalling tactics while the NVA built up communist forces and strongholds in South Vietnam sufficiently to launch a final offensive to take over South Vietnam. Under the umbrella of the cease-fire, the communists were concentrating on creating serious economic problems for the government of South Vietnam and working with “all opposition groups” to create political unrest, while the NVA were strengthening the communist military forces in the south to strike a final blow “to topple the Thieu Regime.”
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The party strived until May 1974 “with the assistance of friendly socialist countries to raise the standard of living in VC ‘liberated' areas to a level higher than in government-controlled areas, to counterbalance American efforts to strengthen the local economy. It was important to the communists' effort to have the general population of South Vietnam in a neutral mood when the ‘final offensive [was] launched.'”
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Subsequent to these key briefings, COSVN issued its Resolution for 1975,
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emphasizing the importance of a fundamental defeat of South Vietnam's pacification program. It stated the “VC has the capability of accomplishing [its] 1974 goals as well as winning greater victories in 1975 in preparation for total victory in 1976.”

The first phase in the military plan to strengthen communist forces in the South so as to enable them to protect the “liberated” areas had been completed. The current phase was to organize all communist forces in South Vietnam into a modern army capable of launching a sustained offensive.

The COSVN intelligence estimate concerning U.S. post-cease-fire intentions projected that the United States would concentrate on strengthening and modernizing the RVNAF—especially in the fields of armor, artillery, and air support—and that it would continue economic aid at a level sufficient to keep South Vietnam's economy strong. Its troop withdrawal would be permanent; the troops would not be returned even in the face of a heavy communist military buildup in the South. The United States probably would resume bombing raids over VC “liberated” areas in South Vietnam if it was convinced that communist forces in the South were strong enough to challenge the ARVN and were preparing to launch an offensive. U.S. air support would include tactical support of ARVN ground forces if they were unable to contain the communist offensive. Under such circumstances, the United States would not resume bombing of the North or reinsert ground troops. The COSVN estimate concluded that communist forces in South Vietnam could cope with U.S. intervention and still defeat South Vietnam.
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The major criteria most people consider when assessing the comparative strengths of the RVNAF versus the NVA/VC is the sizes of the combat forces.
Table 1
indicates the NVA/VC order of battle strengths for 1 January 1967 to 1 January 1975. Our intelligence analysts took information from all sources to determine the effective strength of all known enemy units in South Vietnam.
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They then posited fairly well-known factors, such as integral unit moves into and out of South Vietnam and infiltration of individuals. Then, by analysis they attempted to balance infiltration with reported casualties. The order of battle strengths are reasonably valid numbers, which the gains/losses formula validated. The number of North Vietnamese casualties could well be understated, however, since it was difficult to determine the numbers who died later of battle wounds, from malaria, dysentery, or other medical causes, or in nonbattle accidents. Enemy battlefield medical capabilities were rudimentary. Of course, some believed that the reported enemy casualties were highly inflated. The gains and losses for the NVA/VC order of battle between 1 January 1967 and 1 January 1975 are shown in
table 2
.

The order of battle data are estimates only. The methodology used to
produce these estimates was far from exact; the USSAG order of battle was based not on a loss/gain methodology but on all source reporting, historical data, and analysis. For example, the range for the 31 December 1974 strength of the NVA/VC was from 295,000 to 350,000, with 340,000 as the best estimate. We continuously monitored all aspects of the conflict to maintain an up-to-date order of battle.

Table 1.
NVA/VC Order of Battle Gains/Losses, 1967–1974 (in thousands)

Source
: Working papers, Headquarters USSAG, Nakhon Phanom, Thailland.

Table 2.
NVA/VC Order of Battle Net Gains/Losses, 1967–1974 (in thousands)

Source
: Working papers, Headquarters USSAG, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand.

One can readily visualize the episodic nature of the war by noting the annual infiltration as well as casualties. The years 1968 and 1972 were obviously high points. The enemy losses from their abortive Tet
1968 campaign were huge, and the U.S./RVNAF forces conducting a vigorous follow-up seriously weakened the Viet Cong in 1969. The Viet Cong were never able to recover from those two disastrous years. Starting in 1970 the war was almost entirely a North Vietnamese affair, from the enemy's point of view. The all-out 1972 campaign again saw large infiltrations and high enemy casualties. At the time of the cease-fire, the NVA/VC strength in South Vietnam was 270,000 men; this grew to 340,000 by 31 December 1974 and ultimately to about 425,000 troops by 30 August 1975.
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The 1967–1974 NVA/VC losses exceeded 1 million combatants, a number that boggles the western mind and is in accord with North Vietnamese data.