Losing Vietnam (8 page)

In late 1973, both the DAO and the communists believed the South Vietnamese had major advantages, particularly in the key factors of firepower and tactical and strategic mobility. One then may ask, “What subsequently went wrong?” The answer to that question is the purpose of this book.

In early October 1973, I visited the DAO and JGS in Saigon, where I received briefings on the conduct of the war. The four military region commanders controlled the RVNAF field operations, and because of the disparities in terrain, weather, populations, and the makeup of the friendly and enemy armed forces, the situations in each region varied greatly. In fact, there were four very different wars ongoing. Thus, it was not easy for me—or anyone else—to obtain a clear understanding of the overall combat situation. It was apparent that there were many current clashes in each military region as the South Vietnamese attempted to defend against the communists' land-grabbing operations and at the same time the RVNAF undertook what it described as “security operations.” I inquired about the initiation of hostile activities, a subject that was vexing personnel at the Pentagon, and with good reason. Expectations, obviously, were that the cease-fire would be effective, producing the opportunity for a reasonable political settlement. The North Vietnamese propaganda machine incessantly referred to South Vietnam's violations of the truce agreement. Which side was initiating the incidents? I was very pleased to find out that the ARVN field reports provided information as to the origination of combat activities as well as a myriad of other data. I thought that the data available—which included the type of incident (for example: attack by fire, including the number of incoming rounds, ground attack, and sabotage), the time of the incident, and the casualties resulting from the incident, including friendly killed and wounded by hostile action and the enemy killed in action—could be displayed meaningfully.

In 1968–1969, my division in Vietnam had had considerable success using operations research to improve its combat effectiveness.
⁴⁰
Quite simply, operations analysis is an approach to problem solving
that makes it possible to use systematic logic and often mathematical techniques to arrive at a decision that will optimize a situation. The essence of decision making is the selection of controllable inputs or factors. In using analytical techniques to suboptimize elements of operations for the 9th Infantry Division, we concentrated on matters that improved operations, tactics, and intelligence. I wanted to know whether such techniques would be helpful on a macro scale for the totality of conflict in Vietnam, where the situation was so complex, varied, and changeable. I thought that by combining military judgment, data collation, and operational research methods we could arrive at useful combat analyses.

Using their combat data inputs, I explained to the JGS that meaningful outputs that would measure combat effectiveness on a macro scale could be obtained, leading to improved efficiencies, saved lives, and a clearer understanding of the overall combat situation. I offered to them that USSAG, with their cooperation, would be pleased to undertake such analyses. The JGS was familiar with our previous analytical approach and, recognizing the requirement, readily agreed.

Fortunately, at NKP we had a plethora of computers and a stable of exceedingly competent young officers well versed in system analysis. With the cessation of the air war over Cambodia on 15 August 1973, these men were available and would be anxious to use their talents for combat analysis.

Right off the bat, some will state that you could not trust the ARVN data inputs that would have to be utilized in making combat analyses. The majority of all inputs were straightforward reporting, such as type of incident, location, timing, unit participating, and incoming rounds. However, naysayers will point out the count of enemy killed would be exaggerated, and often that would be true. In that respect, reports from the field always underreported the friendly killed by at least 20 percent. This too was well known; there was no way the unit commander could count those wounded who subsequently died of wounds after being transported from the battlefield. The same, of course, applied to the North Vietnamese wounded, only more so, since they had no helicopter evacuation or hospitals close to the combat areas and generally had insufficient medical supplies. Thus, the exact casualties resulting from any ground contact could never be known. Nevertheless, it was
the trends that counted. We do know that many elements of analysis showed remarkable consistency, such as the ratio of friendly killed to friendly wounded and friendly troops killed per enemy-initiated contact. Experience would show that the data was satisfactory to portray trends and that operational analysis on a macro scale could and did provide commanders and staff agencies with a basis to improve military operations. So, we at Headquarters USSAG initiated the analytical studies with the full support of the Vietnamese joint staff. From the start, I decided to broaden the currently reported field data to include weapons captured and lost, grid coordinates, and the component of the army involved in the incident. Through experience, I learned that personal weapons lost was a good indicator of poor unit morale.

The first order of business was to establish data collection procedures, processing ground rules, and general definitions. We established a matrix of data, with twenty-four elements of information pertaining to the type of unit involved. The memorandum prepared by Capt. Richard Hutchins (USAF) on 2 December 1973 was our initial cut at this massive program (see
Appendix A
: General Definitions and Processing Ground Rules for Combat Analyses).
⁴¹
Hutchins and his fellow officer associates collected, edited, validated, processed, tabulated, updated, and analyzed combat data in an outstanding, expedited manner. To enable responsible military personnel to focus on the more important conflicts taking place, we also established criteria that defined each cease-fire violation as either a major or minor one. (See
appendix A
, section 3.) Major violations included multiple company ground attacks or any ground attack resulting in twenty friendly and enemy total casualties and enemy attacks by fire (artillery, rocket, and mortar attacks) of more than twenty rounds or that caused five or more casualties. The JGS had inputs into the development of criteria, which, as always, was subjective.

Eight types of enemy-initiated incidents were defined: ground contacts, ambushes, penetrations, attacks by fire, harassment, terrorism, sabotage, and political incidents. The percentages of enemy-initiated incidents by type countrywide as well as the total numbers for January 1973 to January 1974 are shown in
table 4
. In this post-cease-fire period the enemy aggressively initiated 26,913 incidents.
⁴²

A review of
table 4
indicates that attacks by fire (ABFs) and contacts
were the most often occurring incidents. A ground contact was any open engagement between the opposing forces and could be initiated by either side. Ground contacts resulted in 96 percent of all the communists killed in action (KIA) and in 62 percent of all friendly casualties. Other forms of contacts were harassments, ambushes, and penetrations. There were many harassments, and these hit-and-run attacks accounted for about 10 percent of all friendly casualties (see
table 16
).

Table 4.
Enemy-Initiated Incidents, Percent by Type, Countrywide, January 1973–January 1974

Source
: Analysis, “Summary of Ceasefire Statistics,” June 1975, Headquarters USSAG, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand.

Ambushes served the same psychological purposes as terrorism, and they resulted in the highest rate of friendly casualties per incident. Although there were not as many ambushes in the later days of the war, they were particularly effective. The South Vietnamese had thousands of small outposts and hamlets to protect, and a favorite trick of the communists was to initiate an attack on one of them, particularly at night, and then lie in wait to ambush the called-upon reinforcements. This tactic made the ARVN extremely cautious when moving on the ground. Attacks by fire and terrorism were very potent tools of the communists.

To be meaningful to military and civilian authorities, analysis of combat operations must correspond to certain geographical areas and friendly and enemy military boundaries. South Vietnam was divided into four military regions. All army, air force, and territorial forces
located within the regional boundaries were under the command and/or operational control of the respective military regional commanders. The military regions and the major ARVN units assigned are indicated on
map 2
.

Map 2. South Vietnam Administrative Divisions. (Source: RVNAF, JGS, J-3, Saigon, South Vietnam.)

South Vietnam had forty-four provinces, each completely within a military region—that is, the regional boundaries were drawn to contain a province. Regional forces consisted of units generally assigned to protect areas within provincial boundaries, and popular forces were assigned to protect areas falling within district boundaries. Therefore, when analyzing the performance of the regional forces and popular forces it was essential to tabulate data for incidents occurring within provincial and district regions.

The North Vietnamese Army had several major commands, or fronts. Its B-5 front, in North Vietnam, was responsible for the demilitarized area. The three principal fronts in South Vietnam were the MRTT in the north, which included Quang Tri and Thua Thien Provinces; the B-3 front, which included the highland provinces of Kontum, Pleiku, Daclac, Phu Bon, and Quang Duc; and the COSVN, which had six military regions in the southern and eastern provinces (see
map 3
). Sometimes Viet Cong MR-5, which included the coastal provinces from Quang Nam in the north to Khanh Hoa in the south, was considered a separate front. Each of the North Vietnamese fronts acted independently but under the communist central command. Each front had its own obvious objectives. To understand the enemy's conduct of the war, it was necessary to analyze it within these geographical areas.

Therefore, our analysis considered parameters for each district, province, and military region as well as for the country as a whole and for the enemy regions. We further subdivided results by ARVN, RF, PF, and PSDF categories. Consequently, the outputs were available for many levels of command.

The first statistical output defined was the initiation ratio, that is, the friendly-initiated contacts divided by the enemy-initiated contacts, which was a measure of aggressiveness. A ratio of 1 would mean that the RVNAF initiated as many ground contacts as the enemy did. Subsequently, we got into the habit of measuring friendly-initiated ground attacks as a percentage of total ground contacts, in which case a ratio of 0.50 would indicate equal aggressiveness.