The Loose Association of Wargamers

Hollywood deserves a lot of flak for the image of Vietnam being covered in jungle. Most SE Asian nations tend to have forests in hill country and intense cultivation on river flats. Some of that is paddy, a lot of it, particularly on river terraces, is dry cultivation and small orchard plantations of fruit and rubber. Obviously, Charlie would try to have jungle to retire into, preferably where they knew the tracks and where they had preset booby traps.

There is an excellent book on the Australian SAS, and in the chapters on their Vietnam deployments, they comment that they counter ambushed the Vietcong in the gaps and roads cut between thick jungle areas. Which says to me that in their zone at least, it was not a coninuous foliage block, but dense zones and open zones.

I cannot remember the name of the book but it was fascinating, not least the Tractor Job.

I've read it, can't remember the name or the author.

Even in PNG, which has thick jungle, not open forest, it is surprising how much ground is open. All this organic produce is very nice, but it requires huge areas of ground. Then you have cash crops (rubber, cocoa, and coffee), and in Asia, dry and wet rice. Villages in Asia tend to be hub and spoke affairs with a small town, surrounded by extended family sized hamlets each surrounded by (most) of their land. The town will have a few stores, one or two mechanics and a honda agent.

Even in virgin jungle, there will be areas of kunai grass, which may or may not be swampy, grass hilltops, often a bit rocky. One thing you don't see much of except along the coast are coconut palms. Most jungle trees look like European broadleafs and palms bigger than a bush are rare.

A common refrain from Aussies who had fought in Malaya was that Vietnam has very little real jungle, they described it more as open forest than jungle - I think full metal jacket got it about right.

ET is right, the roads were defoliated by chemical and mechanical means to make an RPG ambush difficult. When I went there in the late eighties, you could still see thick secondary growth lining the roads for that reason.

I also remember the malaya quote now, and that after training on Sarawak (I think) Vietnam was easy country.

The other point about how open much of Vietnam was, is that if it was the dense jungles often portrayed, your choppers are useless, they need clear space and quite a lot of it to act in the way the US used them.

FreddBloggs wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 8:19 am I also remember the malaya quote now, and that after training on Sarawak (I think) Vietnam was easy country.

The other point about how open much of Vietnam was, is that if it was the dense jungles often portrayed, your choppers are useless, they need clear space and quite a lot of it to act in the way the US used them.

Although the helicopter pilots as described in Chickenhawk developed techniques to get into clearings smaller than their rotor diameter - basically using the chopper as a giant whipper snipper! That still just produces a 1 ship LZ. Your point stands for the aero-assaults favoured by the US though.

single hueys also do the zipline deployment from above the tree line as well, but Aussie ones were banned from collecting troops by having them hanging onto ropes and then flying upwards with them dangling....

I always felt the US issues in Vietnam, one of them was a phobia when upcountry that they never got to grips with. Similar to the British in Malaya in 41 and 42, until the proper Jungle training took effect.

In fairness, the yanks were largely conscripts out of basic, with an average of six months in country. They were contemptuous of their new arrivals, jealous of the ones whose tour was almost up and, in army units, there seems to have been a low level of leadership.

An ex boss of mine, whose silver star I only found out about after his plane made a hole in the sea off Lima, was a marine. Same sort of kids, but volunteers; same sort of officers, but more of a culture of discipline and leadership. He was cross attached to an army unit during Tet because he had NGS training and he was horrified at the level of slackness on the part of officers and senior NCOs. He was particularly stunned at how, when defending ground in a quiet sector, the officer and sergeant would eat together, but the officer never chowed with the men. He swore that in the Marines that would be unthinkable.

The fact they had just got to grips and then shipped home, tour done. I knew an Aussie from there regulars who was there, his comment was the US men were raw, and the officers snotty, and this after fighting alongside British troops elsewhere.

Biggest mistake they all made when visiting the Australians was declining mugs of tea when offered, including one who insulted the slop as undrinkable.... I know he said a US patrol was shocked when he took a mug of coffee with them, without comment.

Unusually for Americans, Vietnam was a war where they did not seem to learn, which had always been one of their great strengths, learning fast.

FreddBloggs wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:23 am The fact they had just got to grips and then shipped home, tour done. I knew an Aussie from there regulars who was there, his comment was the US men were raw, and the officers snotty, and this after fighting alongside British troops elsewhere.

Biggest mistake they all made when visiting the Australians was declining mugs of tea when offered, including one who insulted the slop as undrinkable.... I know he said a US patrol was shocked when he took a mug of coffee with them, without comment.

Unusually for Americans, Vietnam was a war where they did not seem to learn, which had always been one of their great strengths, learning fast.

That was in no small part due to the US policy of individual replacements for units, so as the individual soldier's time came up they got shipped back to the states without any opportunity to pass on hard-won experience. Jungle and battle training was deferred to unit level, with very variable results. Incidentally they had a similar problem in WWII.

Australian units rotated by battalion, usually after a period of jungle training in Queensland, led by senior NCOs with experience in Malaya & Vietnam. Their performance was better, even though many were conscripts. Their junior officers were also of a much higher quality than many of their US counterparts, who often had only scanty training themselves. I knew a chap who started off as a conscript in Vietnam who stayed in & ended up as the most senior Warrant Officer in the army (WO2 IIRC).

The Marines had better training & IIRC everyone went through the same basic training at Parris Island (etc) together, officers and men. They were all trained as riflemen before specialising. That helped espirit de corps and unit integrity. It also helps explain why ad hoc Marine formations eg at Hue tended to function better than their Army equivalents.

Thanks chaps, fascinating stuff.

I’ll just take the melon-hatted moggy’s apology for dissing my terrain as read, shall I?