Guerrilla Tactics
Frances Perry
Period II
Thesis Statement
• To analyze how guerrilla
warfare crippled the U.S. Army.
NLF (National Liberation Front)
• NFL rarely attacked the Americans head on
they used Guerrilla Tactics.
• They would attack their enemy and then
would disappear into the jungle.
• All members had to follow a strict code of
conduct before attacking.
• The VC troops then had to go underground once
the US started to bomb them. They quickly
learned how to survive underground and learned
how to fight against an army that was clearly
better and stronger than them. They then begun
making sleeping areas, kitchens, hospitals, and
bomb shelters underground in these tunnels.
• I like this quote because I can relate it to the Cu
Chi town tunnels and how Americans tried to
invade the unknowns of the tunnels. And the
light is them making it through the tunnels alive.
• "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy
camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack;
the enemy retreats, we pursue.“ - Mao Zedong
• Soldier speaking of the way they fought in
Vietnam.
Cu Chi Town
• Once the war against the South
Vietnamese and the US, the North
Vietnamese started to make the tunnels
much longer. These tunnels soon went
over 250 km from Saigon to the
Cambodia border.
Cu Chi Town (Continued)
The building of the tunnels in Cu Chi town were
being built before the Vietnam War in 1940s.
This time period was during their war for
independence from the French colonial
authority. In the beginning the tunnels were
being dug out by the soldiers hands and only
went a short distance at this time.
• “I see light at the end of the tunnel.”--Walt W.
Rostow, National Security Adviser, Dec. 1967
Punji Traps
• Most common booby trap used by the VC.
• Manufacturing Punji traps: Long nails that
were hammered into blocks of wood.
• Side closing Punji traps: Very common/cheap.
Small hole covered by grass, when stepped on
soldiers foot would be nailed.
• Injuries: Penetrating and lacerating wounds.
Toe Popper
• A bullet placed into a small pipe on a trail, the
top of the bullet barely on the surface.
• When stepped on the bullet would press a nail
to the bottom on the pipe, making the bullet
explode.
• Injuries: lost of a boot, broken ankle, or
missing toes.
• The VC in these tunnels made numerous of
booby traps for the US and the South
Vietnamese soldiers. They had trip wires so
that grenades and bombs would be set off.
Also one of their traps was a box of scorpions
and posionous snakes and they would throw
them on the heads of the enemy soldiers.
• “Vietnam presumably taught us that the United
States could not serve as the world's policeman; it
should also have taught us the dangers of trying to
be the world's midwife to democracy when the birth
is scheduled to take place under conditions of
guerrilla war.”--Jeane Kirkpatrick, 1979
• This quote speaks on how as a country we should try
to be the “world’s policeman” and go into unknown
territory. This territory is where the guerrilla warfare
had taken place.
• “The war was won on both sides: by the
Vietnamese on the ground, by the Americans
in the electronic mental space. And if the one
side won an ideological and political victory,
the other made Apocalypse Now and that has
gone right around the world.” --Jean
Baudrillard, 1986
• The underlined part of the quote shows how
strong the VC were on the ground, with the
guerrilla tactics and underground tunnels.
Work Cited
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"Annals of Surgery." Punji Stick Wounds: Experience with 342 Wounds in 324 Patien... :. N.p., n.d. Web. 11
June 2012.
<http://journals.lww.com/annalsofsurgery/Citation/1967/12000/Punji_Stick_Wounds__Experience_with_
342_Wounds_in.4.aspx>.
"Booby Traps Created by the VC during the Vietnam War." Booby Traps Created by the VC during the
Vietnam War. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.5rar.asn.au/weapons/boobytraps.htm>.
"CAP Glossary." CAP Glossary. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2012.
<http://www.capmarine.com/cap/glossary.htm>.
"Cu Chi Tunnels." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 11 June 2012.
<http://www.history.com/topics/cu-chi-tunnels>.
"National Liberation Front." National Liberation Front. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2012.
<http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/national_liberation_front.htm>.
PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 10 June 2012. <http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/guerrilla/index.html>.
"Quotes from the Vietnam War - Quotations and Sayings." Quotes from the Vietnam War - Quotations and
Sayings. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.quotesandsayings.com/qvietnam.htm>.
"Weapons of the Vietnam War." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 10 June 2012.
<http://www.history.com/topics/weapons-of-the-vietnam-war>.