What tactics did the USA use to fight the Vietnam War?

 To be able to identify the key strategies used by the USA in the Vietnam War.
 To be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the
US strategies in the Vietnam War.

Commander of the US troops in
Vietnam until
1968.

What were the key areas of strategy for the US in the Vietnam War?
 Bombing Campaign
 Chemical Weapons
 Land Campaign

What was Operation Rolling Thunder?
Operation Rolling Thunder was the main US bombing campaign in Vietnam. It began in February 1965 and was supposed to last eight weeks. It ended in 1968.
The aim was to target North
Vietnamese factories. But there were few factories to bomb and countryside and cities were bombed instead trying to cut North
Vietnamese supply routes to the NLF in the South.

How can Operation Rolling Thunder be seen as a success?
Supporters of Operation Rolling
Thunder claimed that the bombing disrupted the supply routes from
North Vietnam to the NLF in the
South. However, it did not stop the
NLF being supplied from the
North.
The bombing campaign from 1970 to 1972 on Hanoi and Haiphong forced the
North Vietnamese to the negotiating table.

How can Operation Rolling Thunder be seen as a failure?
The bombing campaign strengthened the North
Vietnamese resolve against the US.
It was hugely expensive. For every Viet Cong fighter – the US launched 75 bombs,
400 artillery shells and paid
$400,000.
Many advised President
Johnson that this was the wrong strategy as North
Vietnam had few factories to bomb.
The bombing campaign did not stop the supply routes from north to south.

Why did the US use chemical weapons?
The US could not handle the Viet
Cong’s guerrilla tactics and wanted to fight them face to face. The US decided to use chemical weapons to destroy the jungle and countryside which acted as a cover for the VC.
The two main chemicals the US used were Agent Orange and
Napalm.

What was Agent Orange?
Agent Orange was a defoliant – a very powerful weedkiller – which was sprayed in the jungle to kill off the vegetation so that the Viet
Cong could not use the jungle for cover.
Agent Orange was used to destroy crops which helped turn South
Vietnamese peasants against the
US.
82 million litres of Agent Orange was sprayed across thousands of kilometres of Vietnamese jungle.

What was the impact of Agent Orange?

What was Napalm?
Napalm also destroyed jungle. It was a type of bomb that exploded and showered petroleum jelly called Napalm. This stuck to the skin and burns at 800 degrees centigrade.
It caused horrific burns.

What was the key features of the US land campaign in Vietnam?
Strategic Hamlet policy
Body Count
Search and Destroy

What was the Strategic Hamlet policy?
The first involvement of the US on the ground in Vietnam was in 1962 before the war with the
Strategic Hamlet policy which was designed to secure the support of villages in South
Vietnam vulnerable to the VC.
Strategic Hamlets involved entire villages being moved into fortified villages guarded by troops. 3,000 Strategic Hamlets were created but this cause huge resentment from the South
Vietnamese who were forced to move as well as only moving
Communist supporters to a new area to spread their ideas further.

What was the aim of the US land campaign in
Vietnam?
The aim of the US land campaign was to kill a large number of the enemy and gain a high enemy ‘body count’. The problem with this strategy was that the North
Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong were prepared to suffer high casualties - unlike the US public.

The Search and Destroy strategy marked a more aggressive US approach. After securing US bases in South
Vietnam in the first year of the war, from these bases troops would launch attacks on villages suspected of assisting the Viet
Cong.
The tactics involved using helicopters to descend upon a village and destroying it. These raids became known as ‘Zippo
Raids’ after the lighters used to set fire to the villagers huts.

What was the impact of the Search and
Destroy missions?
 Raids were often based on inadequate information and innocent villages were targeted.
 Inexperienced US troops often walked into traps.

 Civilian casualties were often high.
Made the US and ARVN troops very unpopular.

A Danger Gonna Man A Pelt
Hinged Ratio Roll Turn Open
A Aced Drys Hornets
Bounty Cod
Spacewoman Chile
Castrate El Might
Well Greased Ornament

A Danger Gonna Man A Pelt – Napalm and Agent
Orange
Hinged Ratio Roll Turn Open – Operation Rolling
Thunder
A Aced Drys Hornets – Search and Destroy
Bounty Cod – Body Count
Spacewoman Chile – Chemical Weapons
Castrate El Might – Strategic Hamlet
Well Greased Ornament – General Westmoreland

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