Guerrilla Warfare and War of Attrition
To increase their chances against the highly trained and heavily armed American forces the North Vietnamese army put guerrilla warfare tactics into practice. These tactics proved to be successful and to combat the North Vietnamese victories American forces put in place a war of attrition. Both strategies were utilized throughout the whole war that lasted from the year 1954 to 1975, most specifically when American forces were stationed in Vietnam in the years 1965 to 1973. Even though the North Vietnamese severely lacked the training and resources that America had, their use of guerrilla tactics such as recycling American explosives, booby-traps, as well as an extensive and complicated tunnel system allowed them to effectively drive out the American military powerhouse.
Although Vietcong soldiers were only given basic infantry training they had political awareness that many American soldiers lacked, they knew what they were fighting for. Thus many teenagers, women, and children volunteered to build booby-traps and collect explosive dud bombs left by American forces. This crippled American forces extensively as they never really knew who the enemy was and many fell victim to booby-traps’ that were expertly hid in the deep jungle. The Vietcong also had the ability to essentially disappear whenever American forces entered an area. This was due to an elaborate tunnel system that had enough underground wells, kitchens, hospitals, communication tunnels, and sleeping chambers to last the Vietcong three weeks. These tunnels extended over entire villages in the capital South Vietnam and strengthened the Vietcong’s hold over the country.
American forces recognized the Vietcong’s ingenuity and fell to operations and offensives whose main goal was to exhaust enemy resources and forces. During this period American attacks weren’t mounted to gain territory but to use their air support and superior weapons to meet the Vietcong on the battlefield and increase enemy casualties. These strategies are defined as a war of attrition that is commonly used by conventional armies in order to bleed the enemy white. Unfortunately this tactic exploited too many US resources and contributed to our eventual defeat.