Question

What were the strategies used by USA in Vietnam War? ​

Answer 1

Targeted Bombing

Operation Rolling Thunder began in 1965 and lasted 3 years. It was a massive bombing campaign of North Vietnam. However targets were limited for fear of provoking China or the USSR to join the war.

Saturation Bombing

The US also tried saturation bombing using B52 bombers. This resulted in huge numbers of deaths - about 500 000 civilans were killed overall in the war.

Search and Destroy

To try to combat guerrilla tactics, the US sent search and destroy patrols into the South Vietnamese countryside with the aim of killing any Viet Cong. Helicopters were used to transport troops easily across difficult terrain. Many people were killed but it was almost impossible to identify who were VC and so many innocent people were killed. The Search and Destroy patrols turned the South Vietnamese people’s hearts and minds against the US.

Tunnel Rats

Small US soldiers were sent into tunnels to hunt out VC. The US also tried flooding tunnels and gassing them, with limited success.

The Body Count

As this was a war with no front line, the US military judged success by the Body Count - how many enemy had been killed. However this was a flawed approach as the VC were prepared to sacrifice many more lives than the US. This approach also led to atrocities such as the massacre at Mai Lai.

Chemical Weapons

The US used chemical weapons to try to change the geography of Vietnam and make it much harder for the VC hide. Agent Orange and Agent Blue were defoliants (weed killers) designed to strip the leaves from the jungle. Napalm (a sticky petrol gel) was also used to destroy vegetation but it was especially unpleasant when it hit people.

Many of these tactics were heavily criticised back in the USA which reduced support for the war at home.

Answer 2

Bombing:

President Johnson ordered the bombing of strategic military targets in North Vietnam, including air raids on the capital city, Hanoi, and bases and supply routes for the Vietcong. This was code-named Operation Rolling Thunder. The USA would ultimately drop three million tonnes of bombs in Vietnam - more than all the bombs dropped in Europe during World War Two. However, bombing was highly inaccurate due to the jungle landscape and the lack of industrial targets in North Vietnam.

Escalation:

President Johnson slowly increased the number of American troops on the ground in Vietnam. In 1965, two battalions of US Marines were deployed to protect military bases at Da Nang. This represented a shift away from ‘military advisors’ to combat troops. In July 1965, Johnson sent another 100,000 troops, and a further 100,000 in 1966

Air and Artillery:

American troops were sent on patrols, to be supported by air and artillery if attacked by the Vietcong. This demoralised soldiers, who realised they were being used as bait to draw out the enemy.

Search and Destory:

From 1965, the American military began a policy of sending soldiers into the jungle and villages of Vietnam to ‘take the war to the enemy’. This often meant soldiers were easy targets for Vietcong guerrilla attacks as the Vietcong were far more at home in the jungle than the American soldiers. This tactic also led to a high number of civilian casualties, destruction of villages and atrocities like the My Lai Massacre all of which damaged the USA’s reputation.

Technology:

The USA relied on high altitude bombers to drop heavy bombs in North Vietnam. They used jets to dump napalm, a chemical that burnt skin down to the bone, on suspected Vietcong strongholds, and Agent Orange, an ultra-strong defoliant, was used to destroy the jungle cover. Helicopters were used to deploy (search for) and destroy guerrilla combatants. Television propaganda was used in the USA to report the ‘body count’ of estimated Vietcong casualties.

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