Drawing on extensive primary source documentation, this lively study
of US air assault operations and North Vietnamese countermeasures
assesses the clash between two highly contrasting approaches to warfare
in a particularly challenging landscape.
The tactics and technologies of modern air assault--vertical deployment
of troops by helicopter or similar means--emerged properly during the
1950s in Korea and Algeria. Yet it was during the Vietnam War that
helicopter air assault truly came of age and by 1965 the United States
had established fully airmobile battalions, brigades, and divisions,
including the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile).This division brought to
Vietnam a revolutionary new speed and dexterity in battlefield tactics,
using massed helicopters to liberate its soldiers from traditional
overland methods of combat maneuver.
However, the communist troops adjusted their own thinking to handle
airmobile assaults. Specializing in ambush, harassment, infiltration
attacks, and small-scale attrition, the North Vietnamese operated with
light logistics and a deep familiarity with the terrain. They optimized
their defensive tactics to make landing zones as hostile as possible for
assaulting US troops, and from 1966 worked to draw them into 'Hill
Traps', extensive kill zones specially prepared for defense-in-depth. By
the time the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) withdrew from Vietnam in
1972, it had suffered more casualties than any other US Army division.
Featuring specially commissioned artwork, archive photographs, and
full-color battle maps, this study charts the evolution of US airmobile
tactics pitted against North Vietnamese countermeasures. The two sides
are analyzed in detail, including training, logistics, weaponry, and
organization.
