Guerrilla Tactics

1
Guerrilla Tactics

• Frances Perry
• Period II

2
Thesis Statement

• To analyze how guerrilla warfare crippled the
  U.S. Army.

3
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.

4

• 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.

5

• "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.

6
Cu Chi Town

• Had 200 miles of tunnels through out the town.
• All buildings used by the guerrillas had
  underground access.
• Openings were under water in streams and canals.
• Deeper into the ground there was water supplies
  and gun factories.

7

• 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.

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Cu Chi Town (Continued)

• Also in the deeper levels hospitals/rice.
• On the upper part of these tunnels they were
  hidden firing post.
• These tunnels were used 24/7 they had sleeping
  chambers, kitchens.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v11ivSD3gI6w

9

• 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.

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• I see light at the end of the tunnel.--Walt W.
  Rostow, National Security Adviser, Dec. 1967

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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.

12
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.

13

• 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.

14

• 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 worlds policeman and go into
  unknown territory. This territory is where the
  guerrilla warfare had taken place.

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Booby Traps

• Spike board Punji Trap Used in a pit, one end of
  it has spikes on it. When soldier steps on the
  board it nails him in the face or chest.
• Door Trap Lengths of bamboo with nails held
  above a door when wire is tripped bamboo swings
  down hitting the soldier.
• Grenade Trap A grenade is tied to a stake
  underwater with the safety pin slightly removed
  waiting for a soldier to walk into the wire.

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• 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.

17
Work Cited

• "Annals of Surgery." Punji Stick Wounds
  Experience with 342 Wounds in 324 Patien... .
  N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2012. lthttp//journals.lww
  .com/annalsofsurgery/Citation/1967/12000/Punji_Sti
  ck_Wounds__Experience_with_342_Wounds_in.4.aspxgt.
• "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.
  lthttp//www.5rar.asn.au/weapons/boobytraps.htmgt.
• "CAP Glossary." CAP Glossary. N.p., n.d. Web. 11
  June 2012. lthttp//www.capmarine.com/cap/glossary.
  htmgt.
• "Cu Chi Tunnels." History.com. AE Television
  Networks, n.d. Web. 11 June 2012.
  lthttp//www.history.com/topics/cu-chi-tunnelsgt.
• "National Liberation Front." National Liberation
  Front. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2012.
  lthttp//www.historylearningsite.co.uk/national_lib
  eration_front.htmgt.
• PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 10 June 2012.
  lthttp//www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/guerrilla/i
  ndex.htmlgt.
• "Quotes from the Vietnam War - Quotations and
  Sayings." Quotes from the Vietnam War -
  Quotations and Sayings. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June
  2012. lthttp//www.quotesandsayings.com/qvietnam.ht
  mgt.
• "Weapons of the Vietnam War." History.com. AE
  Television Networks, n.d. Web. 10 June 2012.
  lthttp//www.history.com/topics/weapons-of-the-viet
  nam-wargt.