UPDATED 26 July 2008

Hollywood: Apocalypse Now

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjYhTnh6Zaw

1956. Suez Canal. The first large-scale helicopter Air Assault.

Details: www.britains-smallwars.com/suez/helo.html

45 Royal Marine Commando onboard Royal Navy Ships are to fly ashore to link up with British and French Paratroops already on the ground from an earlier fixed-wing aircraft parachute assault to regain control of the vital world waterway. The French Paras jumped on the east side of the canal to take Port Fouad, and south of Port Said on the west. The 3d British Parachute Battalion jumps in to take an airstrip and marches east to take Port Said on the west side of the canal. 45 Commando is to Air Assault directly afterwards into Port Said, where a bitter city fight erupts. It was the world's first amphibious combat helicopter "Air Assault". 41, 42, Commandos came ashore by conventional landing craft backed by 6^th Royal Rank Regiment Centurion heavy tanks and French AMX-13 light tanks. In a matter of hours the Suez Canal and a strip of land 25 miles south are in Anglo-French control before the cease-fire.

A few years later, farther west, in strife-torn Algeria, French 1st Regiment Estrangere' Parachutist under legendary leader Col. Michel Biegard were doing the same things using H-21 "Flying Bannana" helicopters to land troops to encircle guerrillas. The French even armed Piasecki H-21 and Sikorsky H-34 type helicopters with rockets and machine guns to sweep the landing zones for the H-21s. These battles are well described in Jean Larteguy's books, The Centurions and The Praetorians, the former made into a fine film called "Lost Command", starring Anthony Quinn and George Segal. Order the video:

A decade later, the U.S. Army was flying H-21s to ferry South Vietnamese (Army Republic of VietNam or "ARVN") troops into battle against the Viet Cong (VC).

The First Military (or of any type) Helicopter: Achieved by a young Lieutenant in WW1, 1918--NOT by Sikorsky

During the war, Lieutenant Stefan von Petroczy of the Austrian Army Balloon Corps initiated a project to develop a tethered, armed aerial observation platform that could be quickly reeled in when needed far safer than large hydrogen-filled balloons. Under the technical guidance of the now legendary Theodore von Karman, with assistance from Ensign Wilhelm Zurovec, a 650kg full-size machine, referred to as the PKZ 1, was begun in Budapest in October 1917.

A 190 hp Austro-Daimler electric motor was used to drive two propellers in front of the observer and two behind. The electrical power was transmitted through a cable but still the motor weighed 195 kW. Four test flights were made in March 1918 up to a height of 6 meters, but the motor burned out, preventing further tests.

The PKZ 1 was followed by the 1400 kg PKZ 2, primarily developed by Zurovec. The triangular structure used three 100hp Gnome rotary engines powering two counter-rotating propellers. The engines were soon replaced with 120hp Le Rhone engines and flight tests resumed that May. The vehicle was flown over 30 times, eventually with a second observer, and reportedly achieved a tethered height of 50m and an endurance of 30 minutes. A crash during a military demonstration ended the project and the conclusion of the war terminated further study. The PKZ 1 and PKZ 2 demonstrated that the thrust to weight deficiency could be overcome and that useful vertical flight could be attained. Since they were tethered, however, they did not in any way attempt to address the controllability challenges.

Air Assault: the Germans were the first, then the U.S. Army--NOT marines to use helicopters in combat...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0flSwzjnMA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztiPjVGolXw

However, let's set the record straight--the Germans had functional helicopters when WWII began--long before the vain, boastful marines began to revise history to fit their ego and bureaucratic Iwo Jima-re-enactment racket agenda. After some interruption from allied bombing, they had a twin-rotor, Air Assault capable of delivering a squad called the FA-223.

The existing Fa-223 helicopters carried on in demonstrating the usefulness of vertical flight aircraft. Two of the Fa-223s were used in maneuvers at the mountain warfare school in the Alps near Innsbruck during September 1944. Ships V14 and V16 were utilized to supply the mountain troops. The aircraft flew 83 missions, flying on 29 of the 30 days. The one day of non-operation was due to fog so thick the pilot could not see the tips of the rotors. Seventeen landings were made on sites that were 4500 feet or more above sea level, including three on the Dresdener Hutte, at an elevation of 7600 feet.

The extensive maneuvers demonstrated the helicopter had a place in mountain warfare. The Fa-223 could lift 1100 pounds of provisions to a remote site at an elevation of 6500 feet in just seven minutes, a feat that would require twenty men, a day and half of strenuous climbing, to accomplish. in one fifteen minute round trip flight from the base at Mittenwald, a mountain howitzer and its ammunition were lifted on a cable below the helicopter, then flown to, and safely lowered to a position just below the Wornergrat peak. The gun had to be winch lowered, because there was not enough room to land.

The Fa-223 was used as a troop transport during maneuvers and carried as many as 12 troops in addition to the pilot. Four men were carried inside the cabin and eight were carried on tractor seats fastened to the outriggers.

When the mountain maneuvers ended on October 5,1944, the head of the Mountain Warfare School enthusiastically endorsed the Fa-223 and everyone expected that there would be a push for production of the Drache. Instead, on October 11th, an order was received from the Air ministry to stop all work on the Fa-223 and transfer all Focke Achgelis personnel to Messerschmitt. The Me-262 jet fighter required all the skilled labor available for production and as the Allies closed in on Germany from east and west, factories were being set up in remote areas, away from the bombing devastating German industrial plants.

In December, the Air ministry did an about face and ordered Focke Achgelis to be reestablished at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin and to begin producing the Fa-223 at a preposterous rate of 400 per month! This lunatic order was issued despite the fact that all tooling had previously been destroyed in bomb raids and there were nowhere near enough aircraft workers left to perform such a task, even if the tooling did exist, but professor Focke once again went to work setting up a helicopter factory.

Five of the seven Fa-223s built at Laupheim were still flyable and three of these were turned over to the Luftwaffe for use by its recently activated helicopter squadron Transportstaffel 40. this unit was formed in early 1945 at Muhldorf, Bavaria, and operated a mix of Focke Achgelis Fa-223s and Flettner Fl-282s. The organization under the command of Hauptmann Josef Stangl moved to Ainring near the German-Austrian border and then to Styria in Austria to preform artillery observation, liaison, and transport task in support of the hastily improvised Luftwaffe division, north Alp. Once in Austria the unit began a retreat back to Ainring in the face of the advancing U.S. 80^th infantry Division. Some of its helicopters were captured along the way, others were destroyed by their crews, after forced landings. The two Fa-223s and the few Fl-282s that made it back to Ainring, were captured by the on rushing U.S. forces.

Meanwhile, the Tempelhof produced Fa-233E was delivered to the Luftwaffe and by "Order of the Fuhrer" on February 25, 1945. Ordered to fly to Danzig, it took off from Tempelhof the next morning to proceed on its mission. Due to dodging storms, Allied bombing attacks, advancing allied forces, and having to search for fuel, the helicopter's pilot did not arrive on the outskirts of Danzing until the evening of march 5th. There, because of advancing Soviet forces, it was now impossible to fly into the center of Danzing as ordered. While awaiting orders on where to proceed, the crew got word that a fighter pilot had gotten lost in a snowstorm and had made a crash landing. Lt. Gerstenhauer took off in the Fa-223 and proceeded to search the area. The helicopter crew spotted the downed Me-109 with the injured pilot still in the cockpit. They rescued him and flew him back to the base for medical attention. By this time, Danzing was falling to the Russians, and the Fa-223's crew took off to try to reach a safer haven. Fuel was still a problem and when they did find a fuel stockpile, they realized that the Allies push had captured or destroyed all the friendly airfields along their projected route. After topping the tanks off, they loaded a 55 gallon drum of gasoline and a hand pump on board, took off and overflew the Soviet forces. When they finally put down at the German base at Werder, they had flown a total of 1041 miles on this escape mission. After a rest, the ship was flown to Ainring to join Transportstaffel 40, only to be captured by American troops.

Three Fa-223s were in final assembly at Tempelhof, along with 15 partially assembled ships, when the Soviet forces captured the Berlin airport.

Post-War

The Americans turned over Fa-223E V14 to the British for evaluation. At the time of its transfer, V14 had logged 170 flying hours, more than any other helicopter in the world. On July 25, 1945, ex-Luftwaffe Lt. Gerstenhauer (officially a POW), flew V14 with Sqn. Ldr. Cable, RAF and Lt. Buvide, USNR, from Germany, to the French coast and then on to England where they landed at RAF Beaulieu. This was the first crossing of the English Channel by helicopter, but while undergoing flight evaluations in England, V14 was destroyed, due to a mechanical failure in the drive system.

The Fa-223 that had made the Danzig trip was painted with U.S. markings and was scheduled to come to the United States for flight evaluation. it is not known if it ever actually made it to America, but there were other Fa-223 survivors.

In addition to the Tempelhof assembly line, a second Fa-223 production line was being set up in occupied Czechoslovakia. After the war, two of its partially completed airframes were assembled and flown at the Avia plant.

The French government took possession of two partially completed Fa-223 airframes, several BMW Bramo 323 engines, a partial set of Fa-223 blueprints, and key Focke Achgelis personnel, including Heinrich Focke, and transported this war booty from Germany to the SNCASE aircraft plant at Argenteuil. The two Fa-223s were then made flight-worthy and flown under the French designation Se 3000.

Heinrich Focke and his engineering team also designed a small single rotor, single-seat helicopter for the French. in the early 1950s, Focke and his designers moved to Brazil where they constructed several helicopters. in 1956, Dr. Focke and most of his team returned home to Germany, to once again start up helicopter development.

YOUTUBE user Grommo who found the rare German helicopter footage, writes about the USMC Korean war non-sense:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SrUyNG4fYA

"Are the Korea claims taken seriously by anyone nowdays?

Yes. there were even helicopter units, and two Fa223s stationed at Münster as a rescue unit but many of the helis were used individually. 5 of the earlier Fl 265s were made and operated in submarine hunting and convoy protection in the Baltic between 1939 and 1940 (before Sikorsky had even flown the Vs300). Fl 282 was in production in 1940 and used in the Aegean and Adriatic, Baltic and Mediterranean by the Kriegsmarine.

Fl282s spotted the attack of the 1st and 2nd White Russian in far Pomerania but German defenses were too weak to thwart the attack. They were used for artillery fall spotting and 3 Fl 282s stationed at Berlin- Rangsdorf did artillery spotting in defence of berlin in 1945.

The Fa223s at Münster(not Müssen) also did recovery of airframes and engines. In one case in 1944 one carried the 1.3 ton engine of a downed Fw190 32kms back to a base.

Fa 223s also did civilian rescues."

German and Japanese AutoGyros in COMBAT

Japanese Navy KA-1 Autogyros (copies of American Kellett KD-1A) operated off of the Army amphibious assault carrier Akitsu Maru in the Sea of Japan sank a U.S. submarine with depth charges during WW2.

Some German U-Boats operated a towed autogyro to act as a spotter for convoys...

The Focke Achgelis Fa-330 Bachstelze ("Wagtail") was a type of rotary kite, essentially an unpowered Autogyro. They were towed behind German U-boats during World War II to allow a lookout to see further, giving the submarines a better chance of escape in a war that was becoming increasingly dangerous to them.

Because of their low profile in the water, the submarines could not see more than a few miles over the ocean. Extremely vulnerable on the surface, the U-Boats often could not escape from destroyers because of the limited warning they had. To solve this, the German admiralty considered a number of different options, including a folding seaplane (Arado Ar-231). In the end, they chose the Fa-330, a simple, single seater Autogyro kite with a three-bladed rotor. It could be deployed to the deck of the submarine by two people and was tethered to the U-boat via a 150 metre cable. The airflow on the rotors as the boat would motor along on the surface would spin them up. The kite would then be deployed behind the U-boat with its observer/pilot aboard, raising him approximately 120 metres above the surface where he could see much further (typically 25 nautical miles (46 km), compared to 5 nautical miles (9 km) visible from the conning tower of the U-boat).

The pilot and craft were considered expendable. In the case of an aircraft attack, the U-boat captain would be forced to abandon them on the surface; the tether would be released and the Fa-330 would descend slowly to the surface.

When not in use, the Fa-330 was stowed in two watertight compartments aft of the conning tower. Recovering, dismantling and stowing the Fa-330 took approximately 20 minutes and was a difficult operation.

As Allied air-cover in other theatres of the war was considered too much of a threat, only U-boats operating in the far southern parts of the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean used the Fa-330. Despite its advantages, the use of the Fa-330 only resulted in a single sinking when U-177 used one to spot, intercept and sink the Greek steamer Eithalia Mari on 6 August 1943.

The Allies first learned of the device when U-852 was scuttled following air attacks. The remains of the U-boat, including an intact Fa-330 came ashore and were taken and inspected by British forces. After the war, the British government did successful experiments towing Fa-330s behind ships and jeeps, but the development of the helicopter quickly drew the focus of the military. U-boats that deployed Fa-330 kites included at least: U-177, U-181 and U-852

U.S. Army takes the lead....in WW2, 1944--NOT marines in 1950 Korea

What began in WWII with Igor Sikorsky's R-4 being used by the U.S. Army to make the first combat rescue in Burma, grew to full-scale medical evacuations using Bell 47 OH-13s and some large-scale Sikorsky (S-55) UH-19 troop movements in Korea (see below). Before proceeding we need to correct some revisionist propaganda emanating from the egomaniacs at headquarters marine corps.

What the Lying, Disloyal-to-the-other-services, marines don't admit about Korean War Helicopter Use

1. U.S. Army units were doing large-scale COMBAT troop assault while they were doing just administrative moves

2. The U.S. Army was the first to move large numbers of troops (5, 000) from ships-to-shore...and didn't need any of the mythical "special training" marines say they do...no mention of this in USMC self-ego "history" books...

The U.S. Army was also the first to field turbine engined helicopters. The U.S. Army was the first Americans to ARM helicopters beginning with the OH-13. The marines wallowed around with low-power, piston-engined helicopters and refused to arm them; they even opposed the AH-1 HueyCobra being built, though they brag about it now being "their idea" now! (like the Russians claim baseball is "an old Russian game", though that too, was the creation of a U.S. Army Civil War General!). Next time, you see a marine egotist bragging ignorantly about how "their Cobras are so great" smile because if it wasn't for the U.S. Army these assholes wouldn't even have turbine helicopters, armaments and Cobra gunships. During Vietnam, marine UH-34s armed with only a door gun had to be escorted by U.S. Army Huey gunships to clear the landing zones of enemy after the marines begged the Army to bail them out. General Gavin, a former enlistedman who became an officer was not happy that we had to fight the enemy in Korea for the most part in only 2-dimensions as he faced the closed-mindedness of those who do not want to employ good leadership and share power with junior ranking Soldiers to execute 3-dimensional warfare:

---Lieutenant General James M. Gavin from his 1954 Harper's magazine article, "Cavalry and I don't mean Horses"

For the "official" history of Air Mobility, VIETNAM STUDIES AIRMOBILITY 1961-1971 by Lieutenant General John J. Tolson, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY, WASHINGTON, D. C., 1989, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-600371, First Printed 1973-CMH Pub 90-4

www.army.mil/cmh/books/Vietnam/Airmobility/airmobility-fm.html

is a good starting point. However the full story must factor in the enemy's actions which in 1975 defeated our firebase & helicopter CONcept of OPerationS (CONOPS). Amidst all the reformer eagerness to Air Assault troops into battle to exploit "vertical envelopment" tactics, the enemy was not standing by, idle. Helicopters need large, open areas to land on in formations, otherwise they land in ones or twos piecemeal, a slow build up of combat power. The open LZ as a large, danger area was exploited by the VC to defeat the ARVN at the epic 1963 battle of Ap Bac despite the best efforts of Army advisor LTC John Paul Vann to have our helicopters land at least effective small arms fire range (300 meters) away from the enemy held treeline.

The recently deceased (Dec. 8, 1998, age of 89) General Hamilton Hawkins Howze, is credited with developing U.S. Army helicopter warfare tactics used in the Vietnam War and beyond since he's more kosher to the snobby establishment than the egalitarian Gavin who actually deserves most of the credit for getting Army helicopter mobility (and fixed-wing Airborne mobility with General Lee in WW2).

"The way the Army fights today" is due to Howze, said Bell Helicopter Textron spokesman Bob Leder. Howze was a vice president of the company after he retired from the Army in 1965. [EDITOR: a real prejudiced statement if there ever was one].

In 1962, Howze presided over a military panel, the Howze Board, that issued a landmark report that called for aircraft, mainly helicopter, to carry Soldiers into battle, resupply them and remove the wounded.

"The Huey (helicopter) was to our riflemen roughly what the horse was to the old cavalryman, close by and ready," Howze said. [EDITOR: dishonest statement. The helicopter IS NOT close by; the horse stayed with the trooper in battle, the helicopter flies back to its safer base]

Howze was born at West Point on Dec. 21, 1908, while his father, Maj. Gen. Robert L. Howze, was commandant of cadets. His grandfather, Brig. Gen. Hamilton S. Hawkins, participated in the charge up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War, and his great-grandfather, Dr. Hamilton S. Hawkins, was an Army surgeon who died in the Mexican War. Howze won a Silver Star for service in North Africa during World War II and later commanded the 82^nd Airborne Division and the XVIII^th Airborne Corps. [EDITOR: being part of a family legacy, Howze was seen as an "old school" type not likely to overturn the status quo]

The U.S. Army response led by the Howze report was to create an "Air Cavalry"--an "Air Mobile" flying but only partial, combined-arms-team with "Aeroscouts" to recon ahead in Light Observation Helicopters or "LOACHES" (OH-13, OH-6 or OH-58s), AH-1 "Cobra" gunships with 2.75 inch Hydra 70mm rockets, machine guns, cannon to clear away the LZ for the incoming "slicks"--UH-1 "Hueys" carrying light infantrymen a squad at a time.

In practice, LIGHT ROCKETS AND MEDIUM CALIBER MACHINE GUNS would prove NOT ENOUGH to clear out enemies in closed terrain where the vegetation blocks a clear path for such light fires to reach the often dug-in enemies. Close Air Support (CAS) fighter-bombers from the USAF would have to be called in that have 20mm cannon shooting high explosive shells and drop HE bombs, but these single-seat aircraft fly too fast and can't see what they are bombing so Airborne Forward Air Controllers (AFACs) in slower observation planes effected "Stand-Off Directed Air Support" (SODAS) which continues to the present day without AFACs and only ground FACs with infamous results--we are killing more civilians and making their relatives into rebels than the enemies we originally intended to kill. Failures in Vietnam spurred us to employ slower, more agile, armored CAS aircraft like the A-1, OV-1, OV-10 and A-37s but all of these aircraft were retired as-soon-as-possible (ASAP) after the war as being bad for fast fighter-bomber pilot ego, leaving the Army with the same slow, weak firepower slow, loud conventional-type helicopters that came up short in Vietnam to try to make do (Fuck It, Drive On) today on an even more lethal, non-linear battlefield (NLB). What we need to do is Get It and Drive On (GIDO)--get faster helicopters and sturdy CAS/MAS fixed-wing observation/attack planes in direct U.S. Army service to fight efficiently on the NLB.

WE DID SOMETHING RIGHT: SMOKESCREENS FROM Huey HELICOPTERS, NOW WE DON'T

One thing the WW2 generation knew from their experiences with the Army Airborne in the Pacific thanks to General Kenney--was to lay SMOKESCREENS to blind the enemy's optically-aimed weapons.

Smokescreens: where are they today?

If your helicopter fire support is weak in high explosive effects, and the USAF fighter-bomber egomaniacs are flying too fast, your salvation might be the smokescreen. This is more true today than ever before with precision-guided missiles---yet TODAY'S USAF, Army and marines do not have any aircraft smokescreen capabilities!! WTFO? Look how the IDF heavy tanks were decimated in the recent invasion of South Lebanon---where were the tactical smokescreens to blind ATGM gunners?

1. Large, open danger area selected to airland vulnerable, fuel-laden helicopters packed with foot-slogger troops: NOTICE NO PATHFINDERS ON THE GROUND TO SURVEIL AND MARK THE LZ TO INSURE ITS ALL NOT A TRAP

2. Lacking firepower, a temporary fire base is established for short-range, 105mm tube artillery howitzers to offer some fire support to the weak foot sloggers

3. Manned scout helicopters look for signs of the enemy

4. Weak 105mm artillery shells pepper likely enemy ambush locations on edges of woodlines but cannot comprehensively clear and pre-detonate all possible land mines peppering the landing zone itself

5. Command & Control helicopter with the Ground force Commander on-board views the situation and adjust accordingly before committing his troops to the airlanding

6. Helicopter gunships prove some mild supporting fires to suppress any enemies that appear on the LZ

1. Here the most beneficial thing to learn is depicted: A SMOKESCREEN is layed by a Huey to mask the edge of the LZ so optically-aimed weapons like 12.7mm HMGs, AKMs, SKSes etc. are thwarted in the critical seconds so the helos can land: a technique we have failed to do ever since resulting in heavy losses on Grenada (1983), Panama (1989) and Somalia (1983). Creating an Army Aviation Branch of uber rotorhead egotists hasn't resulted in more professional competence--just more excuses and chest-beating. Maybe we should create a force of Hueys just for the purpose of laying smokescreens for our UH-60s, CH-47s that can't?

REAL LIFE PROOF:

2. The fuel-packed, sardine can helos land as many at a time as possible to create masse since only a few men can be carried in each; at least the Army doesn't try to pack in a platoon like the cheapskate lazy USMC does and create bloated targets for the enemy to ignite and incinerate our Soldiers...

Bloated USMC CH-46 Burns Up Gyrenes Trapped Inside

3. Another wave of light infantry narcissist victims in bound to airland after first wave hopefully survives and gets off the exposed, open area, LZ

4. Scout/Attack helicopter teams scour the area for signs of the enemy to engage

5. USAF fighter-bombers try to engage enemies more resilient than what the light Army gunship armaments can destroy; they fly too fast and this work is better done by real CAS aircraft like the A-1 SkyRaider, A-37 Dragonfly and today's A-10 Warthogs...

6. Grasshopper STOL observation/attack aircraft like the O-1 Bird Dog control CAS aircraft; yet another right practice today's incompetents fail to do and we suffer horrendous casualties because of it

7. MEDEVAC choppers await to pull out the wounded and dead who try to fight the enemy even or at a disadvantage M16 vs. AK47 (AKM) + RPG....

Art by Adam Hook from the 2007 Osprey Elite book, Vietnam Airmobile Tactics by uber light infantry foot-slogger narcissist and false history disinformation propagandist, Gordon Rottman, we ignore his faulty text for the most part in all his books with his anti-mechanized force prejudice, whoever is supposed to do the fact-checking, isn't.

Foot-Slogging After Helicopter Insertion: Preventable Weakness

The first force of this type, the 1^st BN, 7^th Air Cavalry debuted in battle at LZ X-Ray in the Ia Drang valley led by then Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore to ambush the North Vietnamese hiding in the nearby mountains. Catching the NVA by surprise, the "Sky Soldiers" stood off several counter-attacks but then the main weakness of the Vietnam Air Assault paradigm was realized. However, the force that replaced Moore's unit, moved out on foot towards new LZs, laden with heavy equipment and weapons, the force was ambushed by the NVA which on the terrain of the battlefield were MORE MOBILE. Once on foot, Air Assault infantry fights the enemy "even" or if the enemy is better at managing the Soldier's load or has vehicles, at a disadvantage.

LTC Moore's After Action Review (AAR) of the Battle for LZ X-Ray (PDF file)

Reality: UH-1 Huey & the Battles for LZs X-Ray and Albany, 1965

PART 1: the first U.S. military turbine helicopter, the Bell UH-1 "Huey" is created in 1955 by the U.S. Army

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WbRSQzU8_I

PART 2: (now Lieutenant General) Colonel Moore explains he chose LZ X-Ray to get most men in most lifts possible, short-range 105mm artillery preps the LZ, followed by ARA helo massed 2.75" rockets and 7.62mm medium machine guns

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DSVIzxIqSU

PART 3: LZ X-Ray landing unopposed: could have flown in light armored tracks by SkyCranes, could have acted as bullet shields for exposed outnumbered 5-to-1 foot sloggers, Americans have piss-poor individual camouflage, Moore vows no replay of Custer here!, combat thrilling but getting hit is horrific, Americans surrounded, at hot LZs just throw stretchers into Huey and get the hell out, 400, 000 wounded flown out by helo MEDEVAC,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqGgz7Kun7Y

PART 4: 7.62mm door medium machine gunners hosing down civilians, enemies start teaching classes how to lead helicopters to score hits on them, 4, 800 helo crewmen killed, 2, 000 helos shot down, biggest armor need is being shot thru helo bottom, FIDOthink: you are a deadman going into a hot LZ, CH-54 Skycrane lifting damaged Huey back to base, LZ X-Ray sure suicide to fly back into it

www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Ag4Nmcb80

PART 5: non-secured LZ because our foot sloggers cannot dominate enemy foot sloggers in greater quantities, if you love your comrades so much why not use those SkyCrane helos to deliver some M114 or M56 Scorpion or M113 Gavin armored tracks to secure the LZ? Moore didn't wimp out from a C&C helicopter overhead, he was on ground leading-by-example, SkyRaiders called in to save the day, armed OV-1s attacked enemies, too, twin M60 MMGs on Hueys, ground troops can't pursue enemy vulnerable on foot amidst CAS and have to pull back, more FIDOthink that friendly arty is going to kill some of our guys instead of GIDOing some light armored tracks to harden them so when close to the enemy our fire only hurts the bad guys, no such things as a dismounted infantry equivalent to tank's scratching eachother's back, trooper says SkyRaiders and ARA helos saved his life, YET WHAT DID WE RETIRE?

Video clip shows armed OV-1 Mohawk providing CAS to LZ X-Ray troops, TFB, Air Force!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=G--EWskeaYw

PART 6: troops pinned down, dig-in for night, tracers can give your position away at night....so....why don't you put together a "night belt" of 7.62mm without the tracers so you can fire back at night without giving your position away?, mad minute in the morning to deter infiltrators, Moore's men sweep battlefield and pick-up dead enemy weapons, Galloway sorrowful at all the American dead in ponchos, a decent human, Moore expresses survivor's guilt, caveats that air-mobility was not being used to the fullest to envelope the enemy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=avmKKThn9fg

PART 7: slow ammo crate tossing and collapsible water jug break bulk, fuel blivet refuel, B-52 strike of Vietnam war, 2/7 CAV has to walk out of LZ X-Ray to avoid B-52s, ordered to wear helmets and flak jackets, get ambushed on foot in meeting engagement, no M113 Gavin tracks to break brush or make first contact with enemy, wiped out, too intermingled with NVA to get fire support in on enemy, company commander concludes war sucks but doesn't have any sense of how WE MUST do it better

Closed terrain around LZ Albany not wise to be walking through without M113 Gavin light armored tracks breaking brush ahead and giving moving shielding in event the main body of foot sloggers gets bumped into by the enemy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FAkUJlsWz4

PART 8: NVA figure out belt buckle hugging tactics, direct fire is what matters in the close fight, technological bashing BS, WE DID NOT EMPLOY SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY vis-a-vis the NVA if at close range we are fighting him EVEN M16 vs AK47, LBJ increases U.S. troops without SOLVING THE PROBLEM AND COMING UP WITH A WINNING WAR FORMULA THAT STOPS ENEMY INFILTRATION THROUGH CLOSED TERRAIN and has SUPERIORITY IN THE CLOSE FIGHT, flying around helicopter foot-sloggers non-linearly does not hold territory to stop infil from North, war of attrition follows, Air-Mobility used as a superficial panacea by politicos, prolonging the war (sound like troop surge BS in Iraq?), CMH winner Bruce Crandall rightly concludes we should have come up with a winning CONOPS if were going to lose so many men

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyd3k2C7pTs

In fact, the need to have a large open area which to land helicopters causes the battalion to move out to nearby LZ Albany, where they are ambushed by the NVA hiding in trees. Read PFC Jack Smith's account of the battle here:

This graphic account explains why "foot-slogging" is not desirable and how we need something better than carrying an ax in your rucksack to cut down trees like PFC Jack Smith's comrades do to enable helicopters to land in dense vegetation. Its also clear why we need a gunshield that attaches to the end of Soldier weapons to deflect bullets away from their bodies so they do not become bleeding casualties. This includes the M9 Wire-Cutter Bayonet so you can fight even if you run out of ammunition. It also highlights the need for carrying enough field pressure dressings and having Combat LifeSaver trained Soldiers in each fireteam with all-purpose all-terrain carts (ATACs) to transport wounded out and ammunition in with less personnel.

Then, the next year, the marines stumbled into the NVA the same way during Operation Hastings using crowded LZs and bloated CH-46 helicopters (USMC thinks less, bigger platforms means more trigger pullers when really it results in huge targets for the enemy to kill more marines in one strike):

"On July 15 at first light, a squadron of CH-46 helicopters. Resembling mammoth grasshoppers, lifted off from Dong Ha with members of the 3d Battalion, 4th marines (3/4) of the 3d marine Division. Their operational zone was the Song Ngan Valley, within rifle range of the DMZ. The first wave of helicopters set down in the river valley without incident. Sniper fire ended hope for a quiet landing as the second wave swooped toward the LZ. The third wave met disaster. In the LZ, choked by jungle, two helicopters collided and crashed. A third, trying to avoid them, rammed into a tree, killing two marines and injuring seven. Snipers downed one more. Lieutenant Colonel Sumner Vale, the battalion commander, remembers the grisly sight of several panicked marines being slashed to death 'by the helicopter blades as they were getting out of the helicopter.' The Song Ngan Valley earned that day an infamous place in marine lore as 'Helicopter Valley.' It was an ominous beginning.

Then they began to foot slog........

"Vale's 3rd Battalion initiated a sweep through the valley, while the 2nd Battalion landed at the other end about three miles to the northeast. The 3rd was to serve as a blocking force on a suspected infiltration route. The 2nd commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Arnold Bench, moved southwest to take Hill 208 overlooking the 3d's position The almost impassable jungle combined with oppressive heat slowed the 2nd's progress to a crawl. By mid-afternoon it had covered barely two miles. Captain J.W. Hilgers vividly recalls the difficulty of negotiating the terrain particularly the thick vegetation: 'Though we knew our location, we could not see where we were going, trusting only to our compasses. The heat with no breeze and unlimited humidity was devastating.'

Delays erased whatever tactical surprise General English had counted on. And the marine battalions, now isolated behind NVA advance positions, were quickly thrown on the defensive. At four in the afternoon, after unsuccessfully trying to cross the Song Ngan, Vale radioed that his men were 'under heavy fire' and were in trouble." By seven-thirty the 3rd was surrounded, awaiting the inevitable NVA night attack. It did not have to wait long. Shortly after eight, an NVA company tried to overrun Company K's position, igniting a wild three-hour fire fight. "It was so dark," said Captain Robert Modrzejewski, "we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces, so we threw out trip flares and called for a flare plane overhead. We could hear and smell and occasionally see the NVA after that. When the firing stopped, we heard them dragging the bodies of their dead away, but in the morning, at the first light, we found twenty five-bodies...... On the basis of the dragging we had heard... we figured we got another thirty of them, which we listed as probably killed."

The 3rd's problems were not over. The next evening, still unable to ford the river, the marines dug in while the NVA picked up where they had left off, lobbing mortars at their perimeter. At this point the 2nd Battalion changed the direction of its advance to assist the 3rd. When it finally did reach Vale's unit, the 2nd too was pinned down by the intense mortar attacks. The marines returned fire, directing ear-shattering air and artillery strikes to within a few hundred yards of their own positions, and killed a hundred of the enemy, some at close range with pistols and even bayonets. After two more days of incessant bombardment, the 2nd and 3rd got new orders: pull out.

In the early afternoon of July 18, Vale and Bench moved their units toward the eastern end of the valley. Captain Modrzejewski's battle-weary Company K stayed behind to destroy the crippled helicopters at the LZ. Instead of pursuing the main body, the NVA massed to attack Company K. Around two-thirty, several hundred NVA infantrymen charged the LZ, blowing bugles and whistles and waving flags. Company K stubbornly held its ground. The 1st Platoon, cut off in the confusion, bore the full brunt of the assault. First Platoon Sergeant John McGinty and his rifle squads threw everything they had at the NVA force but it was not enough: "We started getting mortar fire, followed by automatic weapons fire from all sides.... [Charlie] moved in with small arms right behind the mortars.... We just couldn't kill them fast enough." So close were the NVA to overrunning the company that Modrzejewski called air strikes virtually on top of the marines' position. One marine forward air controller, less than fifty feet from the enemy, had to plunge into a nearby stream to escape being burned by a napalm strike. The shower of bombs and napalm sent the enemy scurrying for cover. In three hours of close combat, the bloodiest of the entire operation, a beleaguered Company K suffered over fifty casualties, with some marines hit in five or six places. When reinforcements from Company L arrived to cover withdrawal, Modrzejewski 'men "formed a column of walking wounded ... and then proceeded upstream, where the wounded were evacuated that night." For their actions, Modrzejewski and McGinty each received the Medal of Honor.

The 2nd and 3rd Battalions had not seen their last of Helicopter Valley. General English, after evacuating the wounded, immediately sent these battalions back to the valley from the south to join the 1st Battalion of the 1st marines commanded by Colonel Van Bell, in blocking NVA infiltration. All the battalions saw action in a deadly game of cat and mouse. A marine summed up NVA tactics: "a probe followed by an attack with mortars, automatic weapons and small arms, then disengagement's and flight." What happened on Hill 362 is a classic example.

On July 17 Lieutenant Colonel Edward Bronars's 3rd Battalion, 5th marines, began patrolling south of Helicopter Valley. A week into the patrol, Bronars ordered Captain Samuel Glaize's Company I to establish a radio relay station atop Hill 362, three miles below the DMZ. After hacking its way to the crest with two-foot-long machetes, Glaize's 2nd Platoon descended the other side of the hill to scout defenses. It had not gone far when it met a hail of mortar and machine gun fire. "They had everything zeroed in on the trail," First Sergeant Bill Chapman recalled. Other platoons rushed to aid the 2nd but were ambushed. Soon the entire company was trapped near the crest of the hill by a steady mortar barrage. "We could only dig small trenches," said Second Lieutenant Robert Williams. "We put a wounded man in with a man who could fight. Every third man was wounded, but they still tried to man the weapons.

It was a harrowing night for Company I as NVA Soldiers probed to within fifteen to twenty feet of the marines' perimeter. Corporal Mack Whieley remembered, 'The Commies were so close we could hear them breathing heavily and hear them talking.' For Private First Class Michael Bednar, it was hell. Struck by a bullet, he fell near another wounded marine just as some NVA Soldiers emerged from a clump of trees. Both marines played dead, but the NVA wanted to make sure. After the Soldiers plunged a bayonet into the marine beside Bednar and he groaned, they shot him through the head. Three times the [enemy] Soldiers jabbed Bednar with bayonets but he refused to cry out. Leaving him for dead, the Soldiers snatched Bednar's cigarettes and watch and moved on to other wounded marines. According to another wounded survivor, Corporal Raymond Powell, 'it was damn near like a massacre'.

The next day, U.S. artillery struck at NVA emplacements. Helicopters whirred in to remove the wounded, including Private Bednar, who had managed to crawl back to his lines 'with his guts hanging out.' Glaize's unit suffered a casualty rate of 45 percent-eighteen dead and sixty-five wounded. As for the force of NVA, the New York Times reported that it 'vanished into the countryside.' ...In all 126 marines were killed and 448 wounded.

The Death of Air-Mobile Cavalry by Battlefield Failures with today's narrow "Air Assault" Mentalities

Vietnam: We Were Heroes

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000066C6V/qid=1149392402/sr=11- 1/ref=sr_11_1/104-7588159-9575144?n=130

VIDEO: Meet the Air-Mobile Cavalry Division

www.combatreform2.com/airmobiledivision.wmv

Studying events, the 1962 Howze Board Report and the Air Mobility propaganda videos of the time (see 3 DVD set above) its clear now what went wrong with the Air Mobility 1st Cavalry Division and how the cheap USMC imitation was even worse. First, the sheer arrogance and hubris of the Air Mobility advocates to REPLACE GROUND VEHICLES WITH HELICOPTERS is enough to make anyone puke. The eagerness of the weak military mind to want to make a "new" unit and "new" ego club based on a "new" platform and technique is unrelenting. The basic foundational Air Mobility idea that THERE IS LARGE AMOUNTS OF CLOSED VEGETATED TERRAIN ON THE EARTH THAT NO GROUND VEHICLE CAN TRAVERSE IS ABSOLUTELY FALSE. The true percentage of no-go terrain for our best light tracked vehicles would be 1% but these areas are SURROUNDED BY CLOSED TERRAIN THAT IS "GO" for light tracks meaning we need them with us at all times. Light tracked armored fighting vehicles (AFVs: AKA "tanks") like the M113 Gavin can break brush ahead and move through closed terrain which the official Air Mobile propaganda films on the DVD set above shows after bitter experiences on the ground in Vietnam compelled the Air Mobile fanatics to seek this help. From this faulty or deliberately false assumption that there's this massive amount of no-go terrain for ground vehicles on planet Earth, comes the next faulty assumption, that we can use vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) helicopters that are loud, slow, mechanically fragile and fuel hungry to REPLACE completely light tracked ground vehicles that are simple, quiet, AND CAN BE THERE 24/7/365 with the infantry...like the horse of old, but far better.

The helicopter CANNOT STAY ON THE BATTLEFIELD, its time overhead is measured in minutes, and when its gone, the infantryman is orphaned. This idea that the helicopter can shuttle supplies in and wounded men out is a dangerous handicap and absolutely fatal to depend on to the point of carrying only ammo and a couple canteens of water into battle. If the enemy shuts down the ability to airland helicopters, you are screwed as Blackhawk Down! 3 decades later shows us again, and we ignore the lesson yet again.

Later on in the Vietnam war, the enemy began anticipating likely open area landing zones and setting up ambushes with 12.7mm (.50 caliber) heavy machine guns and man-portable, surface-to-air-missiles (MANPADs) that by 1972's Operation Lam Son 719 in Cambodia, dozens of helicopters were knocked out of the sky in flames.

American Stinger MANPADS SAM

One theory is the Air Mobile types deliberately lied about helicopters doing everything in the Howze Board Report in 1962 to squeeze more money out of Congress through supporter, Secretary of Defense MacNamara to get more helicopters. Whatever the excuses were, they created a flawed force structure that was seriously vulnerable once the helicopters dropped them off.

Major J.W. Barton writes in: "Army Multiplier, The Birth Of Air Mobility" a 1988 CSC report:

Secretary McNamara was given his newest technological invention, the Airmobile Division. Trucks were reduced from 3452 to 1100 and helicopters were increased from 100 to 459. (15:22) Had a veto or diluting view been allowed, the Secretary might have taken notes from a Viet Cong manual captured in 1962 outlining the disadvantages of airmobile tactics:

-Operations separate forces from population
-Separation from villages retains insurgency infrastructure
-Necessarily small forces lifted can be counterattacked
-Enemy strike elements are unfamiliar with terrain
-Easily surrounded and defeated
-Ambushes easily employed against landings

General Gavin had already experienced this problem with parachute inserted Airborne Paratroops in WW2 and had created the solution for ground mobility and staying power: the Airborne Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle Family; a light tracked armored personnel carrier (APC) which became the M113 that could be parachute airdropped in to give armored mobility, plenty of supplies and superior firepower superior to the enemy.

CH-54 SkyCrane lifting 17-ton M551 Sheridan tank

However, when Gavin retired in 1960, Air Mobility developments were taken over by pure light infantry egomaniacs like Kinnard who neglected to insure the CH-47 Chinook and CH-54 SkyCrane helicopters were utilized to move M113s in their Air Mobile Division because they were anti-ground vehicle in their hubris. If the as-is M113 was too heavy, Kinnard and other anti-vehiclists didn't even think of shrinking it a bit, what they wanted was the infantryman/cavalryman (remember the 1st Air Cav was just the infantrymen of the 11th Airborne Division re-named) to be the center of attention with a lot of crutches all around; tube artillery, helicopters, and supporting arms from the other services. It was a clusterfuck built around weakness. In fact, the M113 was not even supplied to Paratroopers as intended for C-130 and larger USAF aircraft delivery when the Pentomic Army reorganization was replaced with the uninspired everyone-stay-in-their-own-ego-club ROAD reorganization plan.

The sickening hubris of the Air Mobility ego clubbers can only be matched by their hypocrisy; for all their TALK about helicopters replacing ground vehicles they "hedge their bets" by still having hundreds of wheeled trucks, jeeps and M734 MULE ATVs that can do support functions in favorable terrain but pose no threat to the central egotism of the walking infantryman/cavalryman.

M102 short-range 105mm howitzers

In the 1950s it had become apparent that light forces with their short-range howitzers couldn't defend themselves. Notice the quote below from the official Army history and the BS requirement to do garrison "From Here to Eternity" crap.

www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Lineage/M-F/chapter10.htm

The "Screaming Eagles" conducted a series of individual unit evaluations rather than one divisional exercise. Lt. Gen. Thomas E Hickey, the test director, judged the new division suitable for short-duration airborne assaults, with improved prospects for survival and success during either an atomic or a conventional war. However, he noted major deficiencies in the direct support artillery-its short range and lack of lethality; in logistical resources, which were less effective than in the triangular division; and in the total strength of the division. The division was so austere that it could not undertake garrison duties and maintain combat readiness.

Maybe if we did less garrison crap and more warfighting training and THINKING we'd have had the air-transportable LONG-RANGE artillery guns to defeat the communists?

If their towed short-range 105mm artillery can't do the job they are quick to call in USAF air strikes to prop up the ego club set-up. They TALK a good game about being "self-sufficient" but are quick to whine for help when overwhelmed as typical light infantry narcissists do, just so long as the help can be quickly forgotten and the myth of their own invincibility can be returned to. However these wheeled vehicles could not be close to the infantry after helicopter delivery and help them adequately, so as the Vietnam war progressed the Armored (ground) Cavalry in M48 medium and M113 Gavin ACAV light tanks began working together after separately forming up on the ground, even though the CH-54 SkyCrane was capable of lifting the M113 and the early-model CH-47 Chinook at least for a short distance. They were in different ego clubs so the possible "Air-Mech" synergism was not used.

Air Cavalry, 1965

________________________________

Aircraft + infantry with M16s

vs. enemies with AK47s/RPGs/land mines (1965 buzzword to CYA incompetence: booby traps)

Here is one account of thousands of units that used helicopters to be "Air Mobile"---notice the fragility of their force structure covered up with large doses of ego narcissism and c'est la guerre FIDO fatalism [bold face]:

www.skysoldier.org/Hollands_Hump_Report.htm

3 September 1996
John Hollands Report
B/1/503rd INF 173rd ABN Brig (Sep)
3rd Sqd 2ndPIt 1965-66

MY RECALL OF OPERATION HUMP (Hill 65) Nov 8, 1965

When we arrived on the LZ, the Hueys were unassed in the normal chaotic fashion for an area assumed to be hot or full of enemy. But in short order, the troops were formed into their respective units and vacated the landing zone for the security of the jungle. [EDITOR: what about this BS claim that units airland "intact" after helicopter delivery and are allegedly faster to assemble than after parachute delivery?]

When the companies had assembled, we began the tedious task of patrolling the dense, hot, and very humid jungle in search of Viet Cong. We patrolled for a couple of days with no enemy contact at all. At nights we'd sit into defensive perimeters with half on full alert while the other half slept. This kind of routine will quickly wear down the best of Soldiers because we stayed on edge expecting to fight the enemy instead of the difficult elements presented by this unforgiving terrain. [EDITOR: are you not supposed to be "free of the terrain" according to Air Mobility hubris thanks to the helicopter?']

Then on the morning of November the 8th, while we were patrolling our areas of operations all kinds of automatic weapons fire resounded from over the ridgeline where our sister company was operating. We began joking about Charlie Company finding a sniper in the trees and blowing the branches out from under him. Little did we know that they had stepped into an ambush and was getting their shit shot away while fighting for their lives. We were ordered to advance over the ridge and support them but as we began to move artillery started bursting in the treetops and raining frags down on us. A few of our platoon were wounded by shrapnel and couldn't be evacuated because of the denseness of the jungle. So the platoon was split leaving some of us behind to care for and defend the wounded while the rest advanced to Charlie companies support.

We set into a small clearing about twenty by thirty meters in area. It elevated to our right and was densely surrounded by foliage with a dry ravine at the bottom of the elevation. This ravine would be the assembly point of the few left living. Security was placed facing the trail we'd just come up and forward where the rest of the platoon had just gone to support Charlie Company. I was to the right of the trail we'd came up with dense undergrowth partly hiding me when I saw what looked like Americans coming up the trail. These bastards were wearing fatigues, helmets, back packs, and walked as though they were expecting friendlies in the area. I whispered to my squad leader SSgt Theodore Shamblin that it looked like friendlies were coming up on our rear. He looked through the undergrowth and also mistook them for our troops then hollered Bravo Company 2nd platoon and it was a deadly error on both our parts. While facing back down the trail that put the rise to our left and that's where the enemy immediately set up their RPD on the top of the slope with others flanking it on each side of us.

The first to die was a young kid whose name I can't recall. He was no more than a couple of meters from their machine gun when it cut him down. Even as he laid dead the sons-of-bitches continued to fire into his body literally tearing him apart. No more than two to three meters behind him were Everett Goias and I behind a small log but directly in the RPD's field of fire. I heard Goias kind of grunt as the first round hit him and as I looked over I could see smoke from a WP round coming out of his right shoulder, yet he continued to fire around the end of the log. I knew this dead tree wouldn't stand up to much more of this intense small arms fire and that we were too close for a frag-grenade when the inane thought hit me of tossing the tear gas canister I was carrying. When I threw it a small branch to our front interrupted it's flight and it burst rather close to us. No matter what anyone says concentrated tear gas will make you move regardless the event. No way could we remain there, so I started helping Goias down the hill and to our advantage the RPD stopped firing. Probably to, relocate from the irritating gas. We weren't more than a few feet from the log when an enemy grenade hit me right on the side of my helmet and with all the firing still coming in from our flanks there wasn't much I could do but turn my head and wait for it to blow but luckily it was a dud as so many of their mortars and grenades were. As we continued our slow trek down the hill another grenade hit and rolled right up to us and after an eternity of waiting it also failed to detonate.

When we reached the main group most of them were dead, while the remaining poured heavy volumes into the enemies positions. The only reason they were alive is because of the dead bodies sheltering them from the intense incoming fire. [EDITOR: gunshields, gunshields, gunshields] About the time we reached them my blood nearly turned to ice as Charlie blew that damned one note bugle and charged into the clearing camouflaged with small tree branches and screaming their fuckin' heads off. Us left living fired everything we could find to stop this mad suicidal assault and thanks to the ammo of the dead it was a temporary success. I mention the ammo of the dead being essential in surviving their fanatical charge because at that time each trooper took five hundred rounds of ammunition to the field but only seven magazines because of a supply shortage and in the heat of battle reloading is next to impossible.

After we stopped their attempt to over run us, they went back to firing from the jungle. Then heavy small arms fire started coming in from behind us on the other side of the dry ravine and it wasn't hard realizing they were Americans by the sharp crack of the M-16 rifles the automatic fire didn't last long then all firing ceased by both sides and during that lull I hollered Bravo company over here. Again it was a deadly mistake, because the patrol poured heavy automatic fire into our position. Between these volleys fired on us by one of our patrols, I told Goias he was on his way home with the million- dollar wound but he never made it. When the second burst was fired in on us I was holding this brave man's head and looking into his eyes and unlike action movies there was no cry of pain, distortion of features, or animated facial expressions instead his eyes just lost their glow of life and I knew he was dead from friendly fire. It's a shame that some died from what's referred to as friendly fire but I for one found nothing friendly about it. Yet after all these years, I feel no one person is responsible; we all tried our damned best to protect our fellow Soldiers as well as ourselves but in a situation as we had that day errors occur. It's a sad fact of war!

At one point, I thought I was the only one left alive and began slowly crawling back down toward the dry ravine when Jerry Langston came inching up from that directional was sure he'd lost his mind going back to the area that had been the main field-of-fire. But of the two of us, Jerry was the only one thinking rationally at the time and was heading for the field radio which by some miracle was still operational after so many had died while attempting to use it. He did make contact and led a patrol in by firing a .45 caliber pistol for them to guide in on. The patrol arrived in record time and checked out the jungle from where the enemy had been firing and I heard one say that dead VC were everywhere. I later thought that was a small tribute to the gallant men who gave their all in the short but very intense battle for survival.

The patrol was small and needed some for security while others handled the wounded. So the more seriously wounded were taken first such as Russo and Shamblin. I knew Russo was still alive because when the patrol arrived he was screaming "give me some water I'm dying!" The troopers who took Russo returned rather quickly so I thought the battalion perimeter couldn't be far away. I opted to put my arm around a trooper's shoulders instead of tying up two with a makeshift stretcher to get us all out of there-I had a small piece of my scalp shot away, a piece of frag was under my right shoulder blade, and my right buttocks was mostly gone from a round out of the RPD. But I hadn't lost so much blood that I couldn't move myself with some support. A very short distance from our battle site a sniper fired on us and as I was dropped to the ground I realized why they had returned so fast after taking Russo because there he lay. He died and the troops left him to return for the living but his body was later recovered with the rest. The Soldier who dropped me when the sniper fired, I never saw again but I was aided the rest of the way to the battalion perimeter by PSGT Bemowsi.

When the companies were united, it was too late in the evening for a detail to cut out MEDAVAC landing area so it meant a long night in an unsecured jungle. By then I was really keyed up and almost came unglued at every sharp noise especially recon-by-fire from inside our perimeter. When the first fight of the day came I really realized the extreme of the battle as I lay among the wounded and dead and watched the medics in their futile efforts at keeping some of the very seriously wounded alive. It was some time before a clearing could be cut to get the Hueys in but the Air Force brought in a little ugly helicopter with offset rotors that would allow it to remain stationary in flight. This little chopper also had a power wench, which they utilized to get a few of our dying paratroopers out and to emergency surgery.

Finally a clearing was cut through the very unyielding foliage and they started bringing in the single runs of Hueys to evacuate the wounded. I remember being taken off the craft but I can't remember any of the trip back to Bien Hoa so I guess the much needed sleep finally over took me. When they off loaded us at the surgical unit in Bien Hoa we received immediate life-saving surgery then we were shipped to Saigon where follow up operations and infection control were performed before most of us were sent out of country for final recuperating procedures.

As you read my description of our isolated battle your probably thinking we had a force larger than we did but in reality we had only eighteen men. Of those eighteen only five were living when the patrol arrived and of those five two died leaving only three survivors. I've thought of that fight for life many times over the years and to this day don't realize how any of us lived against such odds. They were in the wood lines while we were in the clearing, they had the high ground with a machine gun above us, they drastically out numbered us, we had no mortar or artillery support, they put a suicide charge on us in a confined area, but we did have one huge advantage over them we were American Paratroopers who wouldn't say die!

While in the Saigon hospital General Westmoreland came in to present our wounded with Purple Hearts and tell us the 1/503rd had been put in for a Presidential Unit Citation but the news and medals meant little as I learned my squad leader SSgt Shamblin had just died in surgery. As long as I live not one Paratrooper who died on that worthless hill will be forgotten. They may have died without cause but they didn't die in vain because they were part of an elite unit standing well above others; they were Sky Soldiers!

*****

Yeah, right. Most of you were dead because YOU WERE NOT DOING THE BEST YOU COULD. THE TIME TO DO THE BEST YOU COULD IS BEFORE THE WAR SO YOU CAN GET THE BEST FORCE STRUCTURE POSSIBLE (GIDO). ITS ALMOST TOO LATE ONCE THE SHOOTING STARTS (FIDO). YOUR BS LIGHT NARCISSIST FORCE STRUCTURE DID NOT INCLUDE M113 GAVIN ARMORED TRACKS WHEN YOU COULD HAVE---AND YOU DIED NEEDLESSLY FIGHTING THE ENEMY M16 VERSUS AK47:

www.geocities.com/armorhistory/airassaulttanksnoexcuse.htm
www.combatreform2.com/airbornetanksnoexcuse.htm

You can't do this in a Stryker truck: Air/Ground Cavalry M113 Gavins in the jungles of Vietnam

VIDEO

www.combatreform2.com/airgroundcavalryincombat.wmv

The light infantry combat vehicle that can go anywhere a lightfighter can walk--to include breaking brush in closed terrain after 3D aircraft insertions---is still the TRACKED M113 Gavin, the "Green Dragon" feared by the VC/NVA and enemies today that can spit out firepower in all directions behind gunshields...you can't do this in a Stryker or any other wheeled truck. Planet Earth has not changed, those with a proper understanding of war ALWAYS factor in the BATTLE AGAINST THE EARTH before considering the BATTLE AGAINST MAN. We also have the armor to go on the outside of Gavins to make them RPG and landmine resistant as well as stabilized, shoot-on-the-move autocannons to smother all enemies with explosive shell fire. Band tracks and hybrid-electric drive can make extended hull MTVL, regular size or reduced size "Mini-Gavins" that fit into CH-47 Chinook helicopters stealthy and go 60 mph on smooth terrain...

Yet 4 decades later, the same 173rd Airborne Brigade let Saddam and company slip away because AGAIN they refused to have M113 Gavin armored tracks ORGANIC to their force structure when they jumped into Northern Iraq so they also could be parachuted in to enable them to fan out rapidly to block the bad guy's escape. Instead, the Sky Soldiers did the BS "seize & hold" easy airfield seizure task while waiting for 1st Infantry Division Soldiers to airland slowly with M113 Gavins and a few Bradley/Abrams heavier tanks. The result was Saddam & subordinates got away to start a rebellion against us, so far killing 2, 500 and wounding 20, 000+ American servicemen and women. Clearly, we DID NOT learn much from Vietnam in terms of operational art, tactics and equipment.

Major J.W. Barton continues:

What was overlooked were the vulnerabilities and weaknesses inherent in the plight of LTC Moore's 1/7 Cavalry on the Ia Drang. Once dismounted from the aircraft, his forces had no mobility. American units developed the pattern of tying themselves to their landing zones. They would not leave the security of the air lifeline. The initiative belonged to the enemy. He could maneuver, fight, or withdraw as he chose. On the Ia Drang, the 1st Cav engaged an enemy unfamiliar with airmobility or the dangers of massing in the face of overwhelming American firepower. The NVA and Viet Cong forces were quick to adapt. Airmobility's utility on the battlefield was considerable as future operations would show. It provided a "Sunday Punch of unequalled flexibility and versatility." (11:156) But that "Sunday Punch" had to be set up, the location and timing carefully selected. Instead, "it came to dominate American tactical thinking and to dictate the very manner of fighting." (11:180) Where Soldiers walked, they had to stay close to planned landing zones (LZs) to insure casualty pickup and resupply. When inserted by air, troops were forced to travel light--too light to survive without an air LOC. This in turn necessitated leaving combat troops behind to guard the precious LZ after each insertion. The enemy forces seized on the American pattern and took control over the tempo of the war. As Sir Robert Thompson observed, "you were never mobile on your feet. The enemy, who was mobile on his feet, could actually decide whether he was going to have a battle with you in the first place, and he would break it off whenever he wanted to." (14:178) The enemy could then move from main force war to guerrilla war at his will. The United States continued to fight a main force war. Once substantial enemy forces were located, airmobile forces were quickly inserted into the area with outstanding results. However, once the surviving enemy broke contact, the Americans withdrew to their firebases and basecamps, and the enemy could move with impunity throughout the villages and countryside. This insistence on fighting the "American way of war" was not nearly flexible enough. As Professor Earl Ravenal noted in Lessons of Vietnam ". . . it requires the appropriate target." (14:256)

In October 1967, Secretary of Defense McNamara visited Vietnam. He departed sobered and reported that the "enemy has adopted a strategy of keeping us busy and waiting us out." (6:183) The Army, with its one year tours, body count mentality, and habit of "lunging into areas of marginal political importance," was demonstrating a lack of understanding of both the "village war" and the international political struggle. (6:122) In 1968, only 80,000 of 543,000 Soldiers in Vietnam were combat troops. The rest constituted the massive logistical tail needed to conduct an airmobile war while maintaining the American way of life in Vietnam. (1:6-10) With most of these combat troops dedicated to searching out and destroying enemy main forces, the United States did not have the assets to conduct or even learn the nature of the counterinsurgency war. (6:197) General Westmoreland felt that he could endure less than the ideal force structures and conditions because he was sure victory would be ours eventually. General Westmoreland was wrong. The war was being fought for time, not space or body counts. While the United States stuck to its style of war, the enemy could control not only his own casualty rate, but that of the American forces as well. (6:122) Through the control of the casualty rate, the will of the American people could be exploited. If the press reported to the American people that the Army was winning, the NVA and Viet Cong only had to join a few battles and inflict a few casualties to turn the Antiwar heat back up in America. With no strategy to control area or be involved on a large scale with the villages, the U.S. Army missed the opportunity to see the war for what it was. An Airmobility strategy, not airmobile tactics was partially responsible for this failure. "As one airmobile commander ruefully stated after the war, 'We should have done less flittin and more sittin.'"(14:88)

********

The "official" U.S. Army Vietnam history, THE U.S. ARMY IN VIETNAM www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/amh/AMH-28.htm Chapter 28 notes:

Yet for all the advantages that the division accrued from airmobility, its performance was not without blemish. Though the conduct of division-size airmobile operations proved tactically sound, two major engagements stemmed from the enemy's initiative in attacking vulnerable American units. On several occasions massive air and artillery support provided the margin of victory (if not survival). Above all, the division's logistical self-sufficiency fell short of expectations. It could support only one brigade in combat at a time, for prolonged and intense operations consumed more fuel and ammunition than the division's helicopters and fixed-wing Caribou aircraft could supply. Air Force tactical airlift became necessary for resupply. Moreover, in addition to combat losses and damage, the division's helicopters suffered from heavy use and from the heat, humidity, and dust of Vietnam, taxing its maintenance capacity. Human attrition was also high; hundreds of Soldiers, the equivalent of almost a battalion, fell victim to a resistant strain of malaria peculiar to Vietnam's highlands.

Free from Supplies? Or Tangled up in Supplies?

Now the REALLY bad news. We are worse off today than we were in Vietnam.

22 June 2006: U.S. troops in Afghanistan in break-bulk lightfighter clusterfuck

The picture below says it all:

We've been dropping supplies on plywood skidboards dating back to the Korean War! Here's a C-119 dropping supply bundles that do not have forklift slots to be picked up and thus are stuck on the drop zone exposing men who have to break bulk them onto truckbeds and Soldier's backpacks possibly under enemy fire.

* No motorized MHE device (truckbed/ramp + winch, forklift, ANT trailer etc.) to pick-up supplies dropped by plane even if they HAD forklift slots

* No motorized vehicle to transport supplies; POS M-GATOR's rubber tires are constantly busting on jagged Afghan rocks

* No human-powered vehicle to move supplies by rolling conveyance (carts, bikes) Other pics show a single pack mule in use; obviously not enough to prevent the break bulk clusterfuck

www.combatreform2.com/atac.htm
www.combatreform2.com/atb.htm

* Even the stretchers didn't have wheels.

Roll-Ez company offered them as a clip-on attachment back in the 1980s....

* Water was obviously purified back at a FOB but placed in lots of Soldier-sized water bottles that can't fit into a 1 quart canteen cover securely (no one other than 1st TSG (A) Director Sparks thought to use bottles that are shaped like a 1 quart canteen for best interface)

www.combatreform2.com/flexibleonequartcanteens.htm
www.combatreform2.com/drink.htm
www.combatreform2.com/waterbags.htm

All in all, a complete clusterfuck asking for the enemy to start dropping mortar shells on their fleshy, but "physically fit" narcissist bodies so they can be ripped to shreds and bleed to death for a flag-covered glorious funeral back in CONUS.

Internet sources for the pic

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/iraq/010403armedforces/im:/060623/481/5 ba0f623579b4223974ce48e25f3331e;_ylt=Au7kQE7xzXZSDBTgCibYqsXKps8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA 3dmhrOGVvBHNlYwNzc20-

The good news is STILL that the solution is in hand. We just have to implement it. One of the few good things the Air Mobile units in Vietnam did was to use collapsible plastic gallon jugs for water resupply. We propose we relearn the technique.

VIDEO

www.combatreform2.com/airmobileLOGISTICSgoodbadugly.wmv

GOOD

40" x 48" Palletizing is great if you are using small cargo aircraft like Caribous(JCA)/Chinooks, you pack your items ONCE and they stay palletized all the way to the troops. If done right, a skidboard is on the bottom and these pallets can be "kicked" out to the troops.

Two of these pallets will fit on a 88" x 108" 463L/ECDS pallet to "stuff" USAF large cargo aircraft; C-130s/C-17s. Weight penalty is 300-600 pounds per 463L/ECDS pallet.

The collapsible water jugs make a lot of sense over rigid 5 gallon water cans since when empty they can be tossed into a rucksack. I think after Vietnam, the helicopter vanished from the Army consciousness and water cans carried by ground vehicle became the normal pain-in-the-ass means to convey water to troops.

BAD

The bad news is that light infantry doesn't have vehicles that can pick up 40" x 48" pallets so they have to be broken down into truck beds and manpack loads wasting time and exposing troops to enemy fire.

Not shown in film is the fact that wood pallets can be worm infested, and catch fire too easy so they can't be shipped overseas.

UGLY

www.globalsecurity.org/military//library/policy/army/fm/1-113/CH10.HTM

The massive amounts of fuel needed to fly even small turbine-engined helicopters. The UH-1s burn over a gallon of fuel per minute or 90 gallons per hour. Thus, a 1 hour, 100 mile mission to and back requires 180 gallons, so one 500 gallon blivet can only sustain 2-3 missions. The UH-60 doesn't go much faster than a UH-1 but requires 145 gallons per hour; or 290 gallons for a 2 hour round trip mission with the same range reach. 1 blivet can only sustain 1.4 sorties. A CH-47 burns 385 gallons per hour so 770 gallons are needed to do a 2 hours mission requiring almost two fuel blivets all to itself!

The USAF saved the Army's butts during the LZ X-Ray fight because their fixed-wing C-130s carrying 10-14 fuel blivets were able to land on long runways at An Khe that they insisted on the Army making when the piston-powered Caribous couldn't carry enough fuel blivets per load to keep the fuel-hungry helicopters going. Fuel blivets lack of mobility on the ground if they don't have skids/pallets for forklifts or Walker's Amaze-N-Tow trailers to move them. Fuel blivets that can be ROLLED as their own trailers behind a powered vehicle need to be fielded not just "tested". The needs for a fossil fuel pump to get fuel into choppers.

Slopping hot food into insulated containers and flying them to the troops.

CONCLUSION: one giant mess.

Solutions:

1. Adopt the aluminum RHINO pallet as the standard, U.S. military re-usable pallet. Make ALL drop and kick pallets use the RHINO pallet as its base so there's forklift slots for MHE to pick them up without having to break bulk them. Make Walker's Amaze-N-Tow pallet-trailers organic to each infantry company. Field fuel blivets that can themselves be towed on the ground and in the water.

www.combatreform2.com/abnlogistics.htm

2. Don't use so many fuel hungry helicopters for 3D mobility; use fixed wings STOL and airdrop. Use helicopters for point-to-point scouting and small recon/raid force insertions.

3. Use light tracked M113 Gavin armored mobility for staying power on the ground

www.combatreform2.com/fries.htm

4. Use the Gavin's tracks to squeeze fuel out of FLEX-CELLs to fuel ground and air vehicles.

Camel-Baks For Tanks (and aircraft) www.combatreform2.com/heavytankshelicopters.htm

Buy some S-64 SkyCranes with CH-47F engines and have them carry bulk fuel in an ISO container/pump module; a filling station that can land with 37, 000 pounds (6, 000 gallons) of JP-8 anywhere that can avoid rebel roadside ambushes. A Gavin can take 95 gallons of fuel; add a 5 gallon emergency can, that's 100 gallons. A S-64 SkyCrane with fuel pod could refuel 60 x M113 Gavins. A Delta Weapons Company with 35 x Gavins giving A, B, C armored mobility means almost two light mech infantry BATTALIONS could be refueled by ONE S-64 SkyCrane sortie. If they are regular diesel engined; that's 300 miles of range above the 300 they started with = 600 miles to reach a Baghdad from Kuwait. If they have Hybrid-Electric Drive, that's another 600 miles on top of 600 for 1, 200 miles of range to reach more distant objectives.

5. Tow an Amaze-N-Tow trailer by M113 Gavins and have winches in back of XM1108 Gavins with cargo beds to pick-up as-is pallets after air/land/sea delivery without break-bulk. This could even be large ECDS pallets or the AIP liner on top of the 463L pallet (give 463L back to USAF).

www.combatreform2.com/abnlogistics.htm

6. Have each company sized unit have a school trained chef and make them cook for themselves in the BATTLEBOXkitchen and in the field with portable stoves like French Foreign Legion and other elite units do. Abolish the DFAC in both garrison and FOB ops overseas.

www.combatreform2.com/declutter.htm

7. Bring back collapsible 5 gallon water jugs

www.combatreform2.com/waterbags.htm

8. Supply light infantry with their own M113 Gavins and deploy the BATTLEBOX system of modified ISO containers both of which can use solar, wind and generator power to OBTAIN WATER FROM AIR HUMIDITY so we don't have to so much water to forward units. Details:

www.geocities.com/strategicmaneuver/battleboxes.htm

Its easy to see after the heavy casualties Air Mobile units suffered flying thousands of helicopters in the wrong dark green color (4, 000 lost) and then fighting the enemy M16 vs. AK47s & RPGs in Vietnam that HQDA retaliated and put an end to the "Air Mobile" Cavalry ego club by transferring helicopter warfare duties to the 101st Airborne Division and narrowing the focus to a spearhead "Air Assault" role by Paratroopers and losing in the process the correct functional CAVALRY purpose, to be a mobile recon and general purpose fighting force. Again, not having a CAVARLY BRANCH rears its ugly head in the ego battles of bureaucracy. We'd forget all about the loss in Vietnam and lust to re-enact WW2 at Fulda Gap in Germany.

The tragedy is that we should have both an Air & Ground Cavalry for both nation-state wars as a mobile 3D maneuver force as well as for sub-national conflicts.

When we combined both together to overcome the silly Air Mobile we-don't-need-ground-vehicles Howze Board mentality, we were very successful. We actually could do ground MANEUVER well and not suffer heavy casualties. "Sending a bullet and not a man" was not our only option dooming us to defeat because we refuse to control ground. The Army history gives us hope, note the "Tropic Lightnings" of the 25th even though "light" infantry have used M113 Gavin light tracked armor:

In Operation MATADOR, for example, air strikes were used to blast holes in the forests, enabling helicopters to bring in heavy engineer equipment to construct new landing zones for use in future operations. Operation LINCOLN, a search and destroy operation on the Chu Pong Massif, featured combined armor and airmobile operations; air cavalry scouts guided armored vehicles of the 3d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, as they operated in a lightly wooded area near Pleiku City. Also in LINCOLN, Army engineers, using heli-lifted equipment, in two days cleared and constructed a runway to handle C-130 air transports in an area inaccessible by road.

However, the excellent Air & Ground Cavalry would deploy from both fixed and rotary-wing Aircraft that can insert/extract infantry that has light tracked armored fighting vehicles derived from the M113 Gavin to fit inside CH-47 Chinook helicopters that give them SUPERIORITY ON THE GROUND in what would be the now Air & Ground Cavalry.

Air & Ground Cavalry, 2007 & beyond

______________________________________

Aircraft + M113 Mini-Gavin APCs + autocannon or large cannon + smokescreens + superior supplies + infantry with M16s

vs. enemies with AK47/RPG/land mines (latest buzzword to CYA incompetence: IEDs)

1st Tactical Studies Group (Airborne) Director Mike Sparks writes: "When researching for our book, Air-Mech-Strike, General Moore told us that he wished he had a light tracked armored fighting vehicle during the LZ X-Ray battle to offer protection to his men and superior firepower. The AR/AAV program had went over in weight to 17 tons to later become the M551 Sheridan light tank and was no longer helicopter air assault transportable by CH-47 Chinooks. Why the Army did not shrink a M113 Gavin APC to make a 'Mini-Gavin' that would fit inside a Chinook or at least be light enough to sling-load remains a mystery, and is still urgently needed today."

How LZ X-Ray should have been fought with M113 Mini-Gavin light tracked AFVs, body armor and gunshields--Photographic & Video Re-Think

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddnntGA8vEs

We then gave the ARVN our flawed firebase concept that was too hard to maintain and was busted even if we ran them by long-range M46 130mm artillery. When the NVA began busting firebases, military retreats led to general panics that even the sound ARVN units in M113s and tanks couldn't stop.

Was there ANY Good in the Howze Board Force Structure?

Absolutely.

The things we also today have conveniently chickened out on doing. How many 300+ mph fixed-wing observation/attack planes have been shot down over Iraq since 2003 (hint: ZERO) and how many 100 mph helicopters? ( hint: A LOT)

OV-1 Mohawk STOL grasshopper observation/attack fixed-wing planes

The lying USAF took possession of the Caribous then retired them, making the Army dependant upon 3, 000 foot runway C-130s which had to use airdrop when they couldn't land on the small fire base runways. The USAF has resisted efforts to make their C-130s land on shorter runways so they do not have to get too much into the dirt with the Army and have at times blocked Army attempts to get 2, 000 foot runway cargo planes like the C-27J/C-295 by bureaucratic back-stabbing the JCA program. The USAF brass want to operate from comfy air base-to-comfy air base and don't want anyone else getting the job done lest they be revealed for the ego empire cowards they are.

Mohawks enabled Army commanders to see the enemy with infared and radar, take photos and attack them immediately without a long drawn out beg-the-Air-Force-to-do-its-job-cha-cha-cha. Mohawks were the ultimate "grasshoppers" able to provide Maneuver Air Support"

www.combatreform2.com/mas.htm

"White Teams" in simple OH-13 Sioux (Bell Model 47) scout helicopters used to be co-located with every infantry battalion. Army and Air Force O-1 Bird Dogs directed helicopter assault formations and acted as Airborne Forward Air Controllers so when the USAF did arrive to provide CAS it could be PHYSICALLY directed to land in the right places. We have no "grasshoppers" today, is it any wonder the enemy is getting away and are free to line our main supply routes with landmines?

www.geocities.com/usarmyaviationdigest/grasshoppersmustreturn.htm

SkyCranes could lift special pods set up to be Medical operating rooms or command posts....

VIDEO: www.combatreform2.com/airmobileCH54SKYCRANEpodsystem.wmv

...they could also lift oversized light tracked armored fighting vehicles like the M113 Gavin and even winch them down from a hover....we should buy some new model S-64s with new engines so we can have a light tank with large caliber gun to support M113 Mini-Gavins deployed from inside CH-47 Chinooks...and lift ISO container "BATTLEBOXes"...

www.combatreform2.com/nextchinook.htm

UH-1s with lots (48) 2.75 inch rockets used to be able to saturate an area with high explosive effects....now we have to hope mechanically complex AH-64 Apache gunships can show up with at best 20 or so rockets and help if they are not off on their own trying to bust tanks with Hellfire ATGMs or win the war by themselves on some "deep attack" mission....

Operation Lam Son 719: the beginning of the end for Air Mobile Infantry/Artillery fire bases?

The need for Air Mobile units to have the capability to use offset LZs and AFVs couldn't be more clear than what happened during the air/ground invasion of Laos in 1971, called "Lam Son 719". It was the resultant loss of 107 helicopters and 600 damaged in the operation due to enemy anti-aircraft fires that has caused many to question the helicopter's survivability in combat. The goal was a cross-border attack to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail carrying war supplies to NVA units massing to attack South Vietnam. The 22 square mile target area as written by John Everett-Heath in Helicopters in Combat: the first fifty years pages 99-101:

"...was well-protected by nineteen anti-aircraft Battalions equipped with larger-caliber weapons than hitherto met: 23mm, 37mm and 57mm. Together with 12.7mm heavy machine guns, these weapons were deployed around potential LZs as well as to protect important storage sites, and vital ground. The defenders were further reinforced by sections of 10-12 men, armed with a couple machine guns, rocket launchers and an 82mm mortar, who changing their position daily, were able to dominate most of the LZs, pick-up points, fire bases and other ARVN positions. In addition to their air defenses, elements of five Divisions, twelve infantry Regiments, a tank Regiment with the amphibious PT-76 light tank and the T-34 Medium battle tank, and an artillery Regiment were present. Total NVA strength was estimated at 13,000 combat troops and 9,000 support troops...

Against this large conventional force, the battle effectiveness of helicopters was going to be put to a severe test..."

The Vietnam War Air Assault force structure was designed around the artillery fire base, a defended perimeter that could give indirect fire to infantry on foot delivered by helicopters and sometimes supported by tanks and M113 APCs (AKA light, troop-carrying tanks). This was the American approach to defeating the more numerous VC and NVA. For Lam Son 719, 3D South Vietnamese Air Assault troops would fly in by American-crewed helicopters ahead of the 2D ground advance going west down highway 9 and establish artillery fire bases and defended landing zones. However, we knew from LZ X-Ray onwards, that once on foot after leaving our helicopters, we were loaded down with equipment and the enemy could fight us faster on foot "belt buckle" close since his supplies were cached nearby to negate our distant supporting arms, be that from the fire bases or aircraft flying Close Air Support (CAS). With "Vietnamization", President Nixon wanted the war fought more by the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN), and they inherited the Air Assault infantry/fire base style of warfare. However by 1971, the enemy had begun to come up with ways counter this system of warfare.

Everett-Heath writes:

.."worsening weather which often precluded fixed-wing fighter support and forced the helicopters to fly along valleys when the hills on either side were wreathed in cloud. Thus, the choice of roues to the fire bases and LZs became restricted and comparatively easy for the NVA and Viet Cong to predict. ARVN fire bases were a prime target for the enemy and on 25 February one was over-run by T-34 tanks, others had to be evacuated. By the end of the month it had become clear that the main supply route into Laos could not be kept open on a secure and permanent basis while simultaneously maintaining the advance on Tchepone, one of the communications hubs of the NVA supply complex. The ARVN Commander, Lieutenant General Lam decided that he should use his aviation assets to attack Tchepone."

The ARVN troops made heliborne assaults into 3 LZs along the south side of Route 9, permitting a fire base to be set up in range of Tchepone. Cost was 12 helicopters shot down and 58 damaged. General Lam decided after the capture of Tchepone to withdraw before worsening weather hindered aviation operations.

"A concerted enemy effort was now made to hinder his withdrawal. Anti-aircraft weapons were concentrated on anticipated fly-in routes and around fire bases, and intense fire was directed at any helicopter that came within range".

OBSERVATIONS:

1. Its clear the enemy was waiting for our light infantry to be Air Assaulted into predictable open-area LZs for airlanding helicopters and we suffered enormous losses.

2. Once on the ground, surviving Air Assault infantry lacked AFVs to help hold their positions (shielded mobility, carrying large quantities of ammunition/supplies as a "mother" vehicle) from massed enemy infantry assaults in some cases supported by enemy AFVs.

3. Air Assault infantry without a companion AFV was overloaded carrying all is supplies on their backs and couldn't out-maneuver the enemy on foot. Thus, the enemy could chose when/where to fight or refuse to fight at all, electing to "hit and run" causing casualties which would erode over time American public support for the war back in CONUS.

4. Air Assault infantry on foot, unshielded by enemy fire, mines and booby-traps because they had no AFVs to ride in, ride on or walk behind, took heavy casualties that had to be helicopter evacuated to safer "rear" areas, resulting in the momentum of attacks being stopped to set up impromptu LZs for "Dust off" medevac helicopters. To carry a casualty meant at least 2 shooters had to leave the fight to shuttle him back to a casualty collection point/aid station.

5. Air Assault infantry was critically dependant upon air/ground resupply due to the low amount of ammunition, food, water they could carry into battle with them; if these LOCs couldn't stay open due to weather, enemy actions etc., the Sky Troopers had to be pulled out

6. Since the Sky Troopers didn't have AFVs to fight their way out along the 2D axis, their extraction would have to be by aircraft using the same methods that had them get ambushed on the way in; the enemy could sense this, making matters even worse.

7. Since Air Assault troops lacked heavy weapons that an on-scene helicopter-deliverable AFV could provide, artillery fire bases had to be established to enhance their firepower using distant indirect means and these had to be defended and resupplied; draining combat power and providing predictable helicopter routes which the enemy could ambush helicopters.

Its very evident that the solution to these problems is an Air-Mech Airborne/Air Assault 3D maneuver/fighting capability that by having its own aircraft deliverable AFVs can once on the ground be self-sufficient, shielded and dominant in firepower moving along the 2D axis. Such a force can airland in LZs offset from the enemy and thus be less-defended due to their ability to close on the enemy along the 2D axis.

OPERATION PLAN El Paso

"I'd like to go to Tchepone, but I haven't got the tickets."

--General William C. Westmoreland to General Creighton W. Abrams, Saigon, Vietnam, March, 1968

OPLAN El Paso was a corps-sized operation timed to seal off the Ho Chi Minh Trail at Tchepone for 18 consecutive months during a dry season preceded and followed by torrential rains that would reduce vehicular traffic to a trickle. The OPLAN El Paso concept of operation called for the ARVN airborne division to drop on Muong Phine at H-Hour on D-Day while U.S. airmobile brigades seized Tchepone, Ban Dong, and the airfield at Ban Houei Sane. U.S. tanks and infantry were to attack west from Khe Sanh simultaneously along Route 9 and link up as soon as possible. All three divisions and corps-level combat forces thereafter were to block enemy movement southward. Airfield rehabilitation and the conversion of Route 9 to a double-lane MSR were high-priority tasks for Army engineers. Restrictions consistent with the accomplishment of assigned missions were designed to keep supply tonnages down, since aerial delivery would have to suffice until those tasks were complete: few vehicles were to accompany assault echelons; rapid evacuation of personnel casualties and inoperative equipment promised to reduce requirements for medical and maintenance facilities in the TAOR; no base camps were to be built in Laos at any time. Results of their efforts follow on the web page below; along with the unhappy outcome of Operation Lam Son 719, an ill-conceived substitute.

www.ndu.edu/inss/Books/Books_1998/Military%20Geography%20March%2098/milgeoch19.html

In fact the original plan was for an U.S.-led Joint AIRBORNE parachute and M113 Gavin armored cavalry operation was considered for taking Tchepone but the Vietnamization rotorheads insisted they do the operation and then proceeded to botch it. OPEN terrain is danger areas UNSOUND FOR AIRLANDING ANY KIND OF AIRCRAFT. To take such terrain use MORE AIRBORNE AND LESS AIR ASSAULT.

Most of Vietnam is FLAT just like most of Afghanistan and Iraq--we have NO EXCUSE FOR NOT DOING MORE AIRBORNE OPERATIONS BY PARACHUTE like the Rhodesians did with their highly successful FireForces and getting far stronger AFV-equipped maneuver forces on the ground.

Everett-Heath concludes on pages 185-186:

"The Russians for example tried to solve this problem of secondary mobility by equipping some Air Assault units with the BMD tracked infantry fighting vehicle which carries both a gun and ATGMs and can accomodate a crew of 2 and 5 infantrymen....The Germans used the wheeled KRAKA and tracked Wiesel for infantry support weapons, particularly ATGMs...if vehicles and helicopters were made available for an operation they would widen the actual options and allow LZs to be chosen in safer areas clear of the objective..."

THE FALL OF SOUTH VIETNAM: AMERICAN MILITARY-INSTIGATED FAILURE, YES

Artillery and tanks win the war for the NVA, as we pass on the failed helicopter & firebase CONOPS to the ARVN

M46 130mm long range gun

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/Vietnam/brushcampcarroll.html

A marine corps veteran of the Vietnam War, Peter Brush was stationed at Camp Carroll in 1967 and 1968 and revisited the area in 1993. He writes in "Big Guns of Camp Carroll" in Vietnam magazine, Vol. 10, No. 2, August 1997, pp. 26-32:

American military commanders are taught to use generous volumes of firepower instead of manpower to accomplish their military objectives and to minimize their casualties [EDITOR: "send a bullet and not man" even if firepower without maneuver doesn't work to control the ground or defeat the enemy]. Thus the ideal tactical environment for the United States was to dot the landscape of South Vietnam with innumerable artillery firebases capable of achieving interlocking fields of fire. Fully aware of the tactical value of artillery, the American military would expend more than seven million tons of it on targets in Vietnam.

In early 1966, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) began massing forces in the northern provinces of South Vietnam, and the marines were ordered north to face this threat. The area in the eastern Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) had been heavily infiltrated by the enemy. The 324B NVA Division had crossed the DMZ and was quite willing to tangle with the marines. Reconnaissance patrols were unable to stay in the field for more than a few hours -- and many for only a few minutes -- before it was necessary to extract them under heavy enemy fire.

Nine artillery firebases were constructed along the DMZ, with Camp Carroll -- equipped with 16 guns -- in the center. The 80-gun artillery fan was completed with the addition of U.S. Army 175mm long-range guns. The marines could direct artillery into almost any grid coordinate from the South China Sea to Laos, as well as into North Vietnam. Airfields at Dong Ha and Khe Sanh were constructed, as well as a sizable port facility at the mouth of the Cua Viet River. Large marine forces would remain in the area for three more years.

The North Vietnamese matched the buildup of marine forces along the DMZ. In the spring of 1967, the NVA introduced rockets, mortars, and heavy artillery into the zone to support their ground actions. The most powerful enemy guns were capable of hitting targets at ranges greater than ten miles, putting most firebases, including Camp Carroll, within range. According to American intelligence reports on the enemy order of battle, the NVA had 130 artillery pieces in the area north of the Ben Hai River at the time. To counter that threat, the marines increased their own artillery deployment to 180 tubes [EDITOR: QUANTITY not QUALITY--we needed RANGE equal to or greater than the enemy's guns].

The biggest problem for the marines in the region was determining the precise location of the Communist artillery. Ground observation was limited by political and military restrictions against operations in the DMZ. Aerial observation was hindered by NVA missile and anti-aircraft fire. Since the marines were usually firing from fixed permanent positions located on prominent terrain features, the NVA had a clear choice of targets for their gun crews. The Americans repeatedly blasted suspected NVA gun positions with artillery, airstrikes, and naval gunfire, but despite those measures, the Communists were still able to inflict significant casualties.

In May, 1967, the marines became concerned with the NVA's use of the southern half of the DMZ for rocket-launching and artillery sites. Altogether 12,000 Vietnamese civilians were removed from the operational area by the South Vietnamese National Police [EDITOR: now they can become rebels and help the NVA]. After the civilians had been moved out, the entire area was considered a free-fire zone. The Americans then launched several operations in the region between the Ben Hai River and Route 9 intended to destroy all enemy units, installations, and supplies.

The Soviet tactic -- which the North Vietnamese followed -- was to position their heavy artillery pieces just beyond the range of U.S. 105mm and 155mm artillery, the most common guns in the U.S. artillery arsenal (with 10,500 and 14,800 meter ranges, respectively). The Soviet 152mm guns had a range of 14,955 meters, while the [M46] 130mm field piece could shoot 31,000 meters (about 19 miles). That meant that the NVA could fire on most American artillery bases with little threat from effective return fire.

The only U.S. artillery that could match the M46 towed 130mm gun's range was the 175mm self-propelled gun that none of the Air Mobile light narcissists thought to make a lighter towed version of that would have been CH-47/CH-54/C-130 air transportable. 175mm SPGs had to be driven overland to get into position and there was no guarantee they'd make it through to a new location. Thus, we had no effective long-range artillery counter to the NVA's long range guns due to our own technotactical incompetence. Of course, after Vietnam, we retired all our 175mm SPGs.

---

From a tactical perspective, therefore, the U.S. Army 175mm self-propelled gun was the most important weapon at Camp Carroll. The 175mm guns put Camp Carroll on the map, particularly the tactical maps of the North Vietnamese forward observers. The most powerful American field artillery tube, the 175mm could fire a 150-pound projectile 32,690 meters and effectively return fire on any enemy gun that could hit it. These guns were mounted on a tracked chassis and powered by a turbocharged diesel engine. The top speed of this 30-ton monster was 35 mph, and it could fire at a rate of about one projectile every two minutes. The 175mm guns' 34 foot-long barrels, made at the Watervliet Arsenal in Troy, N.Y., would burn out after firing 300 rounds. Used barrels were half-buried in the mud, forming effective speed bumps to ensure that base traffic did not exceed the 5 mph speed limit at Camp Carroll.

Further west on Route 9, past Camp Carroll and the Rockpile, is Khe Sanh, which the marines were ordered to reinforce in the summer of 1967. At Khe Sanh, the NVA supply lines were short while American supply lines were long. The NVA could bombard the base with long-range artillery hidden in Laos, where U.S. forces were not allowed to strike back. The primary American supply route to Khe Sanh was a truck convoy from the marine base at Dong Ha. In August, the marines dispatched a convoy of 85 trucks with several 175mm cannons to Khe Sanh. After the NVA ambushed the convoy along Route 9, west of Camp Carroll, the marines decided to leave the 175mm guns at Camp Carroll while the convoy continued on to Khe Sanh. In early August, the convoys to Khe Sanh ended. That stretch of Route 9 was closed by the NVA and would remain closed for the next nine months. During the fighting around Khe Sanh that followed, marine artillery, including the guns at Camp Carroll, would fire more than 150,000 rounds against the North Vietnamese.

In late 1966, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had approved plans for the construction of an anti-infiltration barrier below the DMZ. Senior marine and Navy commanders opposed the concept, believing it would be a waste of limited resources and would result in unnecessary U.S. casualties, but General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, ordered the marines to implement the plan. The "McNamara Line" was to be a linear barrier 30 kilometers long, extending from the South China Sea to a point north of the Rockpile. It would consist of barbed wire, minefields, sensors, watchtowers, and a series of strongpoints. Artillery positions along Route 9 would provide fire support for the barrier. Camp Carroll was to be one of the artillery bases.

The marines were concerned that construction of the barrier would tie up all their resources and fix them in place, limiting their ability to conduct mobile operations [EDITOR: flit about with helicopters]. Construction efforts were hampered by the monsoon weather and fierce NVA resistance [EDITOR: imagine that. Maybe such a barrier would be an obstacle in the actual sense to their conquest of South Vietnam?]. The marines felt that they were unable to adequately defend themselves from enemy attacks and maintain construction schedules at the same time. They estimated that in constructing the barrier, there would be 672 Americans killed, 112 South Vietnamese killed, 3,788 Americans wounded and 642 South Vietnamese wounded. Equipment lost to enemy action during construction would total $1,622,348. [EDITOR: typical USMC disloyalty. When marines don't want to do something that will not bolster their ego they can find a million reasons not to do something requiring them to change/adapt. In Korea, while Army troops were pushing north, marines were preparing to retreat and leave their Army Soldiers in the lurch when the Red Chinese attacked. Selfish m