-
derivative filename/jpeg
-
363-07075 to 363-07081.pdf
-
Digital Object Identifier
-
363-07075 to 363-07081
-
Title
-
Article about South Vietnamese army strategies
-
Description
-
Original title: "ARMY", Keever's title "South Vietnamese Army Shifts from Conventional to Counter-Guerilla Warfare", Article draft about the changing strategies of the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN), for the Christian Science Monitor
-
AI Usage Disclosure
-
Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
-
Transcript
-
--------------------
- Page 1
--------------------
SAIRAD
PROREUTER TOKYO
ARMY 1 (Normass/doope)
SAIGON, August 10-The Vietnamese Army will ore hastily be
shifted from a convention war machine into more of a counter-guerrilla
security force,
reliable sources reported today.
yet to be made public
The decision was made by the ruling Vietnamese The generals
on August 3; the American military command here has agreed to the
plan in principle, but not in detail these sources said.
The decision involves transforming roughly sixty per cent
of the ten Vietnamese army divisions into counter-guerrilla forces
> to support the pacification program-up from the current level of
roughly twenty percent. These counter-guerrille foregs are called
"territorial forces for the defense of the "TERRAIN
The romaining forty per cent of the division strength will be
re-organised into sixteen units comparable to American light, mobile
brigades, which the Vietnamese call task forces. Although officials
resent the comparison, these task forces will also be comparable to
the French groupement mobile (ital), which were consistently defeated
during the French Indo-China War hero more than a decade ago.
More Routor
--------------------
- Page 2
--------------------
SAIRAD
PROREUTER TOKYO
ARMY 2 SAIGON (NORMASS DEEPE)
The six-battalion Vietnamese Marine Brigade and eight-battalion
Vietnamese Airborne Division will remain as the Vietnamese strategie
reserve to reinforce the mk task forces in emergencies. Both the
strategic reserve and task forces will carry search and destroy
operations in the populated, lowland area against Communist
main force units, while the American and All other Allied troops
concentrate on fighting the Communist main force units infiltrating
into the South, mainly in the highland jungle area.
Moro Router
--------------------
- Page 3
--------------------
SAIRAD
PROREUTER TOKYO
ARMY 3 (Hosmann/doopo)
The military sources said each of the sixteen task forces--or light
brigadegill average four thousand mon. Each will be composed or
of four battalions of infantrymen, one battalion t (sixtoon tubes)
of 105 and 155 mm. howitzers, one squadron (seventeen) of -113
amphibious azmod personnel oarriors, one transportation company of
fifty trucks and one company of cehtt eighty men for rocommaissance
and intelligence collection.
sather
gathering
Each of the four battalions has five companies and each compony
has five platoons--indicating an increased emphasis on moro Vetamose
riflomon to combat the Communist unit strengths.
(More Router)
--------------------
- Page 4
--------------------
SAIRAD
PROREUTER TOKYO
ARMY 4 Saigon (Normass/deepe)
This military plan was presented by the Vietnamese goom High
Command in lato 1965 to the American command under General William
C. Westmoreland just prior to the Honolulu Conference with President
B.
Lyndon Johnson. But, the American command here has pigeonholed
x it until last month when secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara
visited here and became visibly unhappy with the effectiveness of
SOURCES SAD.
both the Vietnamese and American forces?
The military re-organization plan is conso considered to be
political dynamite in both America and Vietnam. First, it means
the Vietnamese Army will be doing less fighting against Communist
main force units at x a time when more American troops are
earmarked for Vietnam.
And honco, American forces will be
involved in the fioroest fighting and suffering a highor casualty
rato.
More Reuter
--------------------
- Page 5
--------------------
SAIRAD
PRORETUER TOKYO
ARMY 5 Saigon (Normass/deepe)
Second, within Vietnam, the plan is oir criticized by the
powerful Vietnamese corps and division commandors, who will have their
powers and prestige sharply curtailed. It is also criticised by
Vietnamese officiers, conscious of their nationalism, who say:
"The Vietnameco Army is going backwards into smaller units
while the Communists are marching forward from guerrilla to semi-
conventional forces."
To cushion this political shook both in Vietnam and in America,
the plan will be unveiled in two phases stretching over the next
six months, these sources said.
More Router
--------------------
- Page 6
--------------------
SAIRAD
PROREUTER TOKYO
ARMY 6 Saigon (Normass/doope)
At a higher level, the plan is considered as publically
unvoiling the shooking failure of the American military establishmont
here over the past 12 years to conceive and train the right kind
Vietnamese
of military machine to fight this new kind of Communist revolutiomry
warfare.
The heart of the American failures 12 years ago,
American military advisors created a conventional Vietnamese axuy
capable of defeating a Korea-liko invasion of South Vietnam. & Tho
Amoricon military leaders rejected at the time a plea by the
Vietnamese government to train, equip and fiabe finance instead
a force of provincial militiamen.
But, the Communist forces nover invaded along a defined
frontline in conventional formation--and for twelve years the anti-Communist
war effort has been fought on an upside-down, topsy-turvy basis
against a conventional army that never existed.
"America began to lose in Vietnam in Korea," one counterinsurgency
expert explained.
"Because of the Korean invasion, American generals
were always obsessed with the fancy that the Communists in Vietnam
would pull a repeat performance." They never did."
More Router
--------------------
- Page 7
--------------------
SAIRAD
PROREUTER TOKYO
ARMY 7 Saigon (Normass/deepe)
Hence, the current military plan is designed to create
a Vietnamese
counter-gr counter-guerrilla force operating in
small units in villages-which was the kind of military machine the
Vietnamese government had pleaded for in 1955.
But, in the past twelve years, the military discipline
of the Vietnamese and force armed forces has been broken to such
an extent it will be dooidedly difficult to re-establish it. While
the plan is the only alternative of the Vietnamese military loft
untried, few observers here believe there is any susti
sure-fire guarantee of stress success.
If the Vietnamese Army fails in its coun newly-assigned
ounger-ins counter-guerrilla role as badly as it has in American-
conceived conventional role, the three alia long-term
alternatives facing America 9703 first, more American troops to
secure the villages as well as to fight the main force units--which
will require at the very minimum a million troops,
prolonged stalemate, or a political and military defeat.
03 a
End Reuter
-
Date
-
1967, Aug. 10
-
Subject
-
Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Vietnam (Republic). Quân lực; Strategy; Tactics; Warfare, Conventional; Guerrilla warfare
-
Location
-
Saigon, South Vietnam
-
Coordinates
-
10.8231; 106.6311
-
Size
-
20 x 26 cm
-
Container
-
B7, F5
-
Format
-
dispatches
-
Collection Number
-
MS 363
-
Collection Title
-
Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
-
Creator
-
Keever, Beverly Deepe
-
Collector
-
Keever, Beverly Deepe
-
Copyright Information
-
These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
-
Publisher
-
Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
-
Language
-
English
