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I mean in terms of equipment and weapons. What would be typical to see on a VC that maybe an NVA soldier wouldn't have, etc...

VC wore black and those lamp shade hats where as the NVA wore green or khaki coloured uniforms and a conventional helmet of sorts the VC wouldn't have any heavy vehicles like tanks or APCs or aircraft.

VC = guerrillas.

NVA = fairly conventional.

sAueR115 wrote:I mean in terms of equipment and weapons. What would be typical to see on a VC that maybe an NVA soldier wouldn't have, etc...

Obviously not strictly accurate, but this should give you a good idea.

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they did have tanks and aircraft but not in south vietnam. the earliest they invaded to my knowlege with tanks was the easter offensive 1972 when the american involvment was for the most part finished.

they did have trucks manage to go down the ho chi minh trail later in the war in the more well used and maintained parts. dureing operation apache snow 1969 troops of the 101st could see headlights breaking through the canopy on the valley floor of the A shua valley and found a road with netting above it.

the most used vehicle by the nva on the trail was the bicycle. in south vietnam it was feet, becuase the nva's greatest strength was the ability to melt away into the country side before americas vast range of weapons could come rip them to peices.


overal the nva had a good supply of weapons includeing plenty of morters and 12.7aamg's

the vietcong disposition was dependent on location local vietcong where armed with new ak47s and rpgs down to very old wwII weapons and sometimes older.

vietcong mainforce however where modelled on the NVA TOE and had regiments each with 2 battalions of 3 companies plus heavy weapon companies and a sapper company. this was on paper anyway they probably where never near full strength but they too wherre well equiped and highly motivated.

with the vc you'd see a mixed galore of weapons, a lot of captured french weapons(mat-49's and rifles), old russian weapons(pps 43's, ppsh41's, dp28's and early in the war even some mosin nagant's), even the odd japanese arisaka rifle next to "modern" ak47's, sks's(or both their chinese license equivalent such as the type 56) and rpd's and some rpg versions

the nva's equipment was more standardised, especially later in the war most carried ak47's, sks's, rpd's and rpg's and very rarely a svd. later in the war they fielded some decent support vehicles as well, but I know less of those to give you an accurate view.

Did the NVA ever "lead" so to speak, the VC? Like did the VC work under them or were the VC completely independent of the NVA?

sAueR115 wrote:Did the NVA ever "lead" so to speak, the VC? Like did the VC work under them or were the VC completely independent of the NVA?

thats a really good questiuon. my best uninformed answer would be that they didnt work under the nva but in partnership the vietcong where independent to start but by the tet offensive the nva and vietcong struck as one under generial giaps plan.

after the war the surviveing vietcong where all quietly killed by the communist goverment fearfull that they might decide the communist way wasnt much better than the corrupt regime either.

VC was a general therm for Vietnamese Communist. The guerillas infiltrated the villages and blended in with the general population. Eventually many South vietnamese joined the ranks of the VC Guerillas. There were rare occasions like during the tet offensive, where they infiltrated and then attacked in the fashion of a conventional army, in that occasion they wore some kind of uniform, but not the dress of uniform of the regular army, I guess some kind of black west.

The almighty oracle knows more

http://www.vietnampix.com/popvc.htm

Hitman.2.5 wrote:...and those lamp shade hats

haha, couldn't have said it better myself


the NVA used tanks on two separate occasions, prior to 1972. they used PT76s during the attacks at Lang Vei and Ben Het special forces/CIDG camps.

chagadiel wrote:they did have tanks and aircraft but not in south vietnam. the earliest they invaded to my knowlege with tanks was the easter offensive 1972 when the american involvment was for the most part finished.

The VC had tanks and aircraft, your telling me the Viet Cong (Vietminh) had tanks and aircraft?

sAueR115

The NVA and the VC had a common goal and common enemy so naturally they were definitely allies

see below forgot to quote

Hitman.2.5 wrote:The VC had tanks and aircraft, your telling me the Viet Cong (Vietminh) had tanks and aircraft?

sAueR115

The NVA and the VC had a common goal and common enemy so naturally they were definitely allies

no i ment the nva. sometimes i dont articulate properly what i mean (cant spell either)

@hitman 2.5:
chagadiel mentions the 1972 easter offensive in his posts, that only should ring a bell that he's talking about the nva, wouldn't you agree?

@chagadiel, no need to create double posts when you forget to quote, you can easily do it manually(with bbcode) by copy pasting the portion of a text you want to quote, and writing [_quote_] before and [_/_quote_] behind it(without the "_" underlines)

like this

For the record the NVA used tanks against the special forces camp Lang Vei in 1968.
I also read some where they where used in the main tet offensive of 1968.

In 1969 NVA tanks attacked a US/ARVN (shared) base. The NVA tanks where repelled by US M48 Patton tanks stationed at the base. I cant remember the name of the base, but I saw a documentary about it on the Military channel

chagadiel wrote:no i ment the nva. sometimes i dont articulate properly what i mean (cant spell either)

hehe XD

So Im curious, Im pretty sure the NVA had T55s, did they have anything later than that? Like T62, T64, even T72? {Probably not}

What about portable AT missiles? Like AT-2,3,5 etc.

SGT.JOKER wrote:In 1969 NVA tanks attacked a US/ARVN (shared) base. The NVA tanks where repelled by US M48 Patton tanks stationed at the base. I cant remember the name of the base, but I saw a documentary about it on the Military channel

it was Ben Het...like i said previously

charliegrs wrote:So Im curious, Im pretty sure the NVA had T55s, did they have anything later than that? Like T62, T64, even T72? {Probably not}

What about portable AT missiles? Like AT-2,3,5 etc.

I think they only had the RPG-7 as there best AT weapon.

The 3M11 Fleyta (Flute) (AT-2 Swatter) was only mounted on the BRDM and I dont think the Russians gave or sold any to them (not too sure). The 9K111 Fagot (bassoon) (AT-3/4 Spigot) was been developed around 62 but not produced until the 70's that however was a portable AT missile (used extensively in the 1973 yom kippur war).

The NVA was a large set Army with tanks large camps Migs Helis and Ak47s.

The Veit Cong or VC were Guerilla fource behind our lines wearing normal clothing and coming out of the jungle raiding ambushing and booby traping.

The NVA had lines the VC had none no were is nam was safe.

Early in the war they used SKSs and MAT49s, not all had Ak47s most had them mid war though.