Echo Two-Seven Tooter

We liked to call him "Charlie", "Charles", or "Victor Charles" (taken from VC) or, "The Cong" (from Viet Cong). But whatever we called him we respected his fighting ability and his ability to fight a war with very little in the way of equipment.

We called him Charlie or Victor Charles (from VC) or The Cong (from Viet Cong). We fought him, mostly we beat him, but in the most political war ever fought his strongest weapon, the TV sets in American homes, proved unbeatable.

The Viet Cong (called VC) were an irregular force of peasants, farmers and the like who blended into the surroundings because they lived there. They were hard (impossible?) to pick unless they were actually engaged in warlike activity at the time. They were a tough ruthless enemy who were not afraid to use any means at all, including their women and children, to further their aims. After the American (therefore all allied) troops withdrew the end was inevitable for the South Vietnamese forces who had no heart for the war. It used to be said that weapons of the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam (ARVN) were good value on the second hand market as they were "never fired and only dropped once". Victor Charles eventually won. Mostly he was dead, wiped out in the Tet Offensive that was a military disaster for them, but a political gold-mine. The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regular soldiers were reasonably well trained, better equipped than the Viet Cong guerrillas, and more likely to be in large numbers. The NVA relied heavily on China and Russia for arms, equipment and money but they fought their own war.

It was they that continued the battle after the Viet Cong were destroyed as a fighting force in the Tet Offensive where they lost 30,000 troops but changed the mind of Walter Cronkite, premier American TV newsreader, as to who was winning the war. President Johnson said "If I've lost Walter Cronkite I've lost Mr. Average Citizen". After the war an American colonel said to a North Vietnamese colonel "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield". The reply was "That may be so . . . but it is also irrelevant".

VC Local Guerrillas

These were the archetypal 'farmers by day, soldiers by night', comprising those either to old or to young to fight in the regular VC units and dressed as local peasant farmers. Whilst their primary activities consisted of intelligence gathering, sniping and emplacing booby traps, these troops were employed in the support of VC Regional and Main Force units operating in their locality as porters, scouts and guides. Force size was dependent on the size of the local village or hamlet and ranged from a single 3 man cell to a platoon of 3-4 squads. Generally operated at the squad level of 12 men.

VC Regional Guerrillas
The Regional units of the Vietcong more often than not operated as independent companies but often split up and dispersed into platoons, squads and cells. These soldiers were full-timers and were better equipped and trained than the local guerrillas. The personnel of these units were often local to the area in which they served.
Generally these units operated within their home region and fought as fully formed units.

NVA Main Force Regulars

Known as 'hard hats' since they wore the ubiquitous pith helmet, these forces operated and were organized along traditional military lines. Organized into battalions consisting of 3 Rifle Company's and a Combat Support Company these troops were, on the whole, well trained, aggressive and well led. On larger operations they could be organized and deployed as regiments of 2-3 battalions.

The Viet Cong (Việt Cộng), or National Liberation Front