Losing Vietnam (15 page)

Two of USSAG's primary missions were to establish and maintain liaison with the South Vietnamese military and to exercise command over the DAO. Consequently, I visited Saigon at least monthly to coordinate with both the JGS and the DAO. I always stopped by the DAO, which was established to ensure that the South Vietnamese armed forces were logistically well supported, for a briefing. During the war everything was in constant flux, and a logistics area that had no problems today could very well be the source of tomorrow's flap.

My visits to the joint staff were always pleasant and useful. It was most helpful that I had close relationships with staff members. They were generally very candid in reviewing their operations, and we would discuss our latest statistical analyses of operational activities. Normally I met with Gen. Vien, Lt. Gen. Le Nguyen Khang, the assistant chief of staff for operations, and Brigadier General Tho, the J-3, on operational matters and with Lt. Gen. Khuyen to discuss logistics.

On 5 August 1974, Maj. Gen. John Murray, who had accepted a transfer to the United States, made departing visits to the corps commanders. Several of their comments were very cogent, and he relayed them to us. At II Corps when he asked Lt. Gen. Nguyen Van Toan if he had observed anything new in the enemy's tactics, Toan reeled off four items: First, the enemy had much more firepower. Second, to take advantage of his increased artillery strength, the enemy employed more daylight attacks deploying artillery observers. Third, with its added antiaircraft, the enemy worried less over the air force. Fourth, the enemy now tended to attack all over the place rather than make a single strong effort so as to prevent ARVN's use of superior mobility.
⁶¹

When Major General Murray visited Lieutenant General Nguyen Vinh Nghi, the IV Corps commander, and 7th Division commander Major General Nguyen Khoa Nam the next day, Nghi was really worked up.
⁶²
He said that before the cease-fire he had been getting 248,500 rounds of 105 mm a month to offset thirty to forty enemy
attacks a day. Now he was getting just 45,000 rounds to offset seventy attacks a day—an 82 percent cut. Prior to the cease-fire, the enemy had been using 82 mm mortars and a few 107 mm rockets. Now the enemy was freely bombarding IV Corps with 82s, 107s, 122s, and 12.7 antiaircraft in a direct fire role. (Hoping to obtain more supplies for their troops, almost all commanders exaggerated their situations, and Nghi was no exception. In FY 74, the year prior to his meeting with John Murray, with respect to artillery ammunition the IV Corps fired 1,147,894 rounds, or 95,657 rounds per month, not 248,500 rounds. In FY 75, the nine-month period following, IV Corps fired 763,397 rounds, or 84,821 rounds per month, not 45,000 rounds.
⁶³
This was an 11.3 percent decline. Without letting facts get in the way, in reality it is often the perception that counts.)

Major General Nam said his biggest problem was that he needed more ammunition—grenades and M-79 ammo. When General Murray asked why he wanted the grenades, Nam replied, “For safety and aggressiveness. Now I give each soldier two grenades, then they use only one and keep one. One is always for their own protection. My soldiers continually ask for more.”

There you have it in a nutshell in early August 1974 from the top army leaders! The enemy had increasing firepower to support more combat initiatives, while at the same time the ARVN was faced with a reduced ammunition allocation, resulting in a loss of aggressiveness.

On 9 August, General Vien was reported to have said that because of increased casualties caused by the limitation of artillery ammunition and helicopter and air support, there would be a lowering of morale and, consequently, combat effectiveness. Those were strong words, but Vien did not go so far as John Murray, who had commented earlier in a message to General O'Keefe at USSAG: “But when I look at the ammo usage going down, I also note that the casualties are going up, and it's rather sad that while we used to trade ammo for lives, they are compelled to trade lives for ammo. I wish we could get this message to the Congress.”
⁶⁴

Murray would be greatly missed. He was an outstanding logistician, having directed the DAO from its inception and helped build it into an excellent organization. However, Homer Smith stepped in without missing a beat and was equally effective. Most important, both had the confidence of the embassy and the Vietnamese.

Murray had suggested rather vividly that while the United States “used to trade ammo for lives, they [the RVNAF] are compelled to trade lives for ammo.” General Vien and other senior officers stated this as a fact; at that time I tended to agree with those assessments. But in subsequent months it began to gnaw at me. “Is the conservation of ammo costing lives? Are we trading blood for ammo? In specific local instances this might be true. But is it true on a countrywide basis?” I had my doubts.

I also recalled the balanced JGS memoranda Vien had published, in which he stated: “Ammo conservation does not mean privation or shortage of ammo to destroy the enemy when we see him, find him or when he comes to attack us. We have to use ammo in the right place at the right time and accurately.” None of the officers wanted to deny the soldiers the means to fight. The question was how much was required. Psychologically, without a doubt, the ammo conservation program was bad for morale. It could reduce aggressiveness. But did it appreciably increase casualties, as most instinctively thought?

This was a very unsettling thought—so I tried to measure all enemy-inflicted casualties (KHA and WHA) against the intensity of combat (CIF), which includes both enemy and friendly casualties, and the expenditures of ammunition over four major periods. The first period had no conservation measures, the second was an interim conservation period, the third was with full conservation, and the fourth was the first two months of 1975 for which data was available (see
table 10
).

Table 10.
Ratio of Casualties and Ammo Expenditures to Combat Intensity

Sources
: Analysis, “Summary of Ceasefire Statistics,” June 1975, Headquarters USSAG, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand; “Republic of Vietnam Ammunition Conservation Study,” June 1975, Headquarters USSAG, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand.

The combat intensity doubled between the first and third periods, yet the ammunition expenditures remained the same. Obviously, ammunition was being conserved. Although the average monthly casualties did increase between these two periods, when one considers the increased intensity of combat, the ratio of casualties to combat intensity decreased. Between the third and fourth periods, the ammunition expended per combat intensity factor remained about the same, yet there was a major reduction in casualties per combat intensity. On a countrywide basis, then, it is difficult to rationalize that casualties increased due to the conservation of ammunition.

The ratio of friendly casualties to combat intensity decreased in each period and was ultimately cut in half because of ARVN's improved effectiveness and its appreciable reductions in casualties from attacks by fire. Additionally, the joint staff's efforts to improve and upgrade the territorials that commenced in July 1974 had definitely improved their effectiveness. Contrary to others' intuitions, there was not a trading of blood for ammo.

The 1 October 1974 National Intelligence Bulletin supported this outcome, stating that the recent cutbacks in the use of artillery by South Vietnamese forces—partly as the result of less combat and partly as the result of orders to conserve supplies—had not yet led to higher casualties or the loss of significant new territory to the communists.
⁶⁵
The reduction of firepower, however, made the South Vietnamese more willing to abandon remote outposts and contributed in making them less aggressive in their operations to take lost ground.

The artillery ammo expenditures and conservation data were carefully monitored. In the thirty-week base period (29 July 1973–24 January 1974) the ARVN computed allowance was 754,680 artillery rounds, but it fired 1,926,891 rounds, which was 1.553 times in excess. The ARVN managed to cut back slightly in the five-week adjustment period. However, in the fifty-six-week conservation period (1 March 1974–27 March 1975) it reduced artillery expenditures appreciably. The computed allowance was 2,610,434 artillery rounds and the ARVN fired 4,578,744 rounds (168,584 short tons), or 0.754 times in excess—a conservation of 51 percent.

If the ARVN had continued the rate of ammunition consumption throughout the conservation period as it had during the base period it would have expended 6,664,438 rounds (2,610,434 times 2.553), more than 2 million more than it actually fired with conservation. This resulted in a savings of $110 million, or 42 percent of the total FY 75 ammunition budget; had the ARVN not conserved, it probably
would have run out of ammunition before January 1975
.

During the battle for the Iron Triangle, MR-3 had huge ammunition expenditures, for several weeks exceeding allowances four-fold. Over 16–22 August 1974, it fired 58,383 rounds, which was 3.5 times the computed allowance of 12,916 rounds, a rate that was never exceeded in any military region except in MR-1 in the last three weeks of March 1975. This exceptional use of firepower in MR-3 in June–September 1974 paid off, since it repulsed the enemy's corps-directed multidivisional combined arms attack on the Iron Triangle. If the RVNAF had had unlimited ammo, the final result in South Vietnam might have been different.

There is no doubt that in its policy the United States has always attempted to use firepower to save lives. The statistics clearly indicate that the South Vietnamese soldiers held their own and in later periods took the war to the enemy. They rose to the occasion—conservation or no. Had they had more artillery and close air support, they would have done better. There is no question but that the RVNAF's effectiveness and efficiency were reduced from mid-1974 onward.

General Vien and the JGS recognized early on that there had to be a cutback in ammunition consumption. Little did they anticipate that the U.S. Congress would reduce the initial available funding from $1,530 million to $1,069 million in FY 74 and then to $583 million in FY 75. Neither could they have envisioned that inflation would increase the costs of petroleum by more than 100 percent and ammunition by more than 60 percent, thereby greatly reducing the amounts that could be purchased with the fewer dollars available. The storage levels of the ammunition on hand at the time of the cease-fire had been continuously drawn down from 177,000 short tons to 114,000 short tons on 1 July 1974, which was only a two months' supply at the intensive combat rate. Consequently, the JGS was forced to initiate an ammunition conservation program even though it realized this would result in
reductions in offensive spirit and morale. Consider that the RSR was already a small fraction of the comparable U.S. rate. Nevertheless, the JGS had to reduce consumption further—and reduce it did.

Unfortunately, by conserving ammunition South Vietnam prolonged the war and the killing, a war it had no chance of winning because the U.S. Congress refused to authorize adequate funding for ammunition and other combat supplies.

At the end of 1973 my notes
⁶⁶
concerning enemy intentions, which were distilled from NVA/VC documents and intercepts, were as follows: they intend to draw South Vietnamese main forces into combat and inflict casualties that will reduce their military initiatives and facilitate communist local force strikes against the government pacification program and increase operations in contested and government-controlled areas in conjunction with their main force operations. Actions would be focused on PSDF elements, terrorism, and with impressment of local inhabitants into military and other services. As usual, the communists intended to attack the South's weakest elements. These were not grandiose plans and were in keeping with the North's current doctrine advocating military activities to support the political struggle.

This was a crucial year. The RVNAF, cognizant of the effects of the communists' attriting attacks, took the offensive and aggressively and successfully confronted the enemy. Pacification was working well, and the number of South Vietnamese living in secure areas peaked in March. The JGS reorganized mobile regional force units and was systematically improving force capabilities. In May, North Vietnam launched its first multidivisional combined arms attack against the Iron Triangle and South Vietnam successfully beat it back. However, mid-summer was a high point of South Vietnam's defenses. In August, the United States dramatically reduced its supporting funds, which forced the RVNAF to make major cutbacks in firepower and mobility. Concomitantly, the enemy initiated a major logistical campaign, infiltrating large numbers of men, matériel, and supplies. Instead of adjusting its strategy to the situation, South Vietnam waffled, putting its
hopes into supplemental funding. In December, the enemy in COSVN launched a major attack in Phuoc Long Province, managing to capture their first provincial capital. By year's end the balance of power had shifted greatly, yet the RVNAF was still capable of carrying the war to the enemy and defending its country. For those of us monitoring the war, the long-term situation looked bleak as all focused on the 1975 communist dry-weather campaign that was sure to come. Following are several highlights of 1974.