Armored Ambushes in Vietnam

[Compass Rose]

Armored Ambushes in Vietnam - An Australian Overview
By Neil Stalker

Vietnam would not be thought of as the most ideal place to use armor with its thick jungles, rice paddies, mud in the rain season and dry dusty tracts during the dry season. The heat, terrain and humidity would play hell with the vehicles and with the men who manned the armor. The reasons for sending armor to Vietnam after Australia increased its deployment of troops was to provide mobility, firepower, communications and protection to the infantry.

A total of 60 M113 APCs armed with 30mm and 50mm machineguns were initially deployed with a HQ and 4 troops. The APCs were multifunctional being troops carriers, ambulances, command centers, mortar carriers and maintenance vehicles.  The APCs had a manning of a driver and a vehicle crew commander. Then they came under a section commander (a senior NCO who had 3 vehicles under his control and the section came under a troop leader (captain) who had 13 vehicles under his control. The Troop leader had as assistants a Lieutenant and Troop Sergeant.  A section could lift a rifle platoon.  Commanding all the troops was a Squadron Commander.


The Australian forces were impressed with the fire support that the American Pattons provided during operations. Even after refitting most tracked vehicles with Cadillac Gage M47C turret with twin .3-inch Brownings it was decided that the APCs could not provide the level of support they needed. The elderly Mark 5 Centurion tanks with its 20-pounder gun and weighing in at 50 tons would be sent to Vietnam. The Centurion underwent many modifications before it was sent to Vietnam additional 50 mm machine gun, infrared system and up scaled the armor.  Two troops of 4 vehicles each were to be deployed these vehicles were slow and more suited to the open plains of Europe and not where they were going.  Working in the Centurion in Vietnam was like working in an overheated sauna and the worst job was the driver.

Ambush

A couple of the key elements in carrying out an ambush, which is described as an unexpected overwhelming concentration of force against a enemy, is surprise, concealment, sufficient force and a knowledge that your enemy will pass this way. Concealment of a 12.5 tonne vehicle approx 6 feet tall by 6 feet wide powered by diesel and with a distinct smell was surprisingly easy. If done on a really dull night and with decent camouflage the vehicle was hard to detect. Also by the time the ambush is sprung the engine is cooled down and less of an odour is detectable. The noise of the vehicle when going to the ambush site was hard to pick in a large area and normally you could use the drop of tactic that is a troop of vehicles and a section would drop of while the troop motored on. Tracks also could be covered so that their location wasn't given away. Then it was a matter of sitting quietly sometimes for days trying to avoid detection by enemy or civilians.

The normal place to lay ambushes was on tracks leading to villages, near food caches or any signs of troops movements. The favoured time to carry out an ambush was a night so that the large vehicle would be concealed and also that civilian movement would be minimal. The APCs machine guns, personal weapons and the field of claymores are laid out so that the greatest force is propelled towards the target area. Normally in a section of 3 APCs you would have a reverse triangle with two APCs at the front, an APC deployed at the rear for security. 6 to 8 men would man the section. Then across the top of the triangle say 20 claymores and more claymores laid down the two sides of the triangle. A claymore when triggered fires out 700 ball bearings and shreds anything in its path and if you're standing behind one can cause some damage with blowback. After the claymores are fired you would fire illumination flares so that the target ground is lit up.

The most dangerous part of the ambush is after the trap is sprung and you have to go and inspect the enemy dead or wounded. Normal procedure unless they were definitely wounded was to apply a shot to the head. The wounded were recovered and the bodies searched for anything that intelligence could use.  

A troop ambush would take place over a larger area and had a number of main ambush sites plus support using some of the force as spotters and to cut off the enemy.  This would normally consist of 13 vehicles although with maintenance and breakdowns this would be variable.

The noisiest and smelliest beast in the jungle would definitely beside the buffalo be a Centurion tank. Tanks used similar techniques used by the APCs although tanks were better utilised if there were long-range targets. They were used against sampans making night runs on rivers with spotlights they pinpointed their target and using AP rounds. The AP rounds sunk them by shock waves more than direct hits. Normally 3 tanks were used with a company of infantry as protection and a section of APCs.

When the tanks were used in normal ambushes an anti personnel canister was used. This consisted of 20 pound canister which effectively destroyed anything 150 feet away from the barrel in a ten foot arc.

As with all ambushes there is the possibility that the enemy will be told about it or a scout will reveal the ambush site. Then the enemy could do a counter ambush and with your crews and claymores pointing in one direction with minimal rear protection the unit could be routed.

Another type of ambush was the area ambush where say a village was suspected of harbouring the enemy so under cover of dark the area was surrounded leaving no gaps. This took timing a careful planning as at night your forces had to move in from several directions and take up the correct positions and also not reveal you where there. With the infantry then going it at dawn and doing a house-to-house search all the people where then moved into a controlled area where they were screened for VC. The armored vehicles provide teeth if there was a large formation of VC hiding in the village area. Also with the advantage of high observation platform escaping enemy could be detected.

Ambushes proved one of the most effective ways of controlling the VC.

Source : Jungle Tracks by Gary McKay and Graeme Nicholas published by Allen and Unwin.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wanted to get a feel of how armor was used in Vietnam. NS

Associated Scenarios - Duck Season  and Waiting, Waiting.