Inside the Crosshairs (29 page)

That three-rifle capability also provided their basic tactic. The senior sniper usually initiated the fire, aiming at and killing his target with his first round. When other members of the targeted group maneuvered—whether to retrieve the body or against the sniper position—the senior shooter and his two cell members took aim at the new targets. Usually the snipers fired just one or two shots each, and rarely more than five rounds, before withdrawing. If the approaching unit detected the snipers’ position, VC/NVA security element covered the withdrawal with automatic weapons fire.

Frequently the VC/NVA sniper teams did not conclude their missions with a single engagement. Instead they withdrew to predetermined positions from which to fire again on the pursuing enemy force. It is important to note, however, that the VC/NVA sniper teams did not often go looking for targets. Their primary role remained that of defense—and then only to defend areas the VC/NVA considered extremely important. Even in their defensive positions, the VC/NVA could expect American army and Marine ground commanders to fight back with the same enthusiasm and firepower as did their aviation counterparts.

The VC/NVA found American snipers to be their most lethal foes. The only advantage the VC/NVA snipers had against the American marksmen was that U.S. forces never had adequate numbers of snipers to supply to each army or Marine company, or even each battalion. Otherwise, the VC/NVA shooters were at a disadvantage because of the superior training the Americans received, the enhanced observation
they gained with telescopes and spotter scopes, and the tactics under which they operated.

In its 1967 edition of Professional Knowledge, the Marine Corps outlined countersniper operations for units without attached snipers of their own. Description of immediate action included the following: “When taken under fire by a sniper, personnel often fall to the ground and seek cover. It cannot be overemphasized that the requirement to bring fire to bear on the suspected sniper location is as important as individual protection. Immediate action drills and directing immediate rapid and accurate fire into the general direction of the sniper should be emphasized in training.”

While it is doubtful that the average VC/NVA sniper was aware of official American doctrine, he most surely experienced the results of it. The minute he pulled the trigger, he could anticipate return fire from rifles, grenade launchers, and machine guns in accordance with American directives. If he held his position and continued his attack, he could expect to be bombarded by American mortars, artillery, and air support.

At times, too, the VC/NVA had to worry about American firing missions directed at general locations based on the mere chance that the sniper might be hiding there. Because American field commanders had no budget restraints on ammunition expenditures, the VC/NVA sniper could never be sure what type or how much power the Americans would use to try to neutralize him.

Professional Knowledge also suggested other measures in the event that massive firepower failed. “Large search and destroy operations,” the document admitted, “have little chance of killing or destroying this type of VC guerrilla, but well-planned and executed small unit patrols … have proven effective in coping with snipers.”

Therefore, provisions of Professional Knowledge recommended saturation of an operational area with squad-size, daylight combat patrols whose mission was twofold: to make contact with the enemy and to become familiar with the terrain. The VC/NVA could be sure that patrol leaders of each
mission would report any sign of his activity, data that would ultimately further concentrate patrolling, blocking positions, and observation posts. Night operations were also part of the effort to locate and destroy the snipers.

According to Professional Knowledge, the American tactics proved successful and “produced several significant contacts resulting in confirmed VC kills and capture of VC weapons, including one with a high-power scope.” The report concluded, “To achieve maximum effectiveness, patrol members must be thoroughly familiar with the terrain and all details of the patrol plan must be known and understood by the observation posts/blocking positions and the combat patrol. Patience, alertness, and fire discipline on the part of each marine are requisites.”

To defend themselves from the Americans’ sophisticated weaponry, nearly unlimited firepower, and aggressive patrols, the VC/NVA snipers further adapted their guerrilla tactics. However, not all of their defensive measures were successful, as is illustrated by the following story.

In early 1967, Vietcong snipers were slowing a 3rd Marine Division offensive and inflicting casualties by popping out of spider holes, firing, and then disappearing back into the ground before the Marines could spot them. The commander of the 4th Marine Regiment dispatched a group from his scout-sniper platoon to neutralize the Communist shooters.

Staff Sergeant Jerry Sides, a former sniper instructor, led the eight-man team composed of three shooters, three observers, a corpsman, and a radio operator. An article in the February 1 edition of
Sea Tiger
describes the results: “The Marine countersnipers moved into position before daylight. After lying in wait for three and a half hours in the bone-chilling rain, Sides spotted two VC snipers through his field glasses. A silent signal was given and two of his men slipped to his side. Their weapons were snuggled into their shoulders, the crosshairs lined up, two sharp reports, and two VC snipers move no more.

“Then came three more hours of lying in the deep mud, not moving a muscle or making a sound—just waiting patiently to
do the job. Patience finally paid off when another VC was spotted and downed at 1,100 yards.”

The VC/NVA used the same tactics against the U.S. Army. In the May–June 1967 issue of
Infantry
magazine, Captain Patrick H. Graves, a former platoon leader in the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, recorded his observations of the VC/NVA marksmen. Graves’s experiences were typical of the war’s small unit leaders and provide an excellent insight into the army’s stance on enemy snipers.

In “Observations of a Platoon Leader,” Graves noted that the typical mission of the enemy snipers was to harass U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. “The sniper,” he wrote, “is used in areas where enemy strength is nominal, and where he can demonstrate to the inhabitants that the Viet Cong can resist a larger government or U.S. force. Primarily, such light resistance is for propaganda purposes.”

Graves continued by writing that the VC/NVA snipers were effective in holding up a superior force while their comrades withdrew. He warned that the enemy snipers frequently kept open areas, waterways, and roads under observation for possible targets. “To destroy the sniper,” Graves wrote, “closure must be executed with speed and aggressiveness for the sniper is usually prepared to escape on preplanned routes. Thus fire and maneuver come into play—fire to pin the sniper in place while the maneuver element closes to destroy him. Grenade launchers should be used to the utmost, their fires concentrated on trees and other suspected sniper locations.”

The former platoon leader added that artillery and mortar fire support could also be used to directly engage the enemy marksmen or to cut off their route of escape. In conclusion, Graves provides another warning: “Aggressiveness is often the key to success or failure in destroying a sniper; but, be cautious not to over-react to the sniper and be drawn into a baited ambush.”

It is difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the VC/NVA snipers. The VC/NVA snipers did not have the luxury of firing as many rounds during initial or refresher training as their American opponents. In the
Sea Tiger
article about the NVA sniper lieutenant, discussed on
this page
, Major Russell concluded, “Their training, although longer, can’t begin to compare to ours.” Russell added that although the NVA sniper trainees were new recruits straight off the farm or out of the village, Marine snipers were mostly selected from the ranks. The Marine snipers, according to Russell, were “hand-picked, already combat-hardened veterans.”

Of course, many of the NVA snipers and the VC they trained also became experienced veterans. Since they were in South Vietnam for the duration, as opposed to the one-year tour of the Americans, at least some of the VC/NVA snipers who survived became skilled marksmen. In the same interview in which he discussed harassment fire by “Teatime Charlie,” Carlton Sherwood noted the results and impact of a more effective NVA sharpshooter.

Sherwood recalls, “Let me tell you another sniper story. This was in Quang Tri Province. The whole battalion was walking in the bush just off Route 1. It was rolling hill country. We got a sniper who knew how to shoot. This guy was about a half mile away. Each shot got a guy right between the eyes. He got about five men. We had no idea where he was shooting from. The whole battalion went to ground. This one sniper held us up the whole day. Next day, same thing. Nobody wanted to stand up anymore. The battalion commander called in air strikes—bombs, napalm, 20-mm cannon for one sniper! They laid in on the ridge line where we thought he was. After the air strike, we walked for about an hour when ‘bang!’ another guy went down. At that point we’d made about a mile and a half in two days. Then we tried to flank him with two platoons, which is what the battalion CO should have done in the first place. Night came on and do you know he actually took pot shots at us in the dark! The CO called in another air strike and do you know what? When the jets came in I could hear
ping, ping, ping
, that motherfucker was shooting at the goddamned jets.

“We never found him,” Sherwood concluded. “Eleven hundred guys, the meanest fighting force in the world, held up by one man.”

Despite such individual success, there is no evidence that the North Vietnamese made any attempts to expand the use of snipers beyond their initial efforts, nor did they ever assume anything other than primarily a defensive role. Stories such as Carlton Sherwood’s about one sniper slowing an entire battalion are not unique even though the VC/NVA sniper role was relatively minor in terms of the overall war.

CHAPTER 14
 

A
LTHOUGH
U.S. forces won every major battle in South Vietnam before their withdrawal, history records the war as the country’s first defeat. As the years have passed, most Americans have begun to realize that the loss came not from the failure of their military but rather from the lack of national support and concessions made at the conference table.

Deciphering exactly what occurred in regard to Vietnam is complicated by a myriad of factors, not the least of which is the “fog” of combat that obscures much of what happens when weapons are in use. Men separated by only a few feet or even fighting side-by-side often see and experience entirely different aspects of the same battle. Combat infantrymen throughout history have focused on accomplishing their missions and surviving rather than recording their experiences. Senior military and political leaders who do write about their observations of war are often more interested in their own reputations than in accurately presenting events. Further clouding the real events are the war historians, who rarely fail to bring their own agendas to their descriptions.

Capturing the essence of the Vietnam War in writing has proved to be an even greater challenge than writing about other conflicts because of the complexities of the nonconventional battles and campaigns and the characteristics of the men who did the actual fighting. Most of the war’s encounters occurred in remote jungles or watery rice paddy battlegrounds between small elements with no news reporters or military history unit personnel present.

Added to this void was the fact that records and files not extracted with U.S. units during their withdrawal ended up in the hands of the North Vietnamese when Saigon fell in 1975. Access to these files and those maintained by the North Vietnamese during the war remains extremely limited.

A final consideration in studying the Vietnam War is the polarization it created. Emotional views of the war still influence those who attempt to write about the period. In a 1986 letter, Lieutenant General Stanley R. Larsen, USA (Ret.), commander of the II Field Force in Vietnam from August 1965 to August 1967, provided an observation on the difficulties of recording the accurate history of the conflict: “More needs to be written about the Vietnam War, but unfortunately, these studies must consider that they are covering a ‘lost’ war run by politicians determined to beat out a no-win war, who were afraid to make difficult decisions, and certainly never aimed at MacArthur’s famous truism, ‘There is no substitution for victory.’ ”

Larsen was correct about the need for more written information about the Vietnam conflict. However, the publication of such material does not, in itself, necessarily remedy the situation—indeed, it often obscures the truth further. Any analysis of writings on or about Vietnam—official or unofficial—must factor in the self-interest and/or the agenda of the authors and the intended audience. While that statement applies to the assessment of all writing, it is particularly important in the evaluation of material on the already complex, emotionally laden subject of Vietnam. For example, several political leaders of the period, some now deceased, penned self-serving memoirs that avoided responsibility for their decisions during the war and placed the blame for the fall of Saigon and the South Vietnamese government everywhere and anywhere but on themselves.