What made fighting the Vietcong and North Vietnamese difficult?

Answer 1

They were tough when the US went after them with jets, tanks, and infantrymen; but they weren't so tuff when SEALS/SF (Special Forces-Green Berets)/LRRPS (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols)/and US Army/US Marine snipers were deployed against them. Then they made the error of "surfacing" during the TET offensive of '68. That finished them. With 20/20 hindsight, it may not have been an error...Hanoi may have expended them; so that NVA troops could handle the war from then on. Not an original ploy, it's been used since man has fought wars.

Answer 2

The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were difficult to defeat because they were loosely organized. The United States thought that this would work to their advantage, but did not realize that the loose structure of the forces they encountered meant that solid intelligence was extremely difficult to obtain. If an enemy soldier was captured, it was highly unlikely that the soldier would have any useful information beyond what his individual mission was.

Many of the local people also had very little support from the United States, and were threatened by both enemy bands of troops to provide support for them, and the US troops on suspicion of provide aid to the enemy. In effect, the local people were sometimes sympathetic to the Viet Cong and viewed the US as enemies, providing the Viet Cong with hiding places and ad hoc headquarters of operation that were well hidden.

The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong also had the advantage of a built-in support from close supply lines, no language barrier, and an intimate knowledge of the terrain as well as being raised in the hostile environment of brutal heat and rain.

The United States had not yet developed a successful strategy of scattered ground combat, still relying on World War II strategies of air superiority designed for large slow or stationary ground targets. This strategy proved ineffective against a force whose primary strength rested on sheer numbers of small, fast, and lightly equipped squads not easily seen from the air.

Answer 3

North Vietnamese Cadre convinced South Vietnamese men and women that they only wanted to unite Vietnam into a unified, free country. Their lectures stirred their passion to fight "The American Aggressors" to unify their homeland.

Because of this, they were willing to fight to the death, making them a very formidable and hard-fighting enemy.

Also, they were South Vietnamese countrymen - looking no different than anyone else. The only way Viet Cong were distinguished from others was when they were actually carrying out combat actions.

Answer 4

Their tactics involved hiding under tropical objects, such as trees etc. They were experts of laying traps and knowing the area, they also used Guerrila warfare as they attacked hiding within the civilian population making them dangerous than an average trooper. Plus, they were supported by the Soviet Union which also supplied 95% of all weaponry.

Answer 5

Underground tunnels