Viet Cong Boobytraps, Mines and Mine Warfare Techniques

Viet Cong Boobytraps, Mines and Mine Warfare Techniques PDF

Author: United States Army

Publisher:

Published: 2004-01

Total Pages: 76

ISBN-13: 9781410211385

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This 1967 U. S. Army Training Circular is a guide for commanders and staff in the orientation and training of personnel for operations in the Republic of Vietnam. It encompasses Viet Cong mine and boobytrap materiel, techniques of employment, and defensive measures to be taken against Viet Cong mine and boobytrap activities. Contents: Introduction Mines and Demolitions Fuzes and Firing Devices Boobytraps Mine Warfare Techniques Defense Against Viet Cong Mines and Boobytraps

Vietnam War Booby Traps

Vietnam War Booby Traps PDF

Author: Gordon L. Rottman

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-10-29

Total Pages: 65

ISBN-13: 147284243X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong were frequently unable to hold their own in stand-up fights against US and allied forces who were superior in strength, firepower, mobility, and logistics. They relied instead on traditional guerrilla warfare tactics including small-scale hit- and-run attacks, ambushes, terrorist actions, and precision attacks against bases. These included one of the oldest of guerrilla weapons – the boobytrap. Booby traps could be made in large numbers in village workshops and jungle camps using locally available materials as well as modern munitions. The VC were adept at making booby traps 'invisible' in the varied terrain of Vietnam, often emplacing them in locations and surroundings totally unexpected by their enemies. Booby traps could be incredibly simple or startlingly complex and ingenious, ranging from pointed sticks to command-detonated submerged floating river mines. Besides a wide variety of booby traps, they also used land and water mines, both contact/pressure-detonated and command-detonated. Between January 1965 and June 1970 11 percent of US troop deaths in action and 17 percent of injuries were by caused booby traps and mines. This fascinating title explores not only the wide variety of booby traps employed by the Viet Cong, but also their various uses in halting, stalling, or locating an enemy, and the many evolutions these traps underwent in order to retain the element of surprise. Written by a Vietnam veteran with first-hand experience of such traps, this is an engaging look at one of the most frightening aspects of guerrilla warfare.

Malice Aforethought

Malice Aforethought PDF

Author: Ian Jones

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-06-02

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1922488097

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

War has always provided a stimulus to technological development, and throughout the twentieth century this new technology was harnessed to produce increasingly deadly and malicious types of explosives in the form of booby traps, mines, delayed-action devices and mobile charges. Designed, constructed or adopted to kill or injure, these lethal mechanisms function when a person disturbs or approaches a seemingly harmless object or performs an apparently safe act. In other instances they are set off by remote control or automatically after a lapse of time. Fully illustrated with diagrams and photographs, Malice Aforethought traces the design, deployment and effectiveness of these deadly devices throughout both world wars to the Vietnam War. Expertly and compellingly written, this unique study is a tribute to the brave men who risked their lives daily to neutralise the booby traps laid in the dimly lit dugouts of the Western Front, on the beaches of Normandy, or in the dark and dangerous tunnels of Chu Chi.

Mine Warfare

Mine Warfare PDF

Author: Andrew Ross

Publisher:

Published: 2021-05-05

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 9781922488268

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Mine warfare, in its various forms, is a favoured weapon used by insurgents against government forces. By June 1966, when the 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) arrived in Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam, the Viet Cong and People's Army of Vietnam forces were well entrenched in the province and used mines extensively. The mine campaign risked few enemy lives and was a powerful statement to everyone, including civilians, that the Viet Cong were still in the war and not a spent force. The intense patrolling practised by 1ATF inevitably put its men in close contact with enemy mines. Indeed, 1ATF suffered more casualties from the Viet Cong mine warfare campaign than from any other single cause, yet enemy casualties were minimal. So why did the enemy mine campaign collapse in the period July to December 1970 and continue its rapid decline until 1ATF ended combat operations in September 1971? Counterinsurgency has been described as a competition in learning and, facing a well-organised mine campaign against them, 1ATF learned and adapted to the enemy's mine warfare techniques. Supported by statistical analyses of operational research data, this book details the complex tactics adopted by 1ATF to eventually defeat the Viet Cong mine campaign, and how enemy forces were reduced to a negligible military presence in Phuoc Tuy Province.

Vietnam War Booby Traps

Vietnam War Booby Traps PDF

Author: Gordon L. Rottman

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-10-29

Total Pages: 65

ISBN-13: 1472842464

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong were frequently unable to hold their own in stand-up fights against US and allied forces who were superior in strength, firepower, mobility, and logistics. They relied instead on traditional guerrilla warfare tactics including small-scale hit- and-run attacks, ambushes, terrorist actions, and precision attacks against bases. These included one of the oldest of guerrilla weapons – the boobytrap. Booby traps could be made in large numbers in village workshops and jungle camps using locally available materials as well as modern munitions. The VC were adept at making booby traps 'invisible' in the varied terrain of Vietnam, often emplacing them in locations and surroundings totally unexpected by their enemies. Booby traps could be incredibly simple or startlingly complex and ingenious, ranging from pointed sticks to command-detonated submerged floating river mines. Besides a wide variety of booby traps, they also used land and water mines, both contact/pressure-detonated and command-detonated. Between January 1965 and June 1970 11 percent of US troop deaths in action and 17 percent of injuries were by caused booby traps and mines. This fascinating title explores not only the wide variety of booby traps employed by the Viet Cong, but also their various uses in halting, stalling, or locating an enemy, and the many evolutions these traps underwent in order to retain the element of surprise. Written by a Vietnam veteran with first-hand experience of such traps, this is an engaging look at one of the most frightening aspects of guerrilla warfare.

Nonstate Warfare

Nonstate Warfare PDF

Author: Stephen Biddle

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-07-26

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 0691216665

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

How nonstate military strategies overturn traditional perspectives on warfare Since September 11th, 2001, armed nonstate actors have received increased attention and discussion from scholars, policymakers, and the military. Underlying debates about nonstate warfare and how it should be countered is one crucial assumption: that state and nonstate actors fight very differently. In Nonstate Warfare, Stephen Biddle upturns this distinction, arguing that there is actually nothing intrinsic separating state or nonstate military behavior. Through an in-depth look at nonstate military conduct, Biddle shows that many nonstate armies now fight more "conventionally" than many state armies, and that the internal politics of nonstate actors—their institutional maturity and wartime stakes rather than their material weapons or equipment—determines tactics and strategies. Biddle frames nonstate and state methods along a continuum, spanning Fabian-style irregular warfare to Napoleonic-style warfare involving massed armies, and he presents a systematic theory to explain any given nonstate actor’s position on this spectrum. Showing that most warfare for at least a century has kept to the blended middle of the spectrum, Biddle argues that material and tribal culture explanations for nonstate warfare methods do not adequately explain observed patterns of warmaking. Investigating a range of historical examples from Lebanon and Iraq to Somalia, Croatia, and the Vietcong, Biddle demonstrates that viewing state and nonstate warfighting as mutually exclusive can lead to errors in policy and scholarship. A comprehensive account of combat methods and military rationale, Nonstate Warfare offers a new understanding for wartime military behavior.