The USA and Vietcong's tactics that were used towards each other were cunning and sly. The Vietcong's tactics were by such things as making dummy paths of the Ho Chi Min trail when they had hidden the real ones with traps on the dummy ones. They also fought a lot at night wearing dark clothes so the USA's military wouldn't see them and because Vietcong's knew their way around the jungles more than the USA, the USA's army were better 'prey'. The Vietcong's didn't wear uniform either so the Americans didn't know if they were peasants working in the fields or Vietcong's as they both wore the same black pyjamas and wide straw hats. The Vietcong mainly concentrated their forces in the countryside leaving the cities in the hands of their enemies who were the South Vietnamese and American government. The Vietcong were involved with lots of people and gained support however if their kindness didn't work, they used terrorism to get their own way.
Viet Cong soldiers carry a litter with injured Ame...
At 5:55 p.m. on December 24, 1964, Viet Cong terro...
Civilians sort through the ruins of their homes in...The ARVN and the Americans tactics to control South Vietnam was to win the people of South Vietnam over by a policy called 'pacification'. This involved re-housing refugees, providing clinics and schools, building new roads, bridges, canals and drainage ditches. They also encouraged villagers to set up self-help groups to make farming methods improve and brought elections to local offices.
This all had some success but when the Vietcong brought on the Tet Offensive in 1968, the South Vietnamese didn't completely support it, so eventually this all became second place to the need of wiping out the Vietcong and NVA however these schemes did help the peasants of Vietnam. The main tactics the Americans had though was to destroy the Vietnam landscape so the Vietcong were not...