Endnotes for Chapter IV
1 In 1973 neither the Armor Agency nor the Armor School at Fort Knox had
a copy of the study report and only a few copies of the manual could be
found.
2 A reconnaissance by fire, or "mad minute" was used to
disrupt enemy action. All weapons fired at maximum rate directly out of a
perimeter on all sides until given a cease-fire order. The volume of fire
and sound from an armored unit was awesome, and usually discouraged
further enemy activity.
3 The 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry, which had arrived in August 1966,
would spend most of its five-year effort in Vietnam repetitiously securing
the road net in the Pleiku area. The 2d Battalion, 8th Infantry, which was
mechanized in 1967, occasionally shared this mission.
4 The 1st and 2d Squadrons, 1st Cavalry, both arrived in August 1967
with the diesel powered M113A1, modified with ACAV kits. Since these
squadrons were never relieved of their respective assignments to the 1st
and 2d Armored Divisions, personnel from these units became the first and
only armored crewmen since World War II authorized to wear an armored
division combat patch on the right shoulder of their uniforms.
5 The air cavalry troop of the 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, experienced
difficulty on arrival in 1966, when the 25th Division Aviation Battalion
tried to have it converted to an aviation gunship unit in the Aviation
Battalion. The conversion was finally rejected, but the air cavalry used
aviation company tactics until September 1967, when it assumed normal
scout operations and employed low-level flying techniques.
6 Air cavalry development and employment is fully treated in a companion
mono. graph of the Vietnam Studies, Airmobility, 1961-1971, by Lieutenant
General John J. Tolson. Although air cavalry is a component of mounted
warfare, space limitations prevent the detailed treatment of it here.
page created 17 January 2002
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