CHAPTER VII

In any military operation one tries to get hold of what is happening by many standard devices-command and staff visits, briefings, reports, statistics, and so forth. In Vietnam the operations tended to be so repetitive, so far flung, and at such a low tactical level that statistics became unusually important.

In 1968 in the 9th Division these statistics were largely activity oriented: that is, we conducted so many operations, fired so much artillery, and so forth. There was also a tendency to lump results, going from daily reports to total results over periods as long as weeks or months.

When the enemy began to evade, the relationship between activity and results changed so radically that the previous statistics comparisons lost much of their pertinence. We therefore hit on the idea of results (or output) oriented statistics. For example, we would record:

Activity level (input) as related to → results (output). This tended to place activity in a useful context as it obviously was most meaningful if the outcome was a tangible result.

The next step was to measure efficiency in a gross way as results per unit of input. Results (output) divided by Activity level (input) equals efficiency (results per unit of input). This, of course, normalized the statistics and made it easier to deduce a rough standard of efficiency by comparison with an accepted norm.

The final step was to target the enemy and to measure his condition. This gave a rough measure of the total and final effect on the enemy:

All of this was a rather painful process initially as only final results really counted. The big talker and little doer took a rather

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dim view of this approach. However, after a while it became obvious that these statistics helped each echelon of command get a grasp on their operations, and gradually acceptance of the approach became fairly general.

Another refinement was to keep statistics on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. This enabled commanders to keep close tabs on developing trends in operations-both friendly and enemy. If a particular type of activity began to pay off, more effort could be put into it. If an activity or area began to slump, more attention could be given to it to determine why.

On the other hand, there were areas where we did not pay much attention to statistics. For example, once it became obvious that our vehicle deadline rates were so low that active operations were not affected, we only looked at these monthly. However, we looked at bulldozer and generator rates (which were historically poor) weekly.

As an aside, some observers of the Vietnamese war have been critical of the use of statistics on various grounds. What they have overlooked is that the conditions of combat in Vietnam were such that it was difficult, if not impossible, for higher commanders to get down and personally observe the details of combat and straighten things out as was done in World War II, for example. Also, progress was rarely seen in climactic victories, but rather in the cumulative effect of hundreds of thousands of small scale engagements. Statistics, if properly used, in' conjunction with more traditional techniques, helped one to get hold of and evaluate these small combat events.

We also tried to keep out of the area of diminishing returns. For example, we used highly simplified training approaches. The art was to determine a small number of skills that could be taught in a short period of time and obtain reasonable results. This tended to keep training on the productive area of the learning curve and minimize gold-plating. It was particularly suited to the rapid turnover generated by a twelve month tour plus normal attrition.

Ideally, and this was hard to do, the statistics should relate directly to the overall mission, operational concept, the tactics and technique of the unit concerned. Then as one traced through the statistics, one measured results and corrected shortfalls within the framework of the command system and the operational concept.

In summary, a good general rule was to concentrate on measuring activities that culminated in meaningful results, to measure them periodically, and to stay in high efficiency areas.

All of these added up to what might be termed the analytical approach-an insistence on results and reasonable efficiency.

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The tremendous surge in results experienced by the 9th Division in early 1969 aroused considerable interest and, it might be added, some criticism in Vietnam. It was difficult to explain to someone that this surge was the cumulative result of many improvements and innovations implemented over a period of months. It was also due to a complete concentration on getting results.

This insistence on results was sometimes hard on a brigade or battalion commander. If he was in an area where the enemy was tough and wily, it was difficult to avoid "skating over the top of the enemy." To break through this defensive skill on the part of the enemy-it was almost like a layer of armor plate-took tremendous ingenuity and sheer will power. Some people interpreted this determination to close with the enemy as an over-emphasis on "body count." It was nothing of the sort-it was an insistence on bringing the enemy to battle and breaking his units up. Occasionally when a battalion was in a real "dry hole," the consequent lack of results had to be accepted as a fact of life and hopefully the battalion could be shifted to a more profitable area later on.

The proper approach was to work for good performance. If a unit was dry-holing, one could only ask it to do better. We used the Vince Lombardi technique more or less-hard tackling, hard blocking and good fundamentals would win. Of course, there was no doubt that the end result was very hard on the Communists-that was our job. However, one had to insist on fair play in combat operations and on restraint and care to avoid civilian casualties and property damage. The record speaks for itself. Any really professional outfit tends to steer clear of the practices that one reads about in the more sensational accounts. If one is really concentrating on the enemy, combat, while inherently dangerous, tends to end up as a rather clean cut affair.

As we began to get our operations under control, we initiated statistical reviews. The guts of our review was a series of "operations" charts. Although they varied, in general they listed the normal categories of operations: ambush, reconnaissance in force, Checkerboard, Bushmaster, pile-on, patrol, raid, cordon and search, installation defense, and so forth. They also showed the level of operation (squad, platoon, company and battalion) , the level of effort-that is, how many units, the number of contacts, and the results (Hoi Chanhs, enemy captured, killed, and so forth.)

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These very busy charts were difficult for the newcomer to grasp. After using them for a while, however, the division, brigade, and battalion commanders could determine quickly and objectively which operations were getting results and which operations were not. For example, if night operations were not working, one could assume that technique was poor and do some retraining. One could also determine efficiency in a rough way as the charts also indicated what level of operation was most efficient. For example, our subjective judgment was that platoon level operations would be more efficient than company level. However, for much of this time, platoons operating under company control in daytime gave results over ten times as good contact-wise as separate platoon operations. When the enemy was completely cut up, the platoon operations began to pay off.

One could also use these charts to guide night versus daytime effort. If the enemy was having difficulty in the daytime, he would sometimes shift to night movement. By readjusting effort, one could drive him back into the daytime where operations were about twice as efficient manpower and effort-wise.

Most importantly, the charts stimulated skill in the various standard operations. It became obvious to the battalion commanders that they needed units that were skillful in a spectrum of operations Over-concentration on one type might produce results for a short time but would eventually prove unproductive. A variety of operations gave the Communists problems as they found it very difficult to decide how to react or even protect themselves.

Moreover, the enemy deteriorated by phases under heavy pressure. When the pressure was put on initially, he reacted very well until attrition ate into his junior leaders; then his units began to react in an unprofessional way; this was followed by a detectable collapse when the enemy lost unit integrity and reacted in a disjointed manner like a flock of chickens followed by mass fragmentation to squad level or lower, with the main effort devoted to hiding and staying alive. Mopping up these fragments was a long tiresome process requiring very skillful operations and a vigorous pacification effort.

Once we had our military operations under control we began to edge into the integration of military operations and pacification. We were anxious to pull all of the relevant data and key people involved in our efforts into a systematic, recurring process of analysis and consultation to insure a cross-fertilization of tactical and pacification concepts and ideas, not only among U.S. unit commanders

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(brigade and battalion) but also between ourselves and the U.S. advisory and South Vietnamese Army officials representing the four provinces and the South Vietnamese Army units. To do this we established a weekly meeting attended by brigade commanders and province senior advisors which we called our "Weekly Operational Review and Analysis." This simple procedure provided the statistical base line and the coordination mechanism that were to prove central to the division operations from October 1968 onward.

About the time we were getting a handle on our personnel strengths, aircraft maintenance, intelligence inputs and new tactical concepts, two new campaigns were initiated from on high-the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-South Vietnamese Armed Forces Accelerated Pacification Campaign and the IV Corps Dry Weather Campaign. We mentioned earlier that the initiation of the Dry Weather Campaign gave us much needed additional air assets. Additionally, the clear-cut objectives of the Accelerated Pacification Campaign proved to be a vehicle for much closer ties with the Vietnamese civil authorities and the Vietnamese military, resulting in more integrated operational plans. We combined combat operations and Government of Vietnam pacification efforts from the very beginning of our Weekly Operational Review and Analysis. Let us face it, the security of an area is the key to pacification for without it no lasting overall progress can be made.

Therefore, the combat operations of the South Vietnamese Army and Regional and Popular Forces were almost as important to us as our own U.S. operations. We realized early that we could not accurately estimate the strength of the enemy unless we took into consideration the combined effectiveness of all Allied efforts in our tactical area of operations. Our accomplishments were only important in the totality of events. For example, it made little difference whether the Viet Cong rallied to a South Vietnamese Army unit or to a U.S. unit-the important thing was to get as many of the enemy to defect as possible thus reducing the capabilities of the enemy and enhancing the strength and prestige of the South Vietnamese Government.

The requirement to integrate the totality of operations in our area resulted in the briefing, discussion and analysis of 18 different statistical operational summaries during each of our weekly sessions. By this means we and the province representatives were able to keep our fingers on the pulse of those operations that were paying off best in a particular area. We also were able to compare the relative performance of each brigade within the division, of U.S. units versus South Vietnamese Army units, and of Regional Force

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and Popular Force units vis-a-vis both U.S. and South Vietnamese Army outfits. Most importantly, our nonproductive efforts stuck out and we could take coordinated action to improve or de-emphasize them.

Through evolutionary changes we streamlined our data collection, refined our charts, and systematized the presentation to provide an unusual analytical process highlighting the effectiveness and the efficiency of both our combat operations and pacification efforts.

A statistical operational summary, an example of which is shown on the following page, was prepared for the U.S., South Vietnamese Army and Regional and Popular Forces contingents operating in each of the four provinces of our tactical area of operational responsibility.

By way of explanation, the data on the U.S. forces was maintained by the G-3 and G-5 and was derived from daily situation reports and intelligence summaries. Data on the South Vietnamese Army forces was obtained from the senior U.S. advisers to the 7th South Vietnamese Army and 25th South Vietnamese Army Divisions and data on the Regional Force and Popular Force forces and provincial pacification activities was obtained from the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Advisory Teams. For comparative purposes all operational efforts were reduced to equivalent company days. The company days available were the maximum number of company days which could have been utilized by a unit operating in both the nighttime and daytime phases of a 24 hour period. Thus each 24 hour period contained two potential company days for a company sized unit. As an example a brigade with three battalions of four companies each would have 168 company days available per week.

As mentioned earlier, we expected the U.S. companies to operate three days out of four; whereas for the South Vietnamese Army and the Regional Force and Popular Force we felt it would be more reasonable if they operated every other day (one out of two). We defined "Operational Effectiveness" (for want of a better term) as the ratio of company days used to company days available; thus, the goal for Vietnamese units was an operational effectiveness of 0.50. When we initiated our statistics no Vietnamese unit in any province approached this. After several months most Vietnamese units were operational in the field 50 percent of the time. This was a doubling of the number of the units in the field and the effect on

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TABLE 27-OPERATIONAL SUMMARY GO CONG PROVINCE REGIONAL FORCE AND POPULAR FORCE

Day / Night

Overall Operational Effectiveness index: .50         Overall Operational Efficiency Index: .12

a The indices, compiled from data from several sources, summarize the enemy eliminated by type of operation, enabling an assessment of the effectiveness of the various operations.

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the Viet Cong was readily apparent by the jump in enemy eliminated.

Our initial thrust, then, was to get both the U.S. units and the South Vietnamese Army units to operate more often. Once this occurred we set out to increase the operational efficiency of the units in the field. No unit likes to go for "walks in the sun"-patrolling with no results is very hard on the troop's morale. When gross eliminations or the contact success ratio of a unit was low for an extended period of time we concluded that there most likely was something basically wrong with the unit's operations. We then attempted to get a fix on the problem.

There are several methods of measuring combat outputs-gross eliminations, the elimination or exchange ratio, and the contact success ratio. However, to give us an indication of how efficient various modes of operations were (that is airmobile, riverine, or foot) as well as the total efficiency of the contingents within a province, we computed what we called our "Operational Efficiency." Quite simply it was the total number of enemy eliminated (Killed in Action, Prisoners of War, Hoi Chanhs) per company day in the field. By relating the numbers of enemy eliminated to a day's operation, we were able to normalize our statistics. It is astonishing to note that if every company in a U.S. division eliminated only one enemy each company day of operations (considering 10 battalions of four companies operating 75 percent of the time day and night) , the gross eliminations per month would be 1,800. You can see that modest results under the Constant Pressure Concept added up in the aggregate. As we stated previously, the supermarket approach of a small unit profit with a large turnover could pay off handsomely.

We found for example, that as soon as we broke down into small units and started operating extensively at night that our operational efficiencies increased dramatically. The same experience translated to the South Vietnamese Army units later on. The improvement in results of the Vietnamese units in our tactical area of responsibility was quite marked. First, they generally doubled the number of company days in the field. On top of that they also improved their operational efficiency almost two fold. As a result, for many units the number of enemy eliminated per month almost quadrupled over the six month period between October 1968 and March 1969. One of the factors that gave the Vietnamese units quite a boost was the fact that we were able to help them with marksmanship training. After we had trained a sufficient number of our own snipers we established marksmanship classes attended not only by the 7th

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South Vietnamese Army Division but by the Vietnamese ranger and airborne troops from other areas of the country. When the South Vietnamese snipers returned to their units and the units worked into a night operational mode the same confidence that spread through U.S. units took hold for the South Vietnamese Army and they began to get results. Overall the greatest improvements occurred in the provincial Regional Force and Popular Force units. About the time we were prodding them to get into the field more often they also received much better equipment (M-16's primarily) and they really took off.

In the example (Table 27) it can be seen that the Regional and Popular Forces in Go Cong Province were in the field 50 percent of the time. Almost every unit operated during the day-an Operational Effectiveness Index of .80. On the other hand only 1 out of 5 of the units operated at night-an Operational Effectiveness Index of .20. The overall Operational Efficiency Index was .12; thus, for every eight company days of operations, the Regional and Popular Forces eliminated one enemy. Their most efficient type of operation was daytime airmobile. Unfortunately the Regional and Popular Forces rarely received air assets for any operations due to shortages of lift. Both the airmobile and riverine operations were more efficient than foot operations. Also, whenever the Regional and Popular Forces operated at night they were more efficient than they were in the daytime. The problem then in this hypothetical case would be to attempt to get the Regional and Popular Forces out more at night and to raise the efficiency of the foot mobile reconnaissances-in-force. Actually, small improvements in operational efficiency could result in a large increase in gross eliminations.

Whenever the results obtained on one type of operation dropped off while another type of operation was going great guns, the brigade commanders would go about reinforcing their current successes while attempting to analyze the reasons why other efforts were drying up. Thus on a weekly basis we were able to see the results of actual changes in Viet Cong tactics. When one of our tactics began to dry up we did not always understand what was going on at first; but after several operational reviews, the trends were apparent and we generally had determined the reasons. We, in turn, revised our method of operating or cooked up new solutions in order to keep damaging the enemy. In a nutshell the statistic "company days used" was the measure of our constant pressure whereas "the enemy eliminated per unit in the field" grossed out the efficiency of our intelligence efforts, tactical innova-

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tions, individual training and leadership.¹ Our Weekly Operational Review and Analysis tended to keep our combat operations in the ball park.

When the Accelerated Pacification Campaign was initiated, with its clear-cut objectives, we integrated our combat operations with our pacification efforts to insure the optimum support of the pacification program. Although there were many aspects of the Accelerated Pacification Campaign, the most fundamental one was to choose key hamlets and villages that were in a contested status with the Viet Cong, and through security and civic efforts to raise these hamlets to more secure Government of Vietnam status. The selection of key hamlets was quite properly left to the Government of Vietnam authorities and they were chosen for their economic, social and political importance to the province. In heavily contested areas, military considerations were also important. Generally speaking, the pacification of these key hamlets themselves was primarily a Government of Vietnam effort. However, there were a great number of things that the U.S. forces could do to facilitate this pacification.

Therefore in our Weekly Operational Review and Analysis we prepared a large scale map for each of the four provinces and color coded the key hamlets in accordance with their pacification classification. Around each key hamlet we drew circles with a radius of 5 kilometers (the maximum range of the enemy 82 mm mortars was 3.0 kilometers) . It was our goal to eliminate the enemy in the vicinity of the key hamlets within this radius, thus improving the security of these hamlets and setting the stage for pacification. The envelope of all of these circles was the area in which we controlled all operations-combat as well as pacification. Each week, then, we plotted all the preceding weeks' activities on this map, including combat operations, civic action programs and psychological warfare operations. Thus, our pacification analysis included the total spectrum of division operational activities (A more detailed discussion of pacification activities is in Chapter VIII).

The basic document for the pacification program was the Hamlet Evaluation Survey Report. This report was prepared monthly by a Subsector Evaluator on the U.S. District Team. It included eighteen factors, nine of which pertained to security and

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nine of which pertained to what we may generically call Civic Action aspects (Administrative and Political Activities; Health, Education and Welfare; and Economic Development). Each of these eighteen factors was rated between E and A in ascending order of the degree of Government of Vietnam control and an overall rating computed. To be quite frank, we had no faith in the Hamlet Evaluation Survey initially. It appeared to us that it could be a pencil exercise with little validity. Therefore, we undertook a detailed Hamlet Evaluation Survey for all the hamlets in one district in Dinh Tuong Province. We told our G-2 to be hard-nosed in his evaluations. At the conclusion of our survey we compared it with the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Advisory Team Survey. We were literally amazed to find that there was less than a 10 percent difference in evaluations. This gave us new and substantial confidence in the Hamlet Evaluation Survey. Additionally, by working closely with the evaluation worksheets we received a more complete understanding of the pacification efforts and we were in a better position to integrate our efforts in support of the Accelerated Pacification Campaign.

Every week, then, we reviewed our total operations in conjunction with the envelope of the key hamlets of the Accelerated Pacification Campaign. As a result we directed our efforts to areas where support seemed to be lacking and we measured the effectiveness of the joint U.S.-Government of Vietnam efforts. As a rule of thumb we seldom conducted combat operations within a kilometer of a key hamlet, thereby making certain that we did not interfere with Government of Vietnam pacification efforts.

Every month when the new Hamlet Evaluation Survey classifications hit the street we reviewed the progress of the pacification campaign. In those areas where the hamlets had returned to government control we slacked off on our operations and conversely in the areas which proved hard nuts to crack we increased our tempo, generally stepping up either our combat operations or civic action programs.

Thus by combining our combat operations with our pacification efforts through the Weekly Operational Review and Analysis we were able on a continuing basis to achieve a more surgical approach to tactical operations in the delta and to contribute substantially to the ultimate goal of pacification.

More often than not, units in Vietnam emphasized pacification by stressing civic action efforts. In our opinion, this was a mistake as long as the enemy retained even a modest military capability. In the 9th. Division, we always stressed the military effort. While our

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civic action work compared favorably with that of other units, we always felt that it was a strong military efforts and civic action integrated with the Government of Vietnam pacification program that achieved results. Later on in 1969 and 1970, while working on the broader canvas of the II Field Force Vietnam area of operations, this concept was further tested and proved sound. Most areas which achieved spectacular progress did so under cover of a strong military effort. Conversely, if an area was having difficulties pacification-wise, one invariably found a stuttering or ineffective military effort.

The use of operations analysis in Vietnam was inherently a difficult task. For example, one should be able to describe a process (that is construct a model) and one should be able to know what is happening (that is get reliable data) . Both of these tasks were most difficult, Some examples of difficult problems are given below.

One of our real failures was to up our prisoner intake substantially. Realizing that prisoners were one of the best sources of intelligence, we tried several elaborate programs to increase the number of prisoners. Our results were useful but hardly earthshaking:

* Does not include Viet Cong Infrastructure

One can see that we did better in the later period and the intelligence obtained was probably worth the effort, but the improvement was modest. We theorized that the enemy's indoctrination program, plus the language and cultural barrier, was too great for a real breakthrough. Although we did well with prisoners of war the average South Vietnamese Army division did much better. The theoretical potential can be seen in the Hoi Chanh rates. In months when we took 25 to 75 ralliers, the provinces in which we operated and furnished the basic pressure aggregated overall from 500 to 1,500 ralliers. (See Chart 15) Obviously, ralliers and presumably Prisoners of War preferred to turn in to Vietnamese units rather than American, and equally obviously, we were unable to get hold of the critical element in this problem area.

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As a sub-program of our prisoner program, we worked hard on using small loudspeakers on the battlefield. This effort, while useful in other ways, did not generate a larger percentage of prisoners.

Viet Cong infrastructure was another difficult area. While we could and did help the Government of Vietnam with their Phoenix effort, it was very difficult to do what was essentially police and detective work with American soldiers. Our results were comparable to other U.S. and South Vietnamese Army divisions but in gross numbers our returns were very modest. In sum, we were not able to break into another culture and into the Communist organization. We sensed that a quantum increase in qualified interpreters would have helped but could not prove it. Our Tiger Scouts were useful in softening these barriers but they were not decisive.

A general tendency which we could never overcome was the ability of the enemy to protect himself against damaging tactics after some months. When we first optimized our radar, it was most useful. After six months it was only another source of information. The jitterbug and seal-and-pile-on technique dealt the enemy fits for about six months. Then it became only one way, albeit a vital one, of putting pressure on large areas. Small unit daylight patrolling had its heyday and so on. Even the Constant Pressure Concept began to lose its edge. It was quite apparent at that time that the war was slowing down. As the enemy began to disintegrate, it became more difficult to inflict crippling defeats on his remnants. Undoubtedly the people in Vietnam have developed an answer to this change, but it may be quite different from the techniques we used previously. We concluded that a smart enemy could eventually protect himself to a certain extent against damaging tactics.

The biggest pitfall to avoid was the conclusion that one could predict with confidence by any means-judgemental or analytical-where the real payoffs were and how to manage the overall effort. If one reads this study, one might conclude that we were quite successful in these regards. However, in all humility, these successes were achieved by hard work and trial and error.

Our two most combat effective and cost effective innovations were the sniper program and night air cavalry operations. However, these were proven effective in the doing, and we had no way of determining in advance that they would be so. Most of the advantages gained through analysis were due to laying out the operation and measuring efficiency. These impressions-and they were often impressions rather than hard conclusions-were then used to guide operational emphasis and corrective training.

However, if one could ever devise a really first class analytical

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approach to complex matters which worked, then a skillful commander could use it to achieve spectacular improvements in efficiency and results.

We are not suggesting that operations analysis is impossible in Vietnam; but only suggesting that the murkiness of the situation and the rapid changes placed a high premium on the element of military experience and know-how in guiding the application of the analytical process. Some areas clearly fell outside the scope of the analytical art at that time.

Summary

Our insistence on results and reasonable operational efficiency-the analytical approach-was not limited to operations and tactics. It was a total integrated approach, including all activities of the division-administrative, logistical, tactical and pacification. To improve these large and complex operations we had to concentrate on essentials so that our efforts were not too diffused. We zeroed in on weak points with considerable intensity and we insisted on rapid results. We tried to keep on the steep portion of the learning curve-where reasonable efforts provided major improvements. Eventually, our whole analytical system was formalized. We had weekly operational review and analysis meetings. We also had weekly administrative reviews, discussing personnel and logistical matters such as enlisted promotions and deadline rates. Each week we had an operational planning conference to bring intelligence information into perspective. We had our morning and evening briefings and relied heavily on our daily three cycle intelligence review. Yet we tried not to focus too hard on any one aspect because obviously over concentration could lead to disjointed operations. Important factors were emphasized but coordinated. In summary, it was a total integrated approach.

In the preceding discussion, we have emphasized the central effort of conducting effective and efficient military operations. Obviously, there were many other areas which were kept under close scrutiny. To do justice to all of the areas which were examined and analyzed would be an endless task. Obviously, the more areas that could be kept on the plus side, the more rapid and substantial was overall progress.

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Endnotes for Chapter VII

1 The usage of the terms "effectiveness" and "efficiency" was obviously rather arbitrary and was retained only for convenience. As we improved our analytical technique, and gained more insight, we could have devised more precise terminology, but did not lest it confuse the many persons involved. (click here to go back)

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