Guerrilla tactics
The NLF won the support of the peasants, because they promised to take land from large land owners and give it to the peasants. The NLF also told them that the Americans and South Vietnamese would take the land back, so the peasants agreed they would feed, shelter and hide the guerrillas in return for land. In some cases, they actually became guerrillas and joined the war. The vast majority of peasants backed the guerrillas but those who refused, despite the code of conduct, were often threatened and beaten.
Using the peasant villages as their base, the guerrillas went out into the jungle. They attacked units of the South Vietnamese army, the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), and ambushed patrols of American soldiers. They then disappeared back into the jungle. They hid in the villages in the houses or in the tunnels built for the sole purpose of hiding them and linked directly to the jungle. When the Americans arrived, there was no sign of the enemy.
American soldiers often tortured the villagers to get information and sometimes burnt their houses and crops. This angered the peasants even more, and made them support the NLF.
Jungle tactics
Out in the jungle, the guerrillas never chose to fight unless they were certain of winning. They often attacked small enemy patrols, usually at night. Early in the war, they used simple daggers and swords. Later, they were able to use better weapons, including explosives captured from the Americans. The American soldiers suffered a terrible ordeal. The jungle they had to patrol was dense and the rice fields wet. The heat was often intense, the climate unfamiliar, and they were attacked by insects and leeches. There was also the threat of Vietcong booby traps, sharpened bamboo staves, mines, grenades, and artillery shells, waiting to be stepped on and set off. The guerrillas realised that the longer the war lasted, the greater were their chances of victory. They knew that the Americans would give in before they did. After all, this was the guerrillas' home.
Ho Chi Minh's trail
For the guerrilla war to succeed, the NLF had to keep their guerrilla armies in the south equipped with fresh troops, supplies and weapons. Many of these supplies and weapons came from communist China and the Soviet Union, and the fresh troops came from North Vietnam. They all arrived in the south along the Ho Chi Minh trail. This was a collection of paths and routeways through the jungle. Vietcong guerrillas travelled down the trail from the north to join the war in the south. The NLF received about 60 tonnes of supplies each day using the trail. They were carried by a variety of different methods, including lorries, oxen and bycicles. Along the trail, there were camps where the guerrillas could rest and receive medical treatment.
When the war began, it took six months to travel down the trail from North Vietnam to Saigon. As the war continued, the trail became wider through increased use. By 1970, the journey was being completed in six weeks. The Ho Chi Minh trail was so vital to keeping the guerrillas supplied that the Americans tried to bomb it, but the jungle was so thick that they found it difficult to see it from their planes. The Americans did try to lay mines and barbed wire across it, to stop the trail being used, but they abandoned this idea in 1967 when the Vietcong attacked the soldiers laying them. Electronic devices dropped to detect enemy movement were unsuccessful.
The Tet Offensive
The Vietcong spent most of their time fighting in the jungle, but at times they came out to attack the Americans directly. The Tet Offensive on the 31st January 1968, was directed at targets throughout Vietnam.
In September 1967, the NLF launched attacks on American garrisons. The Americans were pleased that, at last, the Vietcong had appeared to have left the jungle and that, by the end of 1967, the Vietcong had lost 90,000. General Westmoreland, the commander of the US forces, was sure that with such heavy enemy losses, an American victory was certain. But Westmoreland had been tricked. On 31st January 1968, during the Tet New Year festival, 70,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and Vietcong launched suprise attacks on 36 cities and towns throughout South Vietnam. It was now clear that the attacks on US garrisons the previous September, had been intended to draw American soldiers from the towns they were defending to prepare for the Tet Offensive.
The Americans were shocked by such well-organised attacks and by how easy it was for the NLF to attack so many towns and cities. What surprised them most was the way in which the Vietcong entered the grounds of the US Embassy in Saigon. They didn't capture the building but killed 5 American marines, and took the main radio station. The Americans were also deeply worried that the NLF were able to find 70,000 new soldiers so soon, having lost 90,000 up to the end of 1967.
From a military viewpoint, it could be said that the Tet Offensive was an American victory. The US lost 1536 soldiers with 7764 wounded, but 45,000 NLF soldiers were killed. What was most important, however, was that the American people and politicians now realized that they had been tricked by Westmoreland and his military staff. Westmoreland had deliberately falsified reports to Lyndon B. Johnson, who became president in 1963, following Kennedy's assassination and eventually became unpopular because he escalated US involvement in Vietnam. The USA could not win the Vietnam War. The NLF had vast numbers of soldiers. Coming into South Vietnam down the Ho Chi Minh trail, they would eventually overwhelm the Americans.