Vietnam Serving as “Laboratory for War”

May 2, 1965 - Defense officials do not like the terminology, but they readily concede that Vietnam has given the U.S. armed forces a “laboratory for war.”

Tactical theories are being tried, men trained, and weapons tested. Each military service is involved.

Officials hesitate to discuss Vietnam as a military proving ground because they fear it might be taken out of context — the Spanish Civil War 30 years ago was regarded by military experts as the Nazis’ laboratory for World War II.

Nevertheless, military and civilian teams among American military advisers and combat men in South Vietnam file extensive “after-action reports.” These reports, studied in Saigon, are sent back to the Pentagon, to the various military headquarters and development units, and to military schools and training commands.

“Shortly after the Kennedy Administration took office,” one officer recalled, “there was a terrific concentration throughout the armed forces on study of guerrilla warfare tactics. We were told to read the works of Mao Tse-Tung and Che Guevara, to look up the records of our own Indian wars and to study reams of material on the wars in French Indochina and Malaya.”

But the officer said that combat had modified many of the conclusions drawn from the Chinese and Cuban tracts on revolution and guerrilla warfare and from the accounts of earlier unsuccessful and successful counter-insurgency work. 

“Once again, we have found that experience is the best teacher,” he said. 

Many weapons, designed for World War II or Korea, have been modified on the basis of experience, and many are “gimmicks.”Among the gimmicks is the “Lazy Dog.” This is a drum of steel pellets dropped from a plane that explodes at 6,000 feet. The pellets have a buckshot effect against men and equipment when they reach the ground.

A similar but more powerful weapon is the CBU, for Cluster Bomblet Unit. Small fragmentation bombs are released from a drum against guerrilla units in the jungle. 

For the most part, however, ordinary equipment has been modified for use in Vietnam. One of the most important examples is the arming of helicopters with machine guns and rockets and the similar arming of the T-28 jet trainer.

Other unusual military measures include the spreading of defoliant and the occasional use of tear gas and nausea gas.

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