Word: combative
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Outgunned in open combat, the Viet Cong reverted to type, mortaring a number of isolated outposts and headquarters. For the second time in three weeks, guerrillas hit the Long Binh ammunition dump 13 miles north of Saigon. Under cover of mortar fire, Viet Cong penetrated the depot's perimeter, detonated a satchel charge against one ammunition pad, setting it afire. What makes Long Binh easy to attack-and difficult to damage seriously-is that each revetted pad is separated widely from all the others to prevent a chain reaction of explosions if one goes up. Red terrorists also...
...high-domed, husky (6 ft. 31 in.) Floridian with a deceptive, country-cousin air, Lawyer Boyd comes to the job with impressive professional credentials. A combat pilot with more than 3,000 hours of flying time (World War II and Korea), Boyd served successively on state commissions to improve Florida's aviation, highway and railroad systems. A self-styled "Eisenhower Democrat," he was summoned to Washington by Ike in 1959 to serve on the CAB. After President Kennedy appointed him CAB chairman in 1961, Boyd showed his scrappy independence by voting to deny Boston-based Northeast Airlines' application...
...kill at Tay Ninh demonstrated, the arsenal of American weapons in Viet Nam is the deadliest ever developed for man-to-man combat. The U.S. infantryman in Viet Nam today shoulders six times the firepower of his Korean War counterpart; behind him stand rank upon rank of mobile mortars and howitzers that can be called in by air as quickly as he needs them. Overhead hover helicopters bristling with machine guns, rockets and automatic grenade launchers; above the "gunships" circle jet fighter-bombers armed with searing napalm, white phosphorous and bomblets that can unleash deadly patterns of tiny steel pellets...
Bloody Mush. Basic element in this lethal complex is what the Viet Cong call "the little black rifle"-the light, fast-firing, plastic-stocked M-16 automatic rifle carried by most of the combat troops in South Viet Nam. At 7.6 lbs., the M-16 is scarcely the size of a farm boy's "varmint" rifle; yet it can spray short bursts at the rate of 750 rounds per minute, though reloading time cuts the effective rate to a far lower figure. Its muzzle velocity is so great that within 100 yds.-the range of most Viet Nam fire...
...does have drawbacks. Its lightweight, plastic butt is liable to shatter in hand-to-hand combat, where the infantryman often clobbers his enemy with the stock. Moreover, its high sight -necessitated by the carrying handle that serves as the rear sighting plane-means that a dug-in rifleman must expose his head and chest to aim carefully. But the rapid rate of fire more than compensates: in Korea with the slow-firing Garand, less than one-quarter of the troops fired their weapons in battle; in Viet Nam with the M16, everyone fires copiously. Many riflemen lug 600 rounds into...