Word: mortar
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Last year, for example, over one-fifth of the 2,000 soldiers and 1,800 sailors in the flotilla were killed or wounded as their craft, weaving through the narrow canals, were targets for snipers and mortar and rocket attacks. Navy personnel, who regularly man the Delta craft, stand a 70% chance of being wounded during a year's service with the Riverine Force. The Aid Boats, bristling with machine guns, grenade launchers and a cannon, are able to go to the rescue. Wounded are picked up and shuttled away from enemy fire, then quickly evacuated on "dust...
...tactical reconnaissance squadrons. Like the other Thai bases, it was considered a safe haven; as one U.S. serviceman put it not long ago: "It's a big thing when you don't have to go to bed wondering if somebody's going to lob a mortar shell...
...mostly on the fringe of the big battlefields: quick, sharp clashes in the jungle along infiltration routes used by the Communists. Occasionally, one of their isolated redoubts is overrun (A Shau two years ago, Lang Vei this year) by an all-out attack. More oftenone is hit by rapid mortar and small-arms harassment probes, which are usually repulsed by the garrison. The camps are generally supplied by air, which provides the only link with the outside world...
...readily committed. There is considerable incentive for "Mike force" troopers. A private gets more monthly pay than a regular Vietnamese master sergeant ($58 v. $48). There is also the promise of booty money for captured Communist weapons: an AK-47 assault rifle brings $25, a 120-mm. mortar $200, a tank...
They broke the pattern only once, seemingly unable to resist a Fourth of July attack somewhere on U.S. troops. Early on the Fourth, they opened up with a 500-round mortar and rocket barrage on Dau Tieng, a U.S. fire base 38 miles northwest of Saigon. They followed up the barrage with a ground assault, but were repelled by a quickly assembled crew of U.S. infantrymen, cooks, clerks and drivers. For their part, allied forces probed the countryside around the capital in sweeps and ambushes, but turned up mostly arms and ammunition. They have found several important caches...