Word: mortar
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...North. Yet, ironically, what combat there was reflected an escalation of sorts -by the Viet Cong. In one early-morning raid, the Communists sent 14 Russian-made 140-mm. rockets slamming into the U.S. airbase at Danang, damaging two planes and injuring 16 troops. Northwest of Saigon, Viet Cong mortars and recoilless rifles opened up on the 25th Infantry Division base at Cu Chi, wounding another seven Americans. Elsewhere around the country, enemy mortar shells and rockets were whistling through the air. Quietly but unmistakably, the quality, quantity and firepower of Viet Cong weapons have risen in recent months until...
...early years of the war, the Viet Cong relied on whatever they could get-ancient weapons left over from other Asian wars, captured American or South Vietnamese arms, even crude homemade zip guns. Rifles were fashioned out of old bicycle parts; a water pipe frequently became a mortar. Then Soviet and Red Chinese arms began trickling down the Ho Chi Minh trail, and the gradual buildup began. Lately, the buildup has intensified, bringing the Viet Cong an abundance of modern weapons and ammunition. "There is no longer anything ragtag, bobtail or worn out about their main-force weapons," says Major...
Thanks mainly to Red China, which supplies 80% of their weapons, the Viet Cong are now equipped with flamethrowers, rifle grenades, 12.7-mm. antiaircraft machine guns and 120-mm. mortars, in addition to the Russian rockets. The Viet Cong have nothing approaching big U.S. artillery. But they know that no American commander has enough troops to man a defense perimeter extending out to the range of a rocket (five miles) or even of a mortar (3.5 miles). Furthermore, a flak vest-the only real protection against mortar fragments, short of a deep trench-is an intolerable burden for U.S. troops...
...threat, the U.S. artillery moved its 175-mm. "Long Toms" up to Gio Linh, two miles south of the DMZ, and began firing their 147-pounders at Red stockpiles and antiaircraft batteries as far as 20 miles away. Firing back, the Communists peppered the Long Tom positions with 655 mortar rounds in four attacks. They caused only light damage...
...construction compared with one. A fleet of 472 supply ships plies the route to South Viet Nam, and an average of 30 cargo planes arrives daily. By late 1966, according to Mc-Namara, the U.S. and its allies achieved a stupendous rate of fire: 1,700,000 artillery and mortar rounds and 100 million small-arms bullets per month...