Inside the Crosshairs

by Col. Michael Lee Lanning

  Harassing fire became an integral part of the limited fighting abilities of the local forces. Many of the VC worked as farmers or posed as ordinary villagers in the day only to retrieve their weapons and assume the role of guerrilla at night. A frequent mission of the part-time soldiers was to squeeze off a few rounds or a burst of automatic fire against a government compound, firebase, or patrol. The harassing fire was rarely accurate and did little more than remind the Americans, the ARVN, and, more important, the local villagers of the guerrillas’ continued presence.

  Nearly every personal narrative by American Vietnam veterans contains at least one account of “four-o’clock Charlie,” “Luke the Gook,” or some other such nicknamed VC who popped off a few rounds of AK-47 and SKS harassment fire almost on a schedule. Carlton Sherwood of Annapolis, Maryland, related a typical account that appears in the book Inside the VC and NVA by Dan Cragg and this author. Sherwood, an infantryman in G Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, in 1967 and 1968 and later a Pulitzer Prize—winning journalist, recalled, “Then there was ‘Teatime Charlie,’ a VC sniper who’d fire four or five rounds into our positions every day exactly at 1600. He was so regular that we knew to get ready for chow at 1700 whenever he’d open up. He never hit anybody. I’m convinced that was his only mission in the war—pop off four or five rounds our way every day and then he was off duty until the next time.”

  Although the vast majority of enemy activity identified by Americans as sniper was actually harassing fire by ordinary VC/NVA infantrymen, the Communists did train and arm snipers during the war. In fact, NVA snipers began action against the U.S. Marines in the northern part of South Vietnam about the same time that the Americans began to experiment with their own precision shooters.

  As a result of the North Vietnamese defeat of South Vietnam, much information about the organization, training, and employment of VC/NVA units, especially their elites, remains unknown because of the limited amount of data on the subject. Available information comes from documents captured in the field during the conflict and from interviews with prisoners of war and those who voluntarily surrendered. The first detailed report on NVA sniper operations came in the early summer of 1966 when a thirty-five-year-old North Vietnamese lieutenant surrendered to a South Vietnamese village chief fifty miles north of Da Nang. Armed with a Russian-made sniper rifle and telescope, the lieutenant had infiltrated down the Ho Chi Minh Trail with a sniper company in which he commanded a platoon.

  The South Vietnamese interviewed the officer before turning him over to Major Robert Russell, head of the 3rd Marine Division Scout-Sniper School, for further questioning. An article by Gunnery Sergeant Jack Childs in the July 19, 1966, issue of the III Marine Amphibious Force publication Sea Tiger revealed much of what Russell learned from the NVA lieutenant.

  According to the article, the lieutenant, speaking through an interpreter, reported that he and his unit trained in North Vietnam for three months before infiltrating south into the area around Phu Bai. All of his platoon’s enlisted snipers were between nineteen and twenty-two years of age, and their families in North Vietnam received extra allotments of rice and land in exchange for their volunteering. In addition to dry- and live-fire shooting, each sniper received extensive training in camouflage and movement techniques before deploying south.

  Using information from the NVA lieutenant, interviews with other prisoners, and translations of captured documents, the U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) published a classified study on January 6, 1967, “VC/NVA Employment of Snipers.”* The cover letter, signed by the MACV’s assistant chief of staff for intelligence, Brigadier General J. A. McChristian, stated that the study was one in a series designed to describe VC/NVA tactics and tactical doctrine. It also discussed training, unit organization, and tactical employment of snipers.

  “VC/NVA Employment of Snipers” confirmed the three-month training for snipers in North Vietnam. It noted, however, that, although formal sniper training took place only in North Vietnam, there was evidence “that local guerrillas in SVN [were] being instructed by NVA snipers.” Training included live-fire practice at ranges up to 1,000 meters; instruction on camouflage, movement, and position selection; and extensive lessons in weapon and scope maintenance. Each VC/NVA sniper was expected to be able to act as his own armorer in repairing and adjusting his weapon system.

  Intelligence reports from field units revealed that VC/NVA snipers often used booby traps to channel American and South Vietnamese patrols into their kill zones. The MACV study explained that there was no evidence that the training in North Vietnam contained any instruction on mines and explosives, but U.S. intelligence sources believed enemy snipers received such training after arrival in South Vietnam.

  VC/NVA snipers used K44 rifles supplied by the Soviet Union. The weapon was actually a Mosin Nayant Model 1891/30, the model number derived from the original 1891 design and the 1930 modifications. The bolt-action 7.62-mm rifle had a five-round magazine and 3.5 power PU telescopic sight and was capable of reasonable accuracy up to 800 meters. It had served the Soviet army well in World War II, and, redesignated the K44, proved durable in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam.

  The K44 served as the primary sniper weapon of the VC/NVA for the entire war. Although the Soviet Union replaced the system in its own army in the 1950s with the Dragunov SVD 7.62-mm, gas-operated, semiautomatic sniper rifle equipped with a 4X scope, it provided precious few of those to the North Vietnamese, at least before the American withdrawal from Southeast Asia.

  The VC/NVA snipers wore the same uniforms as other infantrymen and carried similar equipment. Vietcong guerrilla marksmen wore a mixture of civilian and military clothing, while Main Force and NVA snipers dressed more uniformly. The best description of the NVA snipers’ apparel appears in John J. Culbertson’s Operation Tuscaloosa, which describes a battle fought at An Hoa in January 1967.†

  Culbertson records an encounter by his H Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, that killed a Communist sniper cell in a bunker: “The enemy soldiers were lying in a contorted pile at the bottom. Arms and legs intertwined in such unnatural postures that it was difficult to determine where one man ended and another began. They all wore green fatigue uniforms, rubber sandals, and green canvas cartridge belts loaded with ammunition and grenades. Green pith helmets with red star emblems on the front lay where they had tumbled off the dead soldiers’ heads. Three weapons lay on the dirt floor of the bunker still within reach of the dead soldiers’ grasps. Lafley pointed at one of the weapons—a long-barreled, wood-stocked, bolt action with a telescopic sight mounted on top of a polished receiver.”

  Organization of VC/NVA sniper units differed greatly from those in the U.S. military. Sniper units trained as companies—about 100 men—each composed of a headquarters element and three platoons. Each platoon had three squads, which, in turn, had three three-man cells and a squad leader. The three-man sniper cell mirrored the organization of all VC/NVA units and evolved from the Communist Chinese army concept that the three-man cell provided the optimum tactical and political organization.

  From the limited evidence available, the NVA 32nd Regiment, which remained in the North, appears to have conducted all sniper training. In 1967, the North Vietnamese sent the 700th Sniper Battalion and C.100 Sniper Company into South Vietnam, where those units remained for the duration of the war.

  There is no documentation of other sniper battalions or companies training in the north and infiltrating to the south, but it is likely that the 700th Battalion and C.100 Company received individual sniper replacements from North Vietnam’s training center. The replacements would have received additional training alongside VC volunteers once they arrived in South Vietnam.

  For security purposes, the VC/NVA frequently changed unit designations, and some used more than one letter and/or numerical designation at the same time. That probably explains why some U.S. intelligence reports refer to different-numbered sniper battalions and companies. An
other security measure taken by the NVA was to conduct on-the-job training of newly arrived snipers in Laos and Cambodia, where the Americans and ARVNs could not pursue.

  Despite their overall organization into companies subordinate to a battalion headquarters, after reaching South Vietnam, the NVA snipers rarely came together in groups larger than a platoon. Each sniper platoon generally had the responsibility of supporting five infantry battalions. This meant that often a squad or only a three-man cell accompanied a battalion on operations. Some prisoner interviews and captured documents refer to sniper squads being so dispersed that they rarely operated any closer than a three-day march to each other.

  Although assigned to support a battalion, NVA sniper squads and cells did not usually accompany the larger unit on maneuvers or during offensives. Mostly the Communist snipers limited their operations to certain areas and employed local VC as guides and security. Their areas of operations were usually on the outer edges of VC/NVA-controlled areas or around their fortified base camps.

  The three-man sniper cells established positions that provided good observations and fields of fire on possible routes of advance. They used natural terrain features such as hills, ravines, and gullies, which would channel approaching enemy into their kill zones, and supplemented their lines of fire with mines and booby traps to further control the targets’ advance and to seal off avenues of retreat. Carefully selecting positions that provided concealment from ground troops and aerial detection, the VC/NVA snipers placed more mines and booby traps in front of their “hide” positions to slow enemy pursuit after engagement. Not unlike U.S. snipers, these marksmen prepared a route of withdrawal, as well as an alternate route, before the cell and its security element took their positions.

  VC/NVA snipers also prepared “hides” in the outer trench-work of base camps. In the event of attack, the snipers’ mission was to slow the enemy assault to provide time for the remainder of the unit to withdraw. The snipers carefully selected and rehearsed their escape plans.

  Target selection for VC/NVA snipers did not differ from that of special marksmen of previous wars. Officers and their communications personnel, easily recognizable by their distinctive radio antennas, were the top priority. In order to avoid singling themselves out, most U.S. officers did not wear rank in the field; even so, the VC/NVA snipers were well aware that leaders stayed close to their radios and radio operators. Machine gunners and other crew-served weapons personnel constituted the secondary targets. The point man (the lead man of a patrol), and the rear security (the last soldier) provided other ideal opportunities for the sniper’s bullet.

  American helicopters were also important targets for Communist snipers. Trained to establish hide positions near clearings and other possible landing zones, VC/NVA snipers frequently fired on command and control helicopters and personnel transports.

  The “shoot and move” tactic against helicopters might have looked tempting in the theoretical school environment but proved to be extremely dangerous in reality. VC/NVA snipers found themselves at risk from American observation and attack gunships as well as from lightly armed transports. Because helicopter unit commanders spared no firepower to “prep” landing zones with general suppressing fires before conducting landings, the snipers were even vulnerable to routine “unaimed” firing sweeps. If seen—or even suspected—the snipers could expect the helicopter crews to level the area with automatic grenade launcher, rocket, and machine gun fire.

  Even though the training they received in North Vietnam emphasized engaging Americans as much as possible, once in the combat zone, the VC/NVA more often engaged the ARVN than the U.S. forces. The reason for this is simple: the Americans reacted faster and more powerfully, throwing artillery, helicopter gunships, and air strikes at any individual target successfully inflicting casualties.

  Despite the 800-meter range of their K44 rifles, VC/NVA snipers initiated fire as close as 50 meters and rarely at ranges in excess of 500 meters. Unlike the American two-man teams, in which only one man carried a sniper weapon, each soldier in the VC/NVA three-man cell was armed with one.

  That three-rifle capability also provided their basic tactic. The senior sniper usually initiated the fire, aiming at and killing his target with his first round. When other members of the targeted group maneuvered—whether to retrieve the body or against the sniper position—the senior shooter and his two cell members took aim at the new targets. Usually the snipers fired just one or two shots each, and rarely more than five rounds, before withdrawing. If the approaching unit detected the snipers’ position, VC/NVA security element covered the withdrawal with automatic weapons fire.

  Frequently the VC/NVA sniper teams did not conclude their missions with a single engagement. Instead they withdrew to predetermined positions from which to fire again on the pursuing enemy force. It is important to note, however, that the VC/NVA sniper teams did not often go looking for targets. Their primary role remained that of defense—and then only to defend areas the VC/NVA considered extremely important. Even in their defensive positions, the VC/NVA could expect American army and Marine ground commanders to fight back with the same enthusiasm and firepower as did their aviation counterparts.

  The VC/NVA found American snipers to be their most lethal foes. The only advantage the VC/NVA snipers had against the American marksmen was that U.S. forces never had adequate numbers of snipers to supply to each army or Marine company, or even each battalion. Otherwise, the VC/NVA shooters were at a disadvantage because of the superior training the Americans received, the enhanced observation they gained with telescopes and spotter scopes, and the tactics under which they operated.

  In its 1967 edition of Professional Knowledge, the Marine Corps outlined countersniper operations for units without attached snipers of their own. Description of immediate action included the following: “When taken under fire by a sniper, personnel often fall to the ground and seek cover. It cannot be overemphasized that the requirement to bring fire to bear on the suspected sniper location is as important as individual protection. Immediate action drills and directing immediate rapid and accurate fire into the general direction of the sniper should be emphasized in training.”

  While it is doubtful that the average VC/NVA sniper was aware of official American doctrine, he most surely experienced the results of it. The minute he pulled the trigger, he could anticipate return fire from rifles, grenade launchers, and machine guns in accordance with American directives. If he held his position and continued his attack, he could expect to be bombarded by American mortars, artillery, and air support.

  At times, too, the VC/NVA had to worry about American firing missions directed at general locations based on the mere chance that the sniper might be hiding there. Because American field commanders had no budget restraints on ammunition expenditures, the VC/NVA sniper could never be sure what type or how much power the Americans would use to try to neutralize him.

  Professional Knowledge also suggested other measures in the event that massive firepower failed. “Large search and destroy operations,” the document admitted, “have little chance of killing or destroying this type of VC guerrilla, but well-planned and executed small unit patrols … have proven effective in coping with snipers.”

  Therefore, provisions of Professional Knowledge recommended saturation of an operational area with squad-size, daylight combat patrols whose mission was twofold: to make contact with the enemy and to become familiar with the terrain. The VC/NVA could be sure that patrol leaders of each mission would report any sign of his activity, data that would ultimately further concentrate patrolling, blocking positions, and observation posts. Night operations were also part of the effort to locate and destroy the snipers.

  According to Professional Knowledge, the American tactics proved successful and “produced several significant contacts resulting in confirmed VC kills and capture of VC weapons, including one with a high-power scope.” The report concluded, “To achieve maximum effectiveness, patrol me
mbers must be thoroughly familiar with the terrain and all details of the patrol plan must be known and understood by the observation posts/blocking positions and the combat patrol. Patience, alertness, and fire discipline on the part of each marine are requisites.”

  To defend themselves from the Americans’ sophisticated weaponry, nearly unlimited firepower, and aggressive patrols, the VC/NVA snipers further adapted their guerrilla tactics. However, not all of their defensive measures were successful, as is illustrated by the following story.

  In early 1967, Vietcong snipers were slowing a 3rd Marine Division offensive and inflicting casualties by popping out of spider holes, firing, and then disappearing back into the ground before the Marines could spot them. The commander of the 4th Marine Regiment dispatched a group from his scout-sniper platoon to neutralize the Communist shooters.

  Staff Sergeant Jerry Sides, a former sniper instructor, led the eight-man team composed of three shooters, three observers, a corpsman, and a radio operator. An article in the February 1 edition of Sea Tiger describes the results: “The Marine countersnipers moved into position before daylight. After lying in wait for three and a half hours in the bone-chilling rain, Sides spotted two VC snipers through his field glasses. A silent signal was given and two of his men slipped to his side. Their weapons were snuggled into their shoulders, the crosshairs lined up, two sharp reports, and two VC snipers move no more.

  “Then came three more hours of lying in the deep mud, not moving a muscle or making a sound—just waiting patiently to do the job. Patience finally paid off when another VC was spotted and downed at 1,100 yards.”

  The VC/NVA used the same tactics against the U.S. Army. In the May–June 1967 issue of Infantry magazine, Captain Patrick H. Graves, a former platoon leader in the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, recorded his observations of the VC/NVA marksmen. Graves’s experiences were typical of the war’s small unit leaders and provide an excellent insight into the army’s stance on enemy snipers.