Free Losing Vietnam by Ira A. Hunt Jr. Page B

initiatives throughout the war. In 1975 it initiated more contacts than the enemy. This had been true for MR-1, -2, and -3 since the summer of 1974. No longer was it sitting in its bases; it was effectively taking the battle to the enemy.
    When considering communist casualties, it is important to note that the number of enemy killed by air when ground forces were not in contact are not included in these statistics. Air force attacks on enemy troop movements, bivouac areas, supply points, and lines of communications were carried out throughout the post-cease-fire period. Enemy casualties resulting from the massive amounts of unobserved harassment and interdiction artillery fires also were not included. The numbers of enemy killed by these two actions, particularly by air, were substantial.
Attacks by Fire
    The JGS, concerned in April 1974 that enemy attacks by fire caused 27 percent of casualties, alerted the field commanders in April and again in October 1974. Subsequently, USSAG carefully monitored the problem. One measure of the enemy’s ABF effectiveness was the number of friendly soldiers killed per attack by fire: 0.12 fatalities, an average of one killed in every eight attacks. This takes into account multiple fatalities. However, there were more than six wounded per those killed.Without our operations analysis, there was no way the field commanders could have realized the overall effects of enemy attacks by fire on the troops. By directing unit commanders to focus on this problem, the JGS was able to cut the enemy’s effectiveness between 28 January 1973 and 20 April 1975 from 1.62 casualties per ABF to 0.73 casualties per attack by fire, even though the intensity of the attacks (rounds per attack) continued to increase throughout the periods. Countrywide summary statistics concerning friendly casualties from enemy attacks by fire are given in table 7 .
    Table 7. Casualties from Attacks by Fire

    Source
: Analysis, “Summary of Ceasefire Statistics,” June 1975, Headquarters USSAG, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand.
    There were 6.6 wounded by hostile action (WHA) per 1 killed by hostile action (KHA) resulting from attacks by fire, twice the 3.2 ratio resulting from all ground attacks. Thus, the importance of taking defensive measures against attacks by fire to protect the troops is evident. If the ratio of casualties to attacks by fire in the first period (1.62) had continued throughout the subsequent four periods, there would have been 23,211 more friendly casualties. ARVN protective measures created a huge savings in manpower and costs, to say nothing of morale.
    There were several major attacks in early August 1974, particularly at Plei Me in MR-2, where the 320th NVA Division expended more than ten thousand artillery and mortar rounds attempting to defeat the 82nd ARVN Ranger Battalion. 42 Even though the intensity (rounds/ABF) increased somewhat in later periods, the friendly losses per attack were reduced by half from the earlier periods. Nevertheless, the casualties were much too high and reflected poorly on small unit leadership across the board. As an example, in period 3 there were 11,725 ARVNcasualties resulting from enemy-initiated contacts and 6,558 casualties from attacks by fire.
    Of all friendly casualties caused by enemy-initiated actions in period 3, 36 percent were the result of attacks by fire. When the 1,818 KHAs and 5,637 WHAs resulting from the 2,387 friendly-initiated attacks are added to the totals above, 25.5 percent of all casualties resulted from attacks by fire. We sliced the combat data in many, many ways, and generally the lessons learned were very valuable and often when implemented saved lives. The aforementioned examples are but a few.
Terrorism
    The fourth major type of enemy-initiated incidents after attacks by fire, contacts, and harassments was terrorism, an important weapon of the communist insurgency, one continually practiced by the Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI). Terror