The Battle Of Khe Sanh In Vietnam

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The Battle of Khe Sanh The Battle of Khe Sanh, sometimes known as the longest and bloodiest battle in the Vietnam War, started on April 24, 1968. It was a large base, located on the northern border of South Vietnam. The main objective of this battle, however, was not directly over the base itself. The main reason the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) wanted to win the battle was to gain control of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a path that could be used to transport troops or supplies, as it ran all the way up into Laos, in North Vietnam; which was exactly the reason that the South Vietnamese and US did not want them to have it. The NVA general had a plan, however. He sent 20,000 soldiers to guard all the way around the perimeter of the Khe Sanh base.…show more content…
One of the longer battles was the battle of Hill 881N, Which was also the last Hill Battle. It was located to the north of Khe Sanh base and also slightly north of its compatriot, Hill 881S. For weeks the battle raged on, with the Marines attempting to surge up the hill, and then being repelled by the sturdy NVA defenses. However, at last, the US called in for airstrikes and used artillery cannons to bomb the Hill, essentially destroying the NVA Forces where they stood. At the same time, they rushed forward up the hill while the North Vietnamese were trapped by mortars, shells, and bombs, and gunned down most of the others who retreated down the other side of the hill, although some escaped into the jungle, where, with their green uniforms, they would be virtually impossible to find before they could get to an NVA camp. Another attack was Operation Niagara, Which was a very destructive attack. What happened in Operation Niagara was that the Air Force, using B-52 bombers, dropped over 90,000 tons of munitions on the NVA camps near the Khe Sanh Base, where the North Vietnam soldiers, as you well know by now, where camped all around the…show more content…
The weaponry, not as much. The standard US marine had khaki camo pants, shirt and hat, the helmet was either a sun hat, or a hard metal “pot” for heavier warfare. The average weapon of a US soldier was an M-16, If they carried a rocket/grenade launcher, it would most likely be an M-79 or and RPG, and among other artillery cannons, one that they definitely used was the Howitzer, a German-made cannon. The standard NVA soldier, on the other hand, wore a slightly paled green uniform, with a dark-green stained metal helmet, or a pale green hat. They carried an AK-47, a very effective fully automatic assault rifle, first invented by the Russians, but the particular model they used was modified slightly by the Chinese. If they carried a grenade launcher, it would be the RPG-7, or Rocket Propelled Grenade, a superior weapon to its ancestor, the regular RPG. One of the artillery cannons they used was the M-107. Both sides, however, when fortifying camps and bases, used items such as land mines, barbed wire, electric wire, German razor tape, and trip flares. We also know they used other traps as well, as here 2Lt Jeff Bodenweiser gives us an account of a smart idea by his camp. “It was the middle of the night, and we started hearing tin cans; We had these C-Ration cans hanging on the barbed wire, and when those cans went, we knew that there was something out there” (R.J. Drez & D. Brinkley). They were all trained to
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