Vietnam War: Forest Fire as a Military Weapon - Paperless Archives

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FOREST FIRE AS A MILITARY WEAPON
The battle was fought
in the forest of E'phraim;
and the forest devoured
more people that day
than the sword.
II Samuel 18: 6,8
Forests were a haven and refuge for bandits, insurgents, and rebel bands long before Absalom took up arms against
King David in the forest of E'phrain. Leaders as diverse as Robin Hood., Marshall Tito, Chief Croatan of the Seminoles.
and Fidel Castro. learned to conduct successful military operations from forest havens. The Vietnamese insurgency has
placed heavy reliance on forest bases since the first stirrings of rebellion during the Japanese occupation. The Viet Cong
is not really Chairman Mao's -fish who swims in the sea of peasants'. he more closely resembles a jungle cat who lives
hidden in the forest but preys on the surrounding villages. Large forest havens along the border, such as Dong Thapmutdi.
U Minh and War Zone C. serve as training and supply bases for the VC and North Vietnamese Main Force, as well as secure
infiltration and escape routes (Fig. I). Forests in the interior such as War Zone D, Do Xa. and Chu Pong contain major
supply depots and operational base complexes. Innumerable small forest, like Boi Loi Forest, the Iton Traingle, and Ho
Bo Woods, all lying between Tay Ninh City and Saigon, are used as temporary staging areas.-
Although considerations cf communications, food supply, strategic location and availability of support all enter into
the selection of a particular area as an insurgent base or safe haven, the major requirement is dictated by the need for concealment
from above. Dense forest growth offers the best possible overhead concealment for base operations of company
size or larger.
A recent study of VC bases showed that 83 percent were located in dense forest and only I percent were further
than one-half kilometer from dense forest (Cambodian R and R areas excluded). It An Australian study of changes inVC
installations over a 9-year period showed that when selecting a new base site, the VC chose areas in which vegetative cover
offered the most effective concealment at that time. 3/
One additional characteristic of a forest haven is so obvious that it has gone unmentioned in most studies of the
problem. The forested area must be large enough that it cannot be surrounded'nor effectively swept by conventional
forces. Consequently, any successful counterinsurgency effort against such bases must depend on extremely accurate.
j/ Breit, J. M. and others. Neutralization of Viet Cong Safe Havens. Research Analysis Corp. Technical Paper RAC-
TP-191. September 1965, 74 pp., illus. SECRET.
_1 Narten, P. F. and E. E. Kraus. Area analysis techniques in insurgent base location. CIRADS III Proc. Vol. 2, pp. 1-59.
December 1968. CONFIDENTIAL
3J Holt, E. S. Prediction of the location of insurgent installations. CIRADS III Proc. Vol. 2, pp. 59-76. December 1968.
CONFIDENTIAL
SECRET