May I ask the forum's Vietnam experts a question? Why don't I see any stowage in the pictures of PAVN tanks? Where did they keep their clothes and bedrolls and stuff?
I did a 1/35 ARVN M41 with ammo boxes and stuff all over it, and a PAVN T-55 which looks kind of bare. But of course there are no PAVN stowage sets available.
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N Viet/VC Stowage
jphillips
Joined: February 25, 2007
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Posted: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 - 07:05 AM UTC
210cav
Joined: February 05, 2002
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Posted: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 - 07:09 AM UTC
Quoted Text
May I ask the forum's Vietnam experts a question? Why don't I see any stowage in the pictures of PAVN tanks? Where did they keep their clothes and bedrolls and stuff?
I did a 1/35 ARVN M41 with ammo boxes and stuff all over it, and a PAVN T-55 which looks kind of bare. But of course there are no PAVN stowage sets available.
My guess would be that those clowns (PAVN) didn't have anything worth storing on the outside of the vehicle.
jphillips
Joined: February 25, 2007
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Posted: Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 03:08 PM UTC
lol
jphillips
Joined: February 25, 2007
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Posted: Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 03:13 PM UTC
Come to think of it, none of the "bad guys" seem to have much in the way of stowage. North Viet, North Koreans, Baathist Iraqis, Soviets, Warsaw Pact. They must keep their dirty laundry somewhere, and their bedrolls. It's a puzzle.
dobon68
Joined: June 19, 2007
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Posted: Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 11:13 PM UTC
They probably didn't have anything to store if they were anything like the normal NVA soldier who made his way south down the Ho Chi Minh trail carrying everything he had on his back. An individual supply of rice and a hammock don't take up too much space.
Unlike the Americans and their allies who needed to take all their 'can't live without luxuries' with them everywhere!
David
Unlike the Americans and their allies who needed to take all their 'can't live without luxuries' with them everywhere!
David
210cav
Joined: February 05, 2002
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Posted: Friday, June 06, 2008 - 12:46 AM UTC
Quoted Text
They probably didn't have anything to store if they were anything like the normal NVA soldier who made his way south down the Ho Chi Minh trail carrying everything he had on his back. An individual supply of rice and a hammock don't take up too much space.
Unlike the Americans and their allies who needed to take all their 'can't live without luxuries' with them everywhere!
David
That's why we beat their butts!
trickymissfit
Joined: October 03, 2007
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Posted: Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 07:19 PM UTC
Quoted Text
They probably didn't have anything to store if they were anything like the normal NVA soldier who made his way south down the Ho Chi Minh trail carrying everything he had on his back. An individual supply of rice and a hammock don't take up too much space.
Unlike the Americans and their allies who needed to take all their 'can't live without luxuries' with them everywhere!
David
It's most obvious that you've never spent a minute in combat. The reason the NVA did have much was because they logistics were about four hundred yards away. They didn't wear socks, and usually only had the clothes they wore. He also knew that if he was caught in the open he was history. Arms wise they carried anywhere from one magazine to eight or ten with a resupply close by. Where as a typical load out for an American was 21 mags and a handfull of grenades. Several guys carried spare batteries for the radios (NVA used a lot f land lines), and a couple more also carried spare machine gun barrels. Everybody carried a minum of one 300 round belt of 7.62, and if you knew you were going to have fun you would carry as many as three belts. Crew served weapons guys all had 45's, and many others carried somekind of pistol or revolver too. The rest of the stuff they carried were extra socks & shoe laces. Everybody carried basic medical stuff like a moriphine syringe. Luxeries? Maybe a paper back book and something to write a letter with. Rations for at least four days was the norm, and maybe an extra tee shirt and a towel and soap. Gun cleaning kits were often shared as well as somebody also had an extra firing pin & springs in his buttstock. Add the above with water, and you looking at close to a hundred pounds. When the shooting starts ruck sacks are shed with nothing but a small fanny sack at the most.
gary
210cav
Joined: February 05, 2002
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Posted: Friday, June 13, 2008 - 12:26 AM UTC
Quoted Text
Quoted TextThey probably didn't have anything to store if they were anything like the normal NVA soldier who made his way south down the Ho Chi Minh trail carrying everything he had on his back. An individual supply of rice and a hammock don't take up too much space.
Unlike the Americans and their allies who needed to take all their 'can't live without luxuries' with them everywhere!
David
It's most obvious that you've never spent a minute in combat. The reason the NVA did have much was because they logistics were about four hundred yards away. They didn't wear socks, and usually only had the clothes they wore. He also knew that if he was caught in the open he was history. Arms wise they carried anywhere from one magazine to eight or ten with a resupply close by. Where as a typical load out for an American was 21 mags and a handfull of grenades. Several guys carried spare batteries for the radios (NVA used a lot f land lines), and a couple more also carried spare machine gun barrels. Everybody carried a minum of one 300 round belt of 7.62, and if you knew you were going to have fun you would carry as many as three belts. Crew served weapons guys all had 45's, and many others carried somekind of pistol or revolver too. The rest of the stuff they carried were extra socks & shoe laces. Everybody carried basic medical stuff like a moriphine syringe. Luxeries? Maybe a paper back book and something to write a letter with. Rations for at least four days was the norm, and maybe an extra tee shirt and a towel and soap. Gun cleaning kits were often shared as well as somebody also had an extra firing pin & springs in his buttstock. Add the above with water, and you looking at close to a hundred pounds. When the shooting starts ruck sacks are shed with nothing but a small fanny sack at the most.
gary
Gary-- Right On!
DJ
jphillips
Joined: February 25, 2007
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Posted: Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 01:27 PM UTC
Okay-thanks for your help, guys. I will build my PT-76 sans stowage.
ericadeane
Joined: October 28, 2002
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Posted: Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 07:23 PM UTC
My father in law was a doctor in country. Visiting a few years ago, he got hold of the published memoirs of one of his counterparts -- a N Vietnamese doctor. The account is amazing. Items I still remember:
1) two jungle field hospitals about a mile apart shared a single pane of broken windshield for their pharmacies -- in order to cut and dispense drugs.
2) US rangers were nearby and everyone (doctors and nurses) grabbed their AKs
3) tons of accidents from trees falling on people (the jungle is very dense)
4) staff constantly giving serum and blood donations
5) hospitals needed to grow their own food -- had to pick rice grains one at a time
6) the doctor was gone for about six years straight -- upon arriving home, his only child had died in an accident.
7) they shot an elephant for food. Thinking it was better to eat the less desirable innards first and it would be better to save the main meat, they hauled the guts away. But the rest of the corpse rotted too quickly.
1) two jungle field hospitals about a mile apart shared a single pane of broken windshield for their pharmacies -- in order to cut and dispense drugs.
2) US rangers were nearby and everyone (doctors and nurses) grabbed their AKs
3) tons of accidents from trees falling on people (the jungle is very dense)
4) staff constantly giving serum and blood donations
5) hospitals needed to grow their own food -- had to pick rice grains one at a time
6) the doctor was gone for about six years straight -- upon arriving home, his only child had died in an accident.
7) they shot an elephant for food. Thinking it was better to eat the less desirable innards first and it would be better to save the main meat, they hauled the guts away. But the rest of the corpse rotted too quickly.
JeepLC
Joined: June 20, 2007
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Posted: Saturday, August 02, 2008 - 07:34 PM UTC
My uncle was a LRRP in Vietnam for a while. He said he prefered traveling light like the VC and NVA when he was on mission. Evidently his special forces guys learned alot from their Vietnamese team members and carried only rice and beans when they went out into the bush. He said his first tour in regular infantry sucked becuz they humped everything everywhere and his second as a LRRP was far better.
-Mike
-Mike
210cav
Joined: February 05, 2002
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Posted: Sunday, August 03, 2008 - 01:11 AM UTC
Yeah, well we carried a ruck with three to four days of C rations (that's a case of cans). No MREs in those days. We changed our clothes during a re supply which happened every four days in good weather. We also carried a claymoore each, spare ammo, a block of C-4 and some of us a spare battery for the radio. Sleeping gear which I will get to in a minute. Water was the biggest weight. I served with th 1st Cavalry in War Zone C and the 101st in the Ashau Valley area. Neither unit carried pistol belts, we carried everything on our backs so you could ditch the ruck if needed. Back to the water, on the ruck you carried two one quart canteens, a two quart canteen and a bladder type (I can't remember what it held) on the top on the pack. On the bottom of the ruck, you carried an empty 7.62 ammo can filled with paper, pens, matches and cigarettes (we all smoked). The can (called a personnel can) kept everything dry. You wore a helmet and around your neck you had a towel. You moved in yout T-Shirt during the day and put your shirt on at night. You slept in a very comfortable shirt in a hammock using the poncho liner blanket. I thought we moved very well and rather swiftly. Now, the bad guys carried rucks, spent time traveling along the water since their water storage capacity was limited and usually wore pith helmets colored green. Carried their ammo in AK vest across their chest. Their uniforms were shorts and shirts often they had boonie caps. They moved fast, but if you found a swift running stream, you would find them. Winner took all.
My two cents
DJ
Now, the bad guys carried rucks, spent time traveling along the water since their water storage capacity was limited and usually wore pith helmets colored green. Carried their ammo in AK vest across their chest. Their uniforms were shorts and shirts often they had boonie caps. They moved fast, but if you found a swift running stream, you would find them. Winner took all.My two cents
DJ
acav
Joined: May 09, 2002
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Posted: Sunday, August 03, 2008 - 01:33 PM UTC
Quoted Text
Quoted Text...snip...
Unlike the Americans and their allies who needed to take all their 'can't live without luxuries' with them everywhere!
David
It's most obvious that you've never spent a minute in combat.
Patronising much?
It's obvious you've never spent an afternoon at civility school.
And your other comment..?
Quoted Text
That's why we beat their butts!
Funny, last time I looked - and I think it was about the time the last choppers left Saigon and the NVA sent tanks up to the Presidential Palace - the US lost that one.
Okay, according to the current historical revisionism, it was the journalists that lost it.
No, it was the politicians.
No, it was the hippies, the commies back home, the pinkos, them libruls and pantywaisted eastern intellectuals that lost it.
What is this?
No, the US didn't 'lose' the Vietnam Conflict - you came second! That's better then.
And to the original poster, a lot depends on what time frame you're refering to and in which areas the operations were taking place.
You're refering to stowage on vehicles, in particular armour, so it's fair to guess you're looking at the end of the war as the Reunification Liberation forces of People's Army drove south to unify Vietnam and end the war in glorious victory, forward for the revolution and Comrade Ho, etcetc...
In terms of previous years' fighting, first against the French colonial powers and later the US backed puppet government and their running dog allies, the drive south in 1975 was a largely conventional armoured thrust.
Pictures from the time (pg 52/52, 'The Vietnam Experience - The Fall Of The South', Boston Publishing, 1985) show well equipped and well laden NVA troops operating with supporting armour, which suggests that the NVA adapted well to a war of movement despite the difficulties of developing and employing the necessary adminstrative tail to support such an advance and to keep a mechanised army running efficiently.
In the picture on that page, the NVA troops all carry rucksacks, waterbottles, e-tools and several other items - while this may not add up to the 'hundred pounds' often carried by the GI, it's certainly a damn sight more than half a dozen magazines, a grenade and a baggie full of rice and dried fish heads.
As to armour in particular, from what I've seen on photos (including several in the very excellent series mentioned previously), most crew seemed to have lived very simply - at the most, I've noted a crew's worth of NVA rucks attached to the turrets of T54s and that's about it; my feeling is that the NVA took advantage of the many logistical opportunities the advance offered, and also that the individual soldiers could survive very frugally with a minimum of possessions (a cultural detail) as well as live off the land to a degree. They certainly had no need of ice coolers full of beer, cassette radios, fancy cots, and whatever else kitchen sink waste of space that other armies seem to 'need' in order to prosecute a war.
There is a tendency in the West - and it seems the USA in particular - to continue to regard the victorious army of North Vietnam as being composed of a ragtag collection of goofballs equipped with hand-me-downs; such attitudes are quaint, somewhat patronising and certainly disingenuous - while this may have been true of the NLF earlier in the war, it was certainly not the case with the NVA of the mid Seventies.
This army went on to defeat the Chinese aggressor in the 1979 'Third IndoChina War', liberated Cambodia from the scourge of the Khmer Rouge (an action for which the state of Vietnam has receioved scant international recognition) and has acted as a peacekeeper in the region, recently assisting the government of Laos in quelling unrest in that country.
HTH
$0.02
Steve1479
Joined: December 09, 2007
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Posted: Sunday, August 03, 2008 - 02:01 PM UTC
-snipp "No, the US didn't 'lose' the Vietnam Conflict - you came second! That's better then"
You know second is just a nice way of saying the first loser right?
just remember, in the words of Bertrand Russell "War does not determine who is right - only who is left"
You know second is just a nice way of saying the first loser right?
just remember, in the words of Bertrand Russell "War does not determine who is right - only who is left"Steve1479
Joined: December 09, 2007
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Posted: Sunday, August 03, 2008 - 02:08 PM UTC
Anyways, I will also respond to the question at hand. Personally I have to agree with what has been said already. The NVA and VC had very little in terms of personal equipment compared to the U.S forces or the Austrailians. Same with the Russians. Look at Russian army field equipment from 1965 compared to US army field equipment of the same time. Hugeee difference in gear. The Russians, along with the NVA / VC, were very simplistic, only carrying what they needed to get a certain job done at a certain time. Also put into consideration the economy. Eastern European economy as well as the economy in Vietnam wasn't as great as that of the US and other western countries. Therefor, they could only produce certain items. Easiest way to compare this is through firearms, Russian AK and American M16. AK is very simple, made of wood and steel, very very easy to assemble and even cheaper to build. The M16 on the other hand, made of steel and ABS plastic, that material at the time was expensive, so to build weapons made of this sort of material, you'd have to have a fairly good economy. That's just my two cents, feel free to criticize me.
210cav
Joined: February 05, 2002
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Posted: Monday, August 04, 2008 - 12:36 AM UTC
Amazing, how many two cent inputs on this topic!
DJ
PS-- we kicked their butts!
DJ
PS-- we kicked their butts!
acav
Joined: May 09, 2002
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Posted: Monday, August 04, 2008 - 07:42 AM UTC
Quoted Text
Amazing, how many two cent inputs on this topic!
DJ
PS-- we kicked their butts!
No, you killed a lot of people, civilians and soldiers alike (this last includes your own allies and even your own troops), but you still lost.
And that's just gone up to a buck...
210cav
Joined: February 05, 2002
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Posted: Monday, August 04, 2008 - 07:46 AM UTC
Quoted Text
Quoted TextAmazing, how many two cent inputs on this topic!
DJ
PS-- we kicked their butts!
No, you killed a lot of people, civilians and soldiers alike (this last includes your own allies and even your own troops), but you still lost.
And that's just gone up to a buck...
Well, dear Sir, if this was a political forum, we could discuss the merits of each others' arguments. It is not, therefore, I once again return to the subject of model building. You are certainly entitled to express your opinion regardless of how incorrect I believe it to be. But, we are scale modelers not politicians here.
Ciao
dobon68
Joined: June 19, 2007
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Posted: Monday, August 04, 2008 - 09:51 AM UTC
acav,
Thanks for the reply, you made what I felt was a well founded statement of facts, much better that I managed in my original post. I never replied after that because I could see that no amount of reasoned argument would change other contributors views. Possibly this kind of view would explain why America as a whole refused to learn the lessons that France paid so dearly for and went on to repeat so many of them?
just my 1p worth
Thanks for the reply, you made what I felt was a well founded statement of facts, much better that I managed in my original post. I never replied after that because I could see that no amount of reasoned argument would change other contributors views. Possibly this kind of view would explain why America as a whole refused to learn the lessons that France paid so dearly for and went on to repeat so many of them?
just my 1p worth
jphillips
Joined: February 25, 2007
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Posted: Monday, August 04, 2008 - 10:10 AM UTC
Acav, you're right, I intend to model a vehicle that took part in the final drive to Saigon in 1975, the "Ho Chi Minh Campaign", as it was called. The reason for this choice is, although PT-76s were deployed prior to this, from the photos I've seen, they seem to have had their markings painted out. I don't want to build an unmarked vehicle. I paid eight dollars for a decal sheet and another eight for flags, and I intend to get my money's worth!
Anyway, I really need to pick up a copy of that book, "Fall of the South." It sounds like a great resource.
Anyway, I really need to pick up a copy of that book, "Fall of the South." It sounds like a great resource.
210cav
Joined: February 05, 2002
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Posted: Monday, August 04, 2008 - 12:06 PM UTC
Quoted Text
Don't sweat it DJ, guess the boy has little country syndrome.
Gary--Oh be still my foolish tongue!
DJ
Hollowpoint
Joined: January 24, 2002
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Posted: Monday, August 04, 2008 - 03:43 PM UTC
The U.S. military did not lose the Vietnam War. The politicians did. If acav disagrees, he needs to get better references. I was going to say more, but acav isn't going to change his mind.
No stowage on a NVA PT-76 ... yup.
No stowage on a NVA PT-76 ... yup.
trickymissfit
Joined: October 03, 2007
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KitMaker: 1,388 posts
Armorama: 1,357 posts
Posted: Monday, August 04, 2008 - 04:08 PM UTC
Quoted Text
My uncle was a LRRP in Vietnam for a while. He said he prefered traveling light like the VC and NVA when he was on mission. Evidently his special forces guys learned alot from their Vietnamese team members and carried only rice and beans when they went out into the bush. He said his first tour in regular infantry sucked becuz they humped everything everywhere and his second as a LRRP was far better.
-Mike
A LRRP team carried a lot more than just food. The radio equipment alone was heavy. (They used a much more powerfull one than the regular infantry did) All carried the basic three or four pairs of soxs and the normall weapons, but their main goal was never to make contact with the enemy. The ruck sacks they carried still would weigh in at over 75lb. SOG guys carried anywhere from 80lb. to a 130lb. on their backs. (sometimes even more). An eleven bush guy was to make contact, and be capable of carrying out that mission with his gear on his back, but the one advantage he had over the others was that they could often distibute the added gear amongst several others instead of three to five men.
I've seen many infantry groups go into combat with less than forty pounds on their backs knowing they were ten minutes from pulling a trigger. Just depends on where and what you are after. A good example here is to look at photos of a "mike force" choppering out for a mission. They'd carry one to two meals and soxs. Everything else was ammo and radios.
gary
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