I know the NVA used UAZs.

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I know the NVA used UAZs.

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They also used Chinese-built Jiefang CA-30 cargo trucks ...



East-German IFA W50 trucks....And Chinese BJ-212's (1975 picture)




H.P.

AFL IO stuff was probably intended for the South. Thefts at the docks was rampant.

"But it wasn't quite the cakewalk the vastly superior (in numbers and equipment) PLA forces expected. They really suffered- a 'bloody nose' is what they got basically. They could have thrown down and shoved a lot more PLA forces into the war but for various reasons decided not to. They never forgot the shame of the defeat and their relations with Vietnam never recovered. They are still frosty even today, mostly over border issues and various territory disputes at sea."

Well, that's one interpretation. However another way to look at it is that China moved as far into Vietnam as it wanted to, made it clear it could have kept rolling towards Hanoi if it had chosen to, and then withdrew when everyone had taken their point. The war wasn't about Cambodia anyway, it was China's way of showing that nations in the region relying on the Soviet Union for protection were making a bad bet. The Soviets rattled their saber--I remember a newspaper headline in huge type reading "Russia Mobilizes"--and provided Vietnam with replacement military hardware but they didn't risk a direct confrontation with China. China takes a longer view of these issues than the U.S. which tends to have a short attention span. If you look at the relationship between China and Vietnam today, it's hard to conclude that China didn't get most of what it wanted from its demonstration of force in 1979.

AFL IO stuff was probably intended for the South. Thefts at the docks was rampant.

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AFL IO stuff was probably intended for the South. Thefts at the docks was rampant.

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There was a U.S. program to plant sabotaged ammunition in the North Vietnamese supply chain so NVA and Viet Cong troops would be demoralized by the resulting deaths and injuries and stop trusting their own weapons and ammo, in particular ammunition supplied by China. One story goes that the plan was abandoned in part because of casualties in U.S./ARVN forces who picked up and used captured weapons loaded with the sabotaged ammo.

http://www.trapshooters.com/threads/project-eldest-son.108423/

As you point out, there were a lot of ways supplies of various origins could reach North Vietnam. American-made supplies could have gone through several nations before turning up in the north--some western governments or organizations sympathized with North Vietnam for various reasons. However given that organization's support for the U.S. effort in Vietnam I think any claim that the AFL-CIO knowingly sent supplies to North Vietnam would need to be backed up with some solid evidence.

To the best of my knowledge SF were the only ones seriously doing this, and even then it was small scale. They'd pull bullets from cases, and put a wad of C4 in with the powder. Then load about two rounds in a magazine. Leave the magazine on the ground and move on. They also changed fuses on grenades with smoke grenade fuses. Never saw any ready made stuff anywhere. Even then it was less than twenty grenades and a couple hundred rounds of 7.62x39 ammo. SOG never did any of this, and Phoenix had bigger fish to fry.
glt