The period between the fall of 1969 and the end of the summer of 1970 was a turning point for the war over Vietnamese communications. Prior to that, the issue with them had been resolved within the framework of the civil war going on in Laos according to an extremely simple logic - to seize central Laos, from there to expand in all directions, including to the south, directly to the "Path" itself.
After that, the situation became radically different, and the methods that the Americans began to use became radically different.
Incompetent command
I must say that they could have been like that right away, but heavy oncoming battles of thousands of groups reduced all other possibilities to zero. The second problem of the CIA was partly the forced division of forces: when the Americans managed to prepare more or less significant contingents, they brought them into battle in parts.
This became, in a way, a "calling card" of how the CIA, which had the ability to airlift troops and had no problems with providing troops to maneuver, managed this war. The defeat of Wang Pao's troops, which preceded the Kou Kiet, was accompanied by a simultaneous offensive in a completely different sector. The CIA, of course, could think that the Vietnamese would be shackled by attacks on different sectors of the front and would not be able to react, but the fact is that they had a numerical superiority, but they were inferior in mobility. It would be more correct for the CIA to always concentrate its forces in one area. But the CIA decided otherwise.
Of course they had some excuses. The units that they prepared were often "ethnic", consisting of representatives of the same nationality, ready to fight in the places of their historical residence. For the Hmong, for example, this was central Laos. When these units were transferred to other areas, they fought much worse. The second problem was communications: roadless Laos was a difficult terrain to maneuver, and without American helicopters it was impossible to surpass the Vietnamese in mobility.
But still, subsequent battles in the Valley of Kuvshinov showed that units from some regions can fight in others, albeit badly. The CIA did not take full advantage of these opportunities.
Even before Operation Kou Kiet, the CIA planned an attack in the southern part of Laos, on the Vietnamese communications themselves. At a time when Wang Pao was forced to personally fire a mortar due to a lack of people, several newly trained Royalist battalions were ordered to cut off Vietnamese communications in the area of the town of Maun Fain, near the city of Chepone - one of the key points on the "trail" itself. significantly south of the Valley of Kuvshinov.
To aid the Royalist battalions, "air targeting operators" were deployed in their light aircraft, and the US Air Force provided a detachment of fighter-bombers to support the advancing Royalists. Intelligence estimated the Vietnamese forces in the combat zone in about six battalions with air defense weapons, mainly machine guns and small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery. The Vietnamese held the areas around Chepone, while the rest of the territory was to be controlled by the Pathet Lao forces.
The operation was codenamed Junction city Jr. ("Younger junction city"), which, as it were, symbolized the role of Chepone as a logistics center, and the secondary role of this offensive in comparison with the battles in the Valley of Kuvshinov. Also in this name was a reference to the Junction city airborne operation, which was conducted by the US Army and its South Vietnamese allies in 1967 in Vietnam. The battalions were called "Red", "White" and "Green" instead of numbers.
Before that, in March, newly trained battalions conducted a disastrous raid on one of the Vietnamese bases (Operation Duck), and achieved nothing, but now one of the companies could be considered “fired”.
The operation began immediately after the defeat of Wang Pao and around the time he conceived future Kou Kiet operation, July 28, 1969. Initially, the royalists were successful.
The Vietnamese did not have enough troops to cover everything, and the Royalists were lucky to attack where there was no one. On the first day, they captured a helicopter airfield, an unprotected important intersection on the roads of the "trail" and soon took Maun Fine, and also captured a fairly serious amount of supplies. At the same time, resistance to them was provided mainly by the forces of "Pathet Lao".
Maun Fyne was taken on September 7, 1969 with the simultaneous capture of almost 2,000 tons of various supplies, a mass of documents important for intelligence, and several thousand weapons.
By that time, most of the aviation supporting the offensive had been withdrawn: an offensive was underway in the Valley of Kuvshinov, and there were not enough aircraft. After the capture of Maun Fine, the number of available sorties dropped to 12 sorties by Skyraider attack aircraft and two sorties by guidance aircraft. In addition, days with bad weather have become more frequent.
But the CIA, inspired by the success, set out to continue the offensive. Now the battalions had to clear out the vicinity of Chepone, without trying to storm the city itself, and capture another important intersection, which would lead to the cutting of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. By that time, the 203rd Commando Battalion was deployed to the aid of the three "colored" irregular battalions, which for the time being was guarding the helipad captured on the first day of the offensive. Now he was to move to Maun Fine and take control of the city, freeing up other battalions to continue the offensive. In addition, the CIA deployed another "fresh" battalion, code-named "Yellow", to the area of operation. A little later, after a successful participation in Kou Kiet, another battalion, the Blue, was deployed to the area. The "White" and "Green" battalions were withdrawn from the fighting and withdrawn to other sectors of the front.
It all ended upsettingly simple. In early October, the "Red" battalion was attacked by the Vietnamese. Unable to withstand an open battle with the cadre army, the royalists fled, and their neighbors ran with them.
On October 6, the Vietnamese returned Maun Fine without a fight. On the same day, the Vietnamese went to the helipad captured by the Royalists at the beginning of the offensive and knocked out a couple of transport helicopters. The royalists and the Americans, surrounded by Vietnamese, fought them off all day, using M-60 machine guns removed from downed helicopters, and by the end of the day were left almost without ammunition. To cope with the attacking units of the VNA, the Americans had to literally flood the surrounding forests with tear gas, and, while it was operating, raise the surrounded troops by helicopters. By 19.00 on the same day, the site was captured by the Vietnamese, which reduced all the achievements of the operation to zero.
By that time, the CIA could no longer remove any resources from the Valley of Kuvshinov to continue the offensive, and as a result, all parts of the royalists rolled back to their original positions, and the Vietnamese, without particularly straining and receiving no reinforcements, restored the status quo.
Such failures in military planning have become the "calling card" of the CIA.
The Americans later insisted that the operation had some success. So, according to their statements, the VNA and Pathet Lao lost about 500 people killed and a supply of supplies sufficient to maintain an entire infantry division for several days. The Royalists removed about 6,000 civilians from the area of the operation, depriving the VNA of porters. In the opinion of the Americans, all these actions thwarted the next stage of the expansion of the VNA and Pathet Lao and forced them to go on the defensive.
But the Americans themselves had a military catastrophe a little to the north, and these battalions would be much more needed in a completely different place.
Delayed guerrilla
Initially, the Wang Pao army - l'Armee Clandestine ("Secret Army"), like many other units in Laos, was prepared by the CIA as partisan formations that were supposed to destabilize the rear of the Vietnamese and Pathet Lao, while the royalists and the detachments that joined them " neutralists "put pressure on the enemy from the front with air support from royalist air units and American mercenaries. But things slowly went wrong. As a result, by the fall of 1969, all of these partisan formations were fighting as light infantry, air support was provided by the US Air Force, and on a completely unparalleled scale, with the massive use of strategic bombers over the battlefield.
One of the results of such a CIA strategy in Laos was the depletion of the forces opposing the Vietnamese: they simply ran out of manpower reserves more quickly. Where the Vietnamese could put 15-16 thousand new fighters under arms within a year, their opponents could not overpower even a third of that number. A little later, this would lead to a disaster, but so far it made it impossible to fight without extensive air support.
However, even before the Kou Kiet attack, the CIA had tested a few things in practice. One of the detachments that, during the successful offensive of Wang Pao, operated in the north of the Valley of Kuvshinov, namely the 2nd special guerrilla unit, 2nd special guerillia unit (2nd SGU), was used by the Americans for its immediate purpose.
Having received all the necessary training, the detachment was used by the CIA during a raid on a section of the "trail" passing through Cambodia, and was part of what the Americans allocated to a separate Vietcong communication - the "Sihanouk Trail", named after the prince-socialist who ruled in Cambodia. The squadron's second task was to reconnoitre targets for a larger CIA operation against Vietnamese communications, which the CIA was only plotting at the time.
The operation in Cambodia was named
On June 21, 1969, the 2nd PDF concentrated near the town of Pakse in southern Laos, near points where helicopters could pick it up. On the same day, the entire personnel were embarked on helicopters of the 21st Special Operations Squadron of the US Air Force, as well as on Air America helicopters and, under the cover of Skyrader piston attack aircraft of the 21st Squadron, was landed on the territory of Cambodia, on the Vietnamese trucks and porters.
The detachment successfully carried out mining of roads and paths, timely discovered a Vietnamese stronghold occupied by about 180 VNA soldiers, and brought strike aircraft at it. By that time, they had several hours left before the moment when they would have encountered Vietnamese reinforcements. This, however, did not happen: the detachment, which would have been obviously defeated, was evacuated by air, and soon already fought in the Wang Pao offensive in the Valley of Jugs - the very operation "Kou Kiet". The guerrilla career ended with the squad becoming a poor light infantry. The CIA, however, planned to develop this tactic into something more, and immediately after the victory of Wang Pao and his men in the Valley of the Jugs, they began to prepare a new operation, this time in another part of Laos - on the Bolovene plateau, in the southern part of the country.
This, again, looked strange - after all, to the north, in the Valley of Kuvshinov, a major problem was brewing for the US allies and the Americans themselves. The troops were needed in a completely different place. But in the end they were not there.
Counterstrike VNA
The loss of the Valley of Kuvshinov could not but cause a Vietnamese reaction. Firstly, because this was the first step towards the loss of Laos as a whole, and secondly, because the enemy now got the opportunity to block the northern part of the "path" simply by moving troops south. And cork up quickly. The density of communications in the "bottleneck" of Laos south of the Valley would not have allowed the Vietnamese to transfer large forces there quickly enough. In fact, they would have to retake almost the entire country, attacking from the vicinity of the Nam Bak Valley, north of the Valley of the Jugs. Taking into account the ongoing war in Vietnam itself and the impending political problems in neighboring Cambodia, through which important Vietnamese communications also went, it was not worth delaying.
By that time, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the most experienced and competent Vietnamese commander, was able to restore his political position, which had been shaken when he opposed the Tet offensive in 1968. Giap was then subjected to some moderate obstruction, but in the end everything turned into a defeat of the VNA and the Viet Cong, as he had warned. Now his authority was again on top, and it was he who was responsible for preparing the counterstrike in the Valley of Kuvshinov.
Giap chose General Wu Lap as the commander of the operation, and the VNA began preparations for the counterstrike, which went down in history as the "139 Campaign."
The Vietnamese decided to "raise the stakes" in the battles for central Laos. Wu Lap received under his command such forces that had never been entered into battle in Laos at one time. In terms of the size of a standard infantry battalion, he had about 26 of them, with a total strength of 16,000. In order to support the infantry, Wu Lap received 60 PT-76 tanks. The Vietnamese grouping consisted of the Dak Kong battalions - Vietnamese army special forces, as usual, equipped with various weapons, which the enemy was not ready to use. At the same time, ten Pathet Lao battalions came under the command of Wu Lap. True, firstly, they were battalions only in words - none of them even reached 170 people in number.
By themselves, the Lao Pathet Lao was not viewed by Wu Lapom as a serious force. Nevertheless, their presence meant that the VNA forces would not be distracted by at least minor tasks. The core of the advancing grouping were units from the elite 312th division, the even more elite 316th division and the 866th separate regiment, which were supposed to advance from east to west along route 7, passing through the entire Valley of Kuvshinov, and further along the entire road network in the Valley. Subsequently, it was assumed that the Vietnamese units would be able to expand the front of the offensive, and clear the entire central Laos from the opponents of the Pathet Lao.
On September 13, 1969, Zipa gave Wu Lap the order to start the operation. On the same day, soldiers from the 141st regiment of the 312th division appeared in the village of Nong Khet bordering Vietnam (the homeland of Wang Pao, by the way), quickly occupying an area that was soon to become their starting area for the offensive. The CIA could not help but notice.
Wang Pao found himself in a not-so-good situation. The euphoria from the capture of the Valley of the Pitchers vanished, now he realized that he would have to confront a much stronger enemy than ever before. Against about 16,000 Vietnamese and about 1,500 Lao from Pathet Lao, Wang Pao had no more than 6,000 fighters, and it was obvious that the VNA would use heavy weapons in huge numbers for Laos. Wang Pao himself did not have so much of it. On November 6, 1969, Wang Pao raised the issue of further action at a strategic meeting with the Americans. For all his confidence in his ability to command and knowledge of local realities, Wang Pao turned to the CIA for help: he simply did not know what to do now.
However, the recommendations that American advisers gave him completely disappointed him.
The Americans offered him the following option. Since the VNA units outnumbered the forces of the royalists under the command of Wang Pao, it was necessary to occupy the heights dominating the terrain, dig in on them properly and create from a chain of such defensive positions in fire contact with each other, a reliable line of defense, about which the Vietnamese offensive would have collapsed. It was assumed that when the "communists" launched an assault on these positions, American and royalist aircraft would fall on them from the air, and their attacks would be choked over and over again.
It looked like a formulaic example from a textbook for a military college student, but Wang Pao spent most of his life in the war, and he knew what was what.
First, no chain of strongholds could contain the VNA: the Vietnamese would simply bypass them, hiding among the vegetation and in the folds of the terrain, using night, rain or fog. They always did this, and there was no reason to believe that this time would be different. Thus, the advisers' plan immediately contained a failure.
Apart from this, there were other considerations. Wang Pao remembered how the Americans suddenly removed part of the aviation from the tasks of supporting his actions and sent them somewhere to Vietnam, he also perfectly understood that the weather could simply make the actions of aviation impossible, and for an unpredictable period of time. Thus, his defending forces could well be left without air support at a critical moment in the battle.
He knew that no matter how defeated the Vietnamese were during Kou Kiet, his mobilization reserve was at zero, and if it were not for the massive infusion of ethnically alien Hmong units into his troops, no aircraft would have helped him take the Valley. At the same time, he perfectly remembered how low all these royalist troops were distinguished in defense against the personnel units of the VNA and did not harbor any illusions as to how long they would hold out in their trenches, even against the Vietnamese infantry, even against the Dak Kong units that terrified everyone. to whom they reached.
As a result, Wang Pao himself had to come up with a defense plan that gave the Royalists at least some chance.
The plan boiled down to the following.
Royalists will only hold a few critical points. The airfield in Phonsavan, to which, if anything, the Americans will be able to transfer reinforcements, supplies, or from where it will be possible to evacuate the defenders by air. A field landing site near Phonsavan. In this place, called "Lima 22" by the CIA, it was necessary to equip a strong point with artillery, which would be held as long as possible. An airfield in Muang Sui, with an airstrip from which Air Force strike aircraft can take off if necessary. The Long Tieng stronghold is an important logistics and military center, the de facto capital of the Hmong and an important CIA base. Crossroads near Phonsavan, bypassing which the VNA units will not be able to move heavy weapons.
And that's all. If any of these objects are lost, then the existing units of the royalists will have to go over to counterattacks with the support of aviation and knock out the Vietnamese, returning the lost position. The Kou Kiet showed that the royalists can in principle attack with air support, especially if the Vietnamese are not given the opportunity to dig in and pull up reserves along poor local communications. And they cannot defend against the VNA. This means that we must work from counterattacks.
Wang Pao's plan stipulated that, minus the designated strongholds, withdrawal would be permissible from the rest of the positions. Maintaining the maximum number of troops was more important than holding out in some strong point for an extra couple of hours. It was assumed that the royalists would react flexibly to Vietnamese attacks, retreating and withdrawing from the blows, and then counterattacking.
VNA will not be able to advance forever. They also have other areas where troops are needed, they will have problems with the delivery of ammunition and food along the only road from Vietnam, they will suffer losses in people and equipment, and sooner or later they will stop, at least for regrouping. It was necessary, while retreating and counterattacking, to prevent the collapse of the Royalist defense until that moment.
Wang Pao also demanded from the Americans a maximum of weapons, both small arms - M-16 rifles, and artillery - howitzers of 105 and 155 mm calibers. Everything you need was promptly delivered within a matter of days. Non-Hmong battalions from other parts of Laos, including units with captured Vietnamese armored vehicles, were again transferred to Wang Pao's disposal.
Outside of Wang Pao's requests, the CIA knew that another battalion of Thai mercenaries was approaching, the formation of which was soon to end, and this battalion was also preparing to enter the battle.
There was also something else. Frightened by the inevitable retaliation of the Hmong for their years of allied relations with the French and Americans, Wang Pao planned that, simultaneously with the defensive battles against the VNA, he would begin secret negotiations with Pathet Lao on how he could lead his people out of the war, making it easier " Pathet Lao "and the Vietnamese further conquest of Laos. Wang Pao was happy with ideas on this topic, and he was going to "sell" them to his enemy in exchange for guarantees for the Hmong. Naturally, the Americans knew nothing about this.
It must be admitted that Wang Pao's plans were much more realistic than the advice of the Americans. By that time, the Vietnamese had already attacked the royalists both along route 7 and to the north, where they held Mount Phou Nok. By November 6, they had already quite strongly put pressure on the defending royalists along the entire front of the offensive, but had not yet broken through their defenses anywhere.
But on November 9, the VNA made a sharp breakthrough - with a decisive attack, it captured the Pkhonsavan airport. This was already a major breakthrough, and created a wide gap in the defense of the Royalists.
It became finally clear that this fight for the Valley would be long, hard and bloody.
The planning time is over. A battle began on a scale that Laos had never seen before.
