Page 290 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

- Poor intelligence concerning the situation in An Hoa village, where
one battalion was unnecessarily cornrnitted to assaulting a friendly
airborne battalion which had rnoved out previously.
- Lack of effective coordination during the Mang Ca assault'

- Several elernents got lost and failed to reach the assigned objectives'
This caused the assaults to be uncoordinated (The Tay Loc airfield,
which should have been attacked before the logistics area was not
attacked until late r ).

- Only rnake shift defeneive tactics were used rather than offensive
actions; of the recorded 416 actions, 254 were defensive in nature'

- Morale and discipline left rnuch to be desired; at first the troops
were disciplined but later got out of line, piUering and looting peoplers
property, For exarnple Thanh, a guerrilla, Iooted a trunkfilled with
gold and watches. Luy robbed two urnbrellas in the narne of liberatlon.

- The 3rd Cornpany without autorization stole and butchered a pig and
one trooper stole 20 sheaves of wool yarn as a gift to solne wornen'

The following factors worked in the enernies favor :

- His use of the people as a shield.
- The protection of the Citadel walls for his defgnse and from which
to launch attacks.
- The support o{ a nurnber of city people to forrn the Peoplers Alliance
for Dernocracy and Peace and other subsidiary organizations' Though
these organizations brought together only a srnall fraction of the
cityrs population, their conception and subsequent activities greatly
demoralized the people. They were a contributing factor in the vast
destruction of the city and because of previous political and personal
feud.s, the lnassacre of thousands of people'
The enerny held the Citadel for 26 days due to the cold
rainy weather and the poor visibility over the city (at times the cloud
ceiling was only 150 meters).
The following rnajor shortcornings and mistakes were

c ornrnitted by the friendlY side :
- The invalid assessment of the enerny capability to conduct a ground
assault on lIue. Consequently the US lst Aircav Division, which had

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