Battle of the Ia Drang

A month-long action fought in the Vietnam War in 1965, the Battle of the Ia Drang was the first combat action involving an airmobile unit of divisional strength. Airmobile units are light infantry with regularly assigned helicopters, which make most tactical movements by helicopter. Earlier in 1965, there had been promising combat demonstrations by the 173rd Airborne Brigade, but the helicopters were ad hoc attachments and the team was not well practiced.

At the operational level, it was essentially a pursuit of three foot-mobile regiments, under divisional command, by single brigades and supporting forces rotating out of a U.S. division headquarters. As opposed to the slightly later Battle of Bong Son, the full airmobile division was not in combat at one time.

Ia Drang demonstrated the fundamentally new capabilities, as well as the liabilities, of large, well-integrated airmobile forces.

Background

The battlefield covered 1, 500 square miles of generally flat to rolling terrain drained by an extensive network of rivers and small streams flowing to the west and southwest across the border into Cambodia. The dominating feature of the terrain was the Chu Pong massif in the southwestern corner of the area, straddling the Cambodian-Vietnamese frontier. For long periods this mountain mass had been an important enemy infiltration area and one of the many strongholds where enemy forces could mass and construct strong defenses under the heavily canopied jungle.

Preliminaries

On 19 October, North Vietnamese troops attacked the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) camp at Plei Me. CIDG camps had Vietnamese light infantry troops, usually under United States Army Special Forces leadership.

By 22 October, two North Vietnamese regiments were confirmed to be in the Plei Me area, suggesting the North Vietnamese were making a serious push to control the Central Highlands. Plei Me proper was being attacked by the 33rd Regiment, but the 32nd Regiment had set ambushes along the road to Pleiku, from which a South Vietnamese relief column would come.

The commander of II Vietnamese Corps could lose Plei Me if he did not relieve it, but if the troops in Pleiku went to Plei Me, Pleiku might come under attack by additional North Vietnamese troops. It was known that the 66th Regiment was somewhere in the Central Highlands.

Stretched to the limit, the Vietnamese asked the U.S. forces for assistance. The U.S. Field Force (corps equivalent) commander for the area, MG Stanley Larsen, told GEN Westmoreland that he thought the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) was ready, and got permission for it to use its mobility to bypass the road ambushes. Since the PAVN along the road had planned to ambush trucks, there was not an issue of not being able to find the relieving troops. While the heliborne U.S. troopers could be heard miles away, their actual attack zones could not be determined until they swooped to a landing. A brigade of the "1st Cav" was dispatched to take on the three PAVN regiments.

Early movements by 1st Cavalry Division (airmobile)

Task Force (TF) INGRAM, a reinforced battalion of 2/12 Cavalry, moved by helicopter from An Khe to Plei Me, bypassing the 23nd regiment. U.S. aircraft supplied Plei Me with parachute-dropped supplies.

Division commander Harry Kinnard sensed he might be able to outmaneuver and confront a large force, and moved his 1st Brigade to Pleiku, where it took operational control of TF INGRAM, provided fire support to the ARVN force now freed to move to Plei Me, and providing a reserve. ARVN armored forces moved by road toward Plei Me, and indeed was attacked by the 32nd Regiment. U.S. artillery helped the column beat off the ambush. The relief column arrived at Plei Me on 25 October.

By this time, 1st Cav units had flown from Pleiku to areas within striking range of the Plei Me area. Their field bases were not in Plei Me, but in a position to give fire support and move heliborne troops anywhere in the area, potentially cutting of PAVN retreat.

Late that night, the 33rd PAVN Regiment began to withdraw to the west, leaving a strong rear guard. The next phases were to be a matter of maneuver, with the PAVN moving under cover and the Cav engaging them when they were found. In airmobile doctrine, the Cav did not need to hold ground, but could sting the enemy and fly off.

Battle reaches the divisional level

1st Cav's responsibility changed, by order of Westmoreland, to "search and destroy" against all enemy forces in the region. One of the reasons for the change of scope was intelligence that "a field front (divisional headquarters) was controlling the enemy regiments. If so, this operation marked the first time any U.S. unit in Vietnam had opposed a division-size unit of the North Vietnamese Army under a single commander, " Chu Huy Man.

It operated by brigade; while the 1st Cav was a division, it had enough helicopters to lift one full brigade at a time, plus air cavalry scouts:

• 1st Brigade: 22 October to 9 November
• 2nd Brigade: 9 November to 20 November
• 3rd Brigade: 20 November to end

In the pursuit, the first contact was made by Cav platoons that encountered a force in battalion strength, six miles southwet of Plei Mei. The contact was soon too close for U.S. fire support. After "finding and fixing" the enemy, the U.S. units airlifted out, but set ambushes for 3 November.

The ambush overwhelmed the enemy heavy weapons unit, and the ambush patrol pulled back to its field base and strengthened its defenses. By late that evening, it was under attack by several North Vietnamese companies, and was in dange of being overrun by midnight. Reinforcements arrived in forty minutes. It was the first time:

• a unit, under heavy fire, was reinforced, at night, by helicopter lift into an unfamiliar landing zone
• aerial rocket artillery (2.75" unguided rockets fired from armed helicopters]] was used at night, and as close as 50 meters to friendly forces.

LZ X-Ray

On November 14, after preliminary surveys with the brigade commander, then-LTC Hal Moore took 450 men of the 1/7 Cavalry battalion -- the same unit that George Armstrong Custer took to a place called the Greasy Grass, or the Little Big Horn -- to a place with no name other than the map designation, Landing Zone X-Ray (LZ X-Ray). , and was soon in a desperate fight. There are strong suggestions that the North Vietnamese specifically wanted to test tactics against the new airmobile units, one of which was "hugging the belt" -- staying in such close contact that the U.S. support weapons could not be used for fear of fratricide. In his after-action report, Moore said,

Fire support to be truly effective must be close-in.

Against heavy attacks such as the ones we defended against, some enemy will get very close or even intermingled with friendly in the high grass. Bringing fires in promptly, “walking them in” extremely close helped us greatly. The commander cannot wait until he knows exactly where all his men are. If he does, in a heavy action, he will get more men killed by waiting than if he starts shooting immediately. Once the enemy gets as close as 25 meters out or intermingled then he has the friendly fighting on his terms, with those who have made it that close. Close fire support then can be used to cut off his

follow-up units, and they will be there.

Approximately 4,000 NVA hit LZ X-Ray, and the situation, for a time, was desperate for the Cavalry. Eventually, they were reinforced, but the original unit had close to 50 percent casualties. It is estimated that the NVA took at least 4 times the casualties, but the U.S. force made an orderly retreat; Moore considers the battle a draw. It demonstrated that air assault tactics were not a panacea.

Lessons learned

In his after-action report from LZ X-Ray, Moore expounded on how airmobile infantry should move once on the ground: "cautiously aggressive. The enemy must be pinned down by fire. Small unit, squad sized fire and movement must be conducted to perfection. This is extremely important. If not conducted correctly, men will get hit and the problem is then compounded when other men stop firing to try to recover casualties. Then they also get hit in many cases and soon, combat effectiveness of the squad, platoon, etc. is in danger of being lost." He recommended "reconnaissance by fire", shooting first when contact was suspected, which could take the initiative from the enemy.