The Gruelling Experience Of US Tank Crews In Vietnam | Greatest Tank Battles | Timeline

my name's dan snow and i want to tell you about history hit tv it's like the netflix for history hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians we've got an exclusive offer available to fans of timeline if you go to history hit tv you can either follow the information below this video or just google history hit tv and use the code timeline you get a special introductory offer go and check it out in the meantime enjoy this video vietnam 1965 a brutal civil war is raging in southeast asia now american ground forces invade to stop communist guerrillas from overrunning the south there's a common misconception that tanks you know were not used very much in vietnam the americans count on conventional firepower to stop the guerrillas but they face a deadly determined opponent the north vietnamese they knew what they were doing why itself a tank is vulnerable in guerrilla insurgent operations all of a sudden the rpgs start flying and he screams we're hit the vietnam war represents the first great tank versus guerrilla series of battles and that's when all hell burns [Music] vietnam southeast asia today it is a prosperous and peaceful nation [Music] and in every city in town are images of ho chi minh they remind its people of the man who sought to create an independent country during decades of terrible fighting in which millions of vietnamese died [Music] throughout vietnam are many remnants of that deadly past war cemeteries unexploded bombs and shells and long abandoned american tanks in early 1965 the united states makes the fateful decision to send ground troops to vietnam as tensions rise between the american-backed regime in the south and the communist north led by ho chi minh march 8 1965 an expeditionary force of 3 500 marines lands at deny its mission is to defeat the north vietnamese who are on the verge of overrunning south vietnam the u.s saw that as part of this controversial domino effect in which if south vietnam fell next to fall would be indonesia and the philippines and all of asia would become communists whereas in reality the vietnamese simply saw this as a nationalistic war to reunite their country landing with the marines are two platoons of third tank battalion armor there's a common misconception that tanks were not used very much in vietnam the marines actually had a history of using tanks for infantry support that reached back to world war ii there's no real way to carry a large cannon around the battlefield you know for direct fire infantry support except tank infantry support in vietnam will be provided by the m48 tank the m48a3 patent tank boasts a high velocity 90 millimeter main gun 110 millimeters of frontal armor and a top speed of 45 kilometers per hour the m48 was designed for tank on tank action the goal of the american tank force 1960s was in effect to destroy soviet tanks the americans are prepared for head-to-head combat with the russians but in vietnam their tanks face a different kind of enemy the viet cong or vc the viet cong was a local guerrilla force intimately familiar with the area their specialization was infiltration ambushes the initial role of tanks in vietnam is to protect u.s air bases because the original commitment of the us and vietnam was the base aircraft in south vietnam for airstrikes across into north vietnam as the vcs step up their attacks against the air bases u.s commander william westmoreland adopts a new strategy westmoreland was a world war ii general with a world war ii mentality and his goal as he saw it was to bring the vietnamese to a conventional battle in which they could be destroyed by conventional firepower in which the u.s excelled of course he launches the first major american ground offensive of the war operation starlight intelligence indicated formations massing for additional attacks against airfields so the idea was to go in and break these up operation starlight involves a preemptive strike against vietcong guerrillas who threaten the vital airbase at july the vietcong have 1500 men armed with hundreds of light anti-tank weapons [Music] against the vc the americans deploy an initial force of over 3 000 marines supported by a dozen tanks august 18 1965 marine tanks head inland to seek out the enemy confidence in the mission is high it's what we're there for we're all excited to be going to war as the fighting rages marines in the field are soon in need of supplies and tanks from the first tank battalion are called in we were going to provide security for five amtraks that were loaded with c rations and water and we were to deliver those sea rations and water to our troops but the american commanders make a crucial error supply column 21 heads off without any infantry support why itself a tank is vulnerable in guerrilla and insurgent operations to make a tank less vulnerable one has to surround it with protective infantry infantry support can deter an enemy from getting too close to the tanks because a tank is relatively blind if you can get up close to it you can actually you know deploy a number of anti-tank weapons as the convoy advances deeper into the jungle it finds itself on a small trail the nature of the train restricted the movement of tanks hundreds of vc gorillas seized the opportunity to close in on the isolated convoy [Music] we're in a fairly dense dark jungle it wasn't very long that we were now taking small arms fire you'd see muzzle flashes we listened to the thwack thwack thwack of small arms fire hitting our tank i was terrified i couldn't see very well it's like being in a paper bag with a little bitty pinhole to see out of and you know there's bad stuff out there i'm using my 30 caliber machine gun i know that i don't have a lot of ammunition because i'm trying to literally pick a target and hit it my tank commander said we're coming to a clearing i'm looking across a sunny opening i'm looking at a rice paddy but i see the first tank take either an anti-tank rocket or an anti-tank gun the viet cong have sprung a trap a maneuver ambush the maneuver ambush involves taking out the lead tank in a convoy then the rear tank then targeting the rest of the immobilized column the first stage has worked the lead tank has been halted military warfare training tells you where next and bam my tank commander's screams were hit or hit and he said abandoned tank and i see corporal vickery's feet going out the top hatch i get up and i look out the periscopes and there's two guys just inside the edge of the jungle he comes up and he fires a rocket and clangs off and bounces away i turn back and look and i can't get the gun down on him he's too close to get down over the fenders the viet cong had a tactic known as hugging their enemies belt closed in so close that the tank cannot bring its main gun to bear [Music] the marines are surrounded and radio communication with headquarters is cut off the lead tank is out of ammunition and it's crew wounded so it pulls back to get help it rolled back into the jungle and was gone hearn's lone tank is left to prevent the convoy from being annihilated by the viet cong i'm getting some black smoke in the turret it's obnoxious i decided it's time to get out i stand up in there in a crouched position and now i'm watching this 3.5 rocket launcher over here he fires around it hits just below the cupola clangs off climbed up and jumped out and jumped right over the back of the tank there beside me is corporal vickery he's on his hands and knees he says hearn i'm hit her and i'm hit it's obvious sooner or later they're just going to walk in and get us supply column 21 is down to a handful of marines struggling to hold off the vc the final stage of the ambush begins the viet cong close in for the kill and as i'm leaned up there i i take a bullet in the side of my neck much of the the back of my head is blown out of my mouth private hearn is left for dead when the vc withdraw into the jungle the next day hearn and the other survivors of supply column 21 are finally rescued by the time operation starlight ends vietcong losses are estimated at over 600 dead we underestimated them really really badly that was the case very early on in vietnam operation starlight was successful in that it did achieve its tactical goal which was to break up units that were potentially massing for an attack on the airfields however the u.s marines suffer 45 dead and a quarter of their tankers are wounded or killed 1967 the united states has increased its military forces in vietnam to 400 000 troops and hundreds of tanks william westmoreland was one of the main drivers in that and that he saw this as a conventional struggle and was constantly asking for more and more troops to expand these operational areas ho chi minh counters the u.s buildup by reinforcing vietcong insurgents with units of the regular north vietnamese army or nva the nva were highly motivated their motto was recruited in the north to die in the south they were extremely disciplined and they were better equipped than the vietcong the soviet weapons with artillery and things like this the americans must now stop thousands of nva soldiers from infiltrating across the border into south vietnam [Music] they establish a series of firebases along the 100 kilometer border that divides north and south vietnam known as the demilitarized zone or dmz the demilitarized zone was an area that was supposed to be devoid of military forces and not used for military operations effectively to separate north and south vietnam the marines started moving north to defend the areas around the dmz and the major infiltration routes so what you ended up with then was a face-off between the regular north vietnamese formations and the marine units along the dmz near the eastern end of the border is the jawline firebase it is protected by five m-48s from the marines third tank battalion as the us began to establish a more far-flung network of bases particularly along the dmz one of the things that would happen is they were subject to constant attacks by the nva there was one time up at jielin where we were getting hammered by artillery fire more so than usual incoming was constant one of the chronic problems they faced was the north vietnamese artillery the soviet-made artillery outranged even the larger american artillery and frequently the tank cannons were the only things that could reply to that fire at extremely long ranges my tank commander came to us one morning and said oh we've got a we've got a crazy mission and he said we're gonna take our tank and one other tank and we're gonna run into north vietnam we're gonna run through the dmz both forces were to remain outside and not operate within but they were somewhat selective in their adherence to the treaty there were crack regiments of nva in the area we ended up perching ourselves in a little rise overlooking a huge expanse in north vietnam and our orders are to pick out any targets that seem suspicious and fire now the 90 millimeter cannon was frequently used for harassment interdiction fire where you would fire at long ranges against a fixed target that could not necessarily be hit by artillery or air power the rangefinder went up to 4 400 yards and i saw something on the other side of this old dried up rice field and i put the crosshairs on as best i could it landed well short so i raised the crosshairs up and took another shot and the second round or so hit even from three miles away or so secondary explosions were tremendous and we knew that we had hit something we were there for maybe three minutes turned around and and hightailed it back to glenn we had knocked out the enemy artillery site that had been pounding the hill we felt like the heroes of the hill and it was it was something to to be able to do that [Music] july 2nd 1967. from their firebase at contianne alpha and bravo companies first battalion 9th marines set out towards the dmz on an operation codenamed buffalo their mission is to head northeast from kantian cross the trace and then sweep the area south of the demilitarized zone the role of the marines change from defense to aggressive patrolling and seeking out the enemy along what they call the trace which was a cleared belt of terrain that ran parallel to the border between north and south vietnam simply because they knew that they could not defend these base areas unless they went out into the countryside and sought out the enemy as they advance bravo 1-9 has no idea they are walking towards a much larger force of battle-hardened troops of the north vietnamese army's 90th regiment waiting to ambush them operation buffalo represented nine to one odds in favor of the north vietnamese which meant they could literally overwhelm the american company the nva spring a trap on the american patrol the marines take heavy casualties and radio back for help from the tanks at kontian amongst them is the crew of tank b-23 they called on our four tanks that were stationed at uh kantian bravo one nine was getting overrun they got themselves into a situation where they walked into an ambush what the tank force doesn't know is that nva troops are now waiting to ambush them the north vietnamese very well their reaction force usually built around tanks would be sent out to help support and protect them so they would line weight for that the beleaguered marines of bravo 1-9 have taken heavy casualties when the tanks arrive we got to the to the troops they were still left we were taken dead and severely wounded throwing them on the tank these marines we don't leave their bodies behind the north vietnamese they knew what they were doing probably one night and walked into an ambush closed around them and circuit them as soon as we got up near that circle the north vietnamese had a bigger circle which closed around us and that's when all hell broke loose operation buffalo represents perhaps an inefficient number of tanks to truly make the difference against a much larger force incoming artillery and and mortars started dropping all over us we got across a creek and a spider airplane radioed down to us to turn around and we were in north vietnam just went in and swung around and came back when my tank hit a mine but when the mine goes off you're jerked up and you're down a 52-ton tank uh which is a lot of weight and blowing it up in the air probably two three foot and it blew off a couple road wheels and the track you're sitting there the radios don't work and you've got a road wheel missing and track is off and you know you're in trouble the crew of tank b-23 now need rescuing themselves gunny eckler he's in the other tank and he's uh he's not disabled but he's going to try to get us out of there i'd attach a tow cable which is a probably a two inch thick steel cable from tank to tank then he started dragging us out and i remember being in that driver's hatch the heat coming off of the engine off the off the other tank was just i was i thought it'd be cooked alive it it's a short time later as we're getting ready to leave a couple of rpg teams got up close to us i remember them yelling saying there's an rpg team and i'm in the driver's hatch and i look out the vision block and they let loose with around the rpg-2 is the nva's primary anti-tank weapon it is a rocket-propelled grenade launcher that fires a 1.8 kilogram shaped charge that can bore through 200 millimeters of armor and the first rpg hit our gypsy rack uh we got hit in the gypsy rack and our grass was flying all over the place while we were being towed out we started to go up a slight little dike one of the guys saw an rpg teen come out when that rpg was aiming at us the tank was actually being dragged like this and it was up in the air it was going up over that dike they were aiming for the bottom of the tank just as he fired we started to come down from that tight the rpg bounced off the slope plate the rpg usually was not capable of destroying a tank but it was absolutely deadly to cruise you could get what's called a spalling effect where fragments of the tank's own armor break loose and ricochet around the interior and that's what does most of the damage to personnel inside the tank is bits and pieces of the tanks on armor the loader's hatch was open it was sitting up like this and they hit the loader's hatch and then shrapnel from that hit me in both legs and hit terry hunter in the back i was literally blown halfway up out of the hatch and the shrapnel came down inside and i wounded brightwell i had shrapnel in my leg my shoulder my arm he looked like a martian he had all these pieces of shrapnel sticking out of his helmet we were smoking and on fire inside it was really funny we were trying to put out what we thought was a fire with a fire extinguisher well it was an empty fire extinguisher because we had used the co inside of it to cool down some beer the night before and also when there's green trees around here coming at us daddy esquire just put his foot to the floor and we made it out [Music] made it out to the landing zone on three of my crew members including myself were medevac to cameron bay hospital during the first day of operation buffalo at least 55 north vietnamese soldiers are killed but on that same day the americans lose 86 men killed in action and another wounded making it their costliest day of the war so far despite the losses u.s commander general westmoreland is determined to increase his forces in south vietnam it was constantly asking for more and more troops to draw them into a climactic conventional battle in which he could destroy the north vietnamese forces in vietnam january 1968 the north vietnamese have their own plan to escalate the war the communists launch a new year or tet offensive simultaneously attacking over 100 cities towns and villages throughout south vietnam major ted offensive in early 1968 was that trigger for what they saw as the potential uprising in which they would finally throw out the invaders tet is a major setback for the u.s war in south vietnam it did provide a political tipping point because it turned american public opinion against the war the american public and increasingly the political leaders no longer saw it as a winnable war after weeks of vicious fighting the offensive is crushed tent was an absolute disaster for the viet cong because these units uh were exposed to american and south vietnamese firepower a lot of them were wiped out there was no alternative for the communists but to send down increasing numbers of units have been raised and equipped in the north regular units of the north vietnamese army equipped with more sophisticated anti-tank weapons and it was just a fundamental change in the nature of the war to a more conventional war against the north vietnamese army 1968 is turning out to be the bloodiest year of the war u.s intelligence pinpoints areas where the enemy is massing its forces one of these is gonoi island where the nva has a divisional headquarters they would come in and establish secure areas from which they could make forays and attacks against the surrounding areas and one of those was gonoi island which was the objective of operation allen brook gonoi is 24 kilometers south of danang surrounded by two rivers and bisected by an old railroad bridge [Music] may 4th 1968 the americans send a marine force to eliminate the enemy entrenched on gonoi including m-48s from the first and fifth tank battalions at the head of the armored column is the crew of tank b-24 we moved across onto the island and within hours the infantry that we were supporting started taking fire and taking heavy fire we encountered small arms machine gun fire mortar attack and communists were taking full advantage of knowing the terrain on which they were fighting and being able to choose where they would fight the heavy machine gun fire from the 51 caliber russian machine guns were shooting a tremendous volume of fire at the helicopters and we decided it was very unsafe for them to come in and so we actually had to to the first four or five days without resupply that meant they were going to run out of food they were running out of water and of course we were certainly running out of ammunition to get supplies for the main force the crew of tank b-24 lead three m-48s and two amtraks back to their base so that morning on the sixth day i i was forming a column we crossed the tree line didn't encounter anything in about 400 yards later was another tree line and you never knew when you approached the tree line was it safe or not we did something that's called recon by fire and the tanks would start using a machine gun and taking that tree line under fire the enemy doesn't know you don't know they're there and so they would start firing all of a sudden the rpgs start flying the machine guns start flying we were taking a lot of fire we effectively been ambushed and we started to return fire immediately we're firing the cannon firing a lot of cannon around eventually ran out of 90 millimeter ammunition when the nba uh saw that the big gun wasn't shooting anymore then and they attempted to get on the tanks which was a specialty in the nba they had no qualms at all about climbing on a tank and just jam things like a satchel charge up under the rack at the rear of the turret to jam the turret try to get a grenade inside the vehicle or simply try to kill the crew with small arms fire i said scratch my back i got that bnba on me or something like that scratch my back and the tank turns that means you turn the machine guns on another tank this one just turned around he fired a flechette round which had little tiny darts in it but it took the enemy off the tank the communist attack on the resupply convoy is taking a toll the marines are desperately low on ammunition and in danger of being overrun a break in the fighting finally allows a helicopter to land that afternoon a helicopter tried to come in to pick up the dead as the american chopper approaches the enemy watches and waits we didn't think we had anyone around us many enemy around us at that point they just started to get off the ground when all hell opened up the helicopter took a hit and started uh auto gyrating and at that point you said my god we're surrounded the marines are ordered to protect the downed chopper so it can be salvaged and not fall into enemy hands so they said we'll stay with the chopper that night so we set a 360 up it was starting to get dark we knew we were going to get hit that night there was no question in our minds the nva used a number of techniques that we might consider psychological warfare the main one was to present the image that they owned the countryside and the night this meant that any american force out in the countryside could reasonably expect to have a series of probes and attacks throughout the night deny them rest and to keep them on edge throughout the time we're sitting there uh watching mva that was probably 50 yards away from us a young marine came over and said hey sarge there's people in front of your tank with uh with the rockets and i said well start shooting them all of a sudden out in front of us there was this explosion and that rpg we can see it rotating it comes right over between the two of us and landed behind the tank hit between my feet and knocked me down 15 or 20 rpgs camp over the tank the side of the tank i'm now down inside the tank and my driver he was probably 18 or 19. he said are we gonna make it out of here but the north vietnamese again break off their attack disappearing into the night and thousands of hidden tunnels that crisscross gonoi island the problem is that the enemy simply just kind of melts away from the front of you and goes underground dawn breaks and the american tankers wonder when the next assault will begin as they wait they suddenly receive new orders the morning after the ambush we were ordered to destroy the helicopter that we had guarded the night before u.s commanders determined that another air rescue is too dangerous not wanting to leave anything the nva can use the marines are ordered to destroy the chopper i said blow the helicopter in place and move back towards the liberty bridge two weeks into operation alan brook the u.s marines continue to search gonoi island for the enemy and from their fortified bunkers the nva continue to find deadly new tactics to harass the americans we moved just off and out into this field and as we did that the infantry platoon leader called in an artillery strike a voice on the radio is calling for american artillery to shell the exact location of the american tanks everybody's looking around in the tank saying that's not right that's not right what is an american voice and it clearly was not our guys the nva is using the american infantry's radio frequency to call in an artillery strike it was somebody who could speak perfect english new our frequencies new how to call in artillery and in 15 seconds we've got 105 millimeter cannon shells artillery shells dropping right amongst us it's landing in our perimeter we now are under barrage from our own artillery when the vietnamese communists could set the time and place of battle they tended to be a step ahead [Applause] using another radio channel the american tankers are finally able to stop the artillery barrage as i understand we lost 70 marines either killed or seriously wounded in that attack that concept of battle represents what we call attrition that is grinding down your opponent's will to fight by grinding down their forces and inflicting casualties this was clearly an indication of us that man guys things have changed these guys are good these guys are real good [Music] the marines are ordered to pull back to the western end of gonoi island the only route passes under a disused railroad bridge [Music] and the north vietnamese would certainly know there was only one way out of there [Music] there was a tunnel the opening is just wide enough for a tank and three or four feet on each side there was no question that that underpass would be mined u.s military developed a very healthy respect for the creativity ingenuity and lengths to which the north vietnamese army would go to inflict casualties upon them the infantry called in engineers who had mine detectors and what have you and they probed the entire area under the bridge they swept swept through got to the other side and discovered nothing staff sergeant in bz said no i just i don't believe that check again i had them sweep it four or five times i know there's a mine there oh no it's all clear so i said well i'm not going to go through there i need my tactic for the commands i took my other section tank i said okay they said it's clear first tank starts to go through they started through there as they begin to roll under the trestle the track begins to roll out from underneath this trestle it wasn't a device that was an anti-tank mine that you would expect from the military this was a homemade thing that was in a wooden box so it was undetectables if you will and that's why the engineers missed it they came to be called ieds in later wars these had the capability of actually lifting a tank into the air and completely destroying it and killing the crew it killed all three of the engineers that had that had swept in front of us it's far more common now to counter tanks with ieds the idea any insurgent has is to transform their enemy strengths into weaknesses they teach their adversary think of tanks not as a strength but as a liability in effect the insurgent force is trying to teach the conventional force to stop using them alan brook continues until august 1968 [Music] communist losses are heavy with close to 1 000 dead by the time it's over the marines suffer more than 1100 casualties america's appetite for the war is waning in 1969 they negotiate with the north for the withdrawal of u.s forces from south vietnam before the end of the year the first american tanks are headed home in the end the mobile firepower of u.s tanks proves no match for the unconventional tactics of the communists the vietnam war represents the first great tank versus guerrilla series of battles what we can learn about tank warfare coming out of vietnam was the exact lesson the communist insurgents wanted to teach that tanks represented a weakness in an insurgency as opposed to a strength americans and other foreigners tend to forget that vietnam has a very long history of resistance to foreign invaders they were just one more colonial power that was trying to seize control of the country by 1972 most american forces have withdrawn from south vietnam the u.s loses over 58 000 killed and 300 000 wounded during the war april 30th 1975 north vietnamese tanks smash down the gates of the presidential palace in saigon [Music] north and south vietnam are finally united after fighting that costs millions of lives [Music] you

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Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, vietnam, vietnam history, vietnam war, tanks in vietnam, us military, military history, greatest tank battles, tank war

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Length: 48min 14sec (2894 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 23 2021