North Vietnam’s Master Plan

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The goal set forward in the Politburo-approved 1961-65 military plan for PAVN forces in South Vietnam was to build a strong force of full-time troops in South Vietnam with good technical equipment, logistic support and tactical leadership. The plan specified that, in addition to the formation of local force units of company size at the district level and battalion size at the province level, the Communist army in South Vietnam would organize, equip, train and deploy a force of between 10 and 15 main-force infantry regiments. The regiments would be supported by an unspecified number of new composite artillery units capable of destroying fortified positions and of successfully engaging enemy tanks and aircraft.

In early 1961, the largest organized Communist military unit in South Vietnam, according to the PAVN history, was the battalion, and only three main-force battalions existed at that time in all of South Vietnam. According to official PAVN records, total Communist troop strength in South Vietnam was approximately 15,000 full-time troops, only about 3,000 of whom were assigned to main-force units. The new units called for in the plan (the equivalent of three to five main-force divisions) would give Communist forces in the South between 25,000 and 40,000 main-force troops alone. The plan also called for strengthening Communist Party control over military affairs in the South. Reflecting the new emphasis on military as opposed to political action, for the first time a number of military region headquarters in South Vietnam were to be organized and staffed.

The plan also directed that the PAVN supply military advisers to Pathet Lao forces (the military arm of the Laos Communist Party) and be prepared to dispatch PAVN volunteer units to fight in Laos upon the request of our Lao allies. This provision was apparently an ex post facto endorsement of PAVN actions already underway. The PAVN history records that, in response to a request from the Laotian Communist leadership, in November 1960 a number of PAVN military advisers and a PAVN 105mm howitzer battery were sent to the Vientiane area to assist Pathet Lao forces battling U.S.–backed Laotian government rightist forces trying to retake the capital. Numerous additional PAVN units soon followed the initial group to Laos.

Pursuant to the Politburo resolution’s directive that military forces be prepared to move to guarantee victory in the South if or when an opportunity arose, the Communist Party’s Central Military Party Committee (the party organ responsible for overseeing all PAVN activities) ordered the PAVN general staff to make contingency preparations for the army to engage in combat operations in South Vietnam and to perform its international duty in Laos. The general staff immediately responded by upgrading a number of PAVN units to wartime status. The 325th Division, the 316th, 335th and 341st brigades, and the 148th and 244th regiments were selected and brought up to full wartime table of organization and equipment (TOE) levels and were placed on alert status. PAVN brigades at that time had a TOE strength of 3,500 troops and consisted of four infantry battalions, one artillery battalion, one anti-aircraft battalion and a number of smaller reconnaissance, signal, engineer, chemical defense and other support units. The PAVN general staff order specifically stated that the upgrade was intended to provide the PAVN with a number of powerful infantry units which could be committed when needed to operations on the South Vietnamese and Laotian battlefields.

By the spring of 1961, when the order was promulgated, many of the upgraded units were already in action in Laos. While North Vietnam refused to acknowledge publicly that it had any troops in Laos, the PAVN history discloses that by the first half of 1961 a total of 12,000 PAVN volunteer troops, including regular infantry, artillery and engineer battalions from the PAVN 325th Division, the 316th and 335th brigades and the 271st Regiment, were fighting in Laos alongside their Pathet Lao allies. The ongoing PAVN intervention in Laos would play a major role in the next key PAVN decision of 1961.

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Foreign Affairs, Historical Conflicts, Politics, Vietnam War

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