The Blackhorse in Vietnam

The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam and Cambodia, 1966–1972

Donald Snedeker

• Publisher: Casemate
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781612008462
• eBook ISBN: 9781504063517
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This military history chronicles the combat operations of the Blackhorse Regiment, which paved the way for armored cavalry tactics in the Vietnam War.
 
South Vietnam, September 1966. When the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment came ashore at Vung Tau, it faced a number of challenges. In addition to the threat of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, the terrain and weather posed their own dangers, adversely affecting the use of bulletproof vehicles and helicopters. The dearth of doctrine and tactics for the employment of armored cavalry in a counterinsurgency was equally challenging—especially during pre-deployment training and initial combat operations. But despite all this, the leaders of Blackhorse Regiment found a way to accomplish their mission.
 
Within a year of their arrival in Vietnam, Blackhorse troopers overcame ambushes that featured anti-tank weapons, numerous landmines, and coordinated assaults. They not only defeated an enemy division twice their size, but also demonstrated how to succeed while operating on and off the roads, in the jungle, and during both the wet and dry seasons. By the spring of 1967, army leaders were beginning to realize the value of troops stationed in Vietnam. And with the Blackhorse Regiment leading the way, armor came to be considered an essential part of the combat team.
 
Written by a Blackhorse veteran, this regiment history features firsthand accounts from soldiers who served in Vietnam and Cambodia.

CHAPTER 1

Preparing for War: Southeast Germany to Southeast United States to Southeast Asia, 1964 to 1966

There is no field manual for the type of combat we may encounter in the near future … Nobody at Fort Knox is busily writing those doctrines of employment. They must be developed here and each of us will participate in their formulation.

BILL COBB, COMMANDER, 11TH CAVALRY, 1966–67

In the Fall of 1965, I was drafted into the U.S. Army. This was not how I’d planned to spend the next two years but my Dad, Brother, Uncles and cousins had served in the military, so I felt it was the honorable thing to do.

BILL LEWELLEN, JR., KILO TROOP, 3/11 ACR

What did I know? I thought the cavalry was John Wayne, the Lone Ranger and the Old West. I soon found out what armored cav was really all about …

LARRY HAWORTH, HEADQUARTERS AND HEADQUARTERS TROOP, 3/11 ACR

The intelligence report came in to the regimental headquarters in the afternoon. Local security forces had engaged a group of about 200 insurgents near a village 15 miles to the south. The staff reported the news to the commander, who ordered the formation of a task force for the mission. Six troops were available; they were reinforced by some heavy weapons and a supply train. The troopers were told to make sure they had enough rations for three days. The regimental commander directed one of his reliable majors—Robert Howze—to assume command of the provisional squadron. His mission was to find and attack the insurgents.

The Cavalrymen used the cover of darkness to move south toward where the enemy had last been seen. It was, one of the troopers remembered later, an unusually dark night. Their map reading skills were good though and they arrived at the village around midnight. The local security forces told Major Howze that they had fought “desperately” all day long—not counting the hour-long break both sides took for luncheon. Both sides had retired from the battlefield at nightfall. There were no apparent casualties on either side. The insurgents had returned to their base camp an unknown distance from the village. The local security forces were in for the night; they weren’t going anywhere after dark.

The major asked the allies for guides but they refused. The combination of imbibing the locally-produced “joy juice” and distaste for further action made them unwilling to help. There were, however, a couple of the villagers who knew the way to the insurgents’ base camp and volunteered to act as guides. All this took time, so they didn’t leave the village until three hours later. They rode hard and arrived at the outer edge of the enemy base camp right at dawn.

Before leaving the village, Major Howze gave his orders to the troop commanders. In accordance with standard operating procedure (SOP), the approach would be in a column. The lead troop would form the center of the attack formation. On order, the follow-on troops would peel off alternately to the right and left and come on line for the attack.

Arriving at dawn, the lead troop penetrated into the heart of the enemy’s base camp, while the other troops maneuvered left and right. A lieutenant who was there said that “the rapid deployment of the troops from column made a very pretty sight.” A small number of the insurgents remained to defend the camp, pouring heavy but inaccurate fire at the troopers as they charged. The remaining enemy took off to the southwest with five troops of cavalry in hot pursuit. One troop remained behind to clear the base camp.

They chased the bad guys for several miles then rallied back to Major Howze at the base camp. Some of the insurgents escaped by melting into the local population; the rest scattered into the surrounding landscape. The action was over two hours after it began.

Troopers found a small cache of weapons in the few structures inside the camp. They also found a lieutenant and four soldiers from the local security force who had been captured the previous day. The insurgents were about to execute them when the cavalry barged in. One of the freed prisoners volunteered to execute the captured insurgents if someone would only lend him a weapon; the offer was declined.

There were no friendly casualties; 44 of the insurgents died on the battlefield. It was, in the words of one of the lead scouts, a “Damfine fight.”1

The Philippines in 1902? Cuba in 1907? Vietnam in 1968? Iraq in 2004?

No—Ojos Azules, Mexico, 5 May 1916, during Black Jack Pershing’s punitive expedition to hunt down Pancho Villa.2

This is the heritage of the 11th United States Cavalry.

Transitioning from Cold War to Hot War: Mid-1960s

Under President John Kennedy in 1960, the Pentagon initiated a major review of the national security strategy of the United States and ultimately came up with “Flexible Response,” a graduated series of responses that reflected the lessons learned during the Cold War. Nuclear retaliation remained at the heart of the Nation’s military power but flexible response recognized that even tactical nuclear weapons were an unlikely course of action in cases such as the emerging Communist-sponsored wars of national liberation. There had to be other levels of military and non-military response for lower-level threats.

The US Army’s contribution to implementing this strategy involved increased emphasis on special operations forces and airmobility. At Fort Knox, the “Home of Armor,” while war planning focused on conventional warfare, the assistant commandant commissioned a study on armor’s possible contributions to flexible response below the conventional warfare threshold. Brigadier General Frederick Boye, Jr., had just returned from a tour with the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Vietnam and understood the need to get ahead of the coming storm. He was a member of the so-called Howze Board (1962) that set the groundwork for the development of airmobility.3 He wanted to ensure there was a role for armor and cavalry in the coming transformation of the force. The resulting study, published in 1962, had the propitious title: “The Role of Armored Cavalry in Counterinsurgency Operations.”4

This study was ground-breaking, but initially attracted little attention. It addressed doctrinal, organizational, and equipment issues, making insightful recommendations in each area. The study debunked the myth that armor had no role to play in counterinsurgency operations, stating explicitly that armored cavalry could—and should—be employed in counterinsurgency operations, such as the ongoing fight in Southeast Asia. The study concluded that the French experience in Indochina was not a valid guide to the employment of armored forces in future conflicts—due primarily to improvements in equipment and employment concepts. But to make a contribution, then-current armored cavalry units needed to be reorganized.

Specifically, the study suggested that the aviation company (organized and equipped for command and control and liaison) of the armored cavalry regiment be replaced by an air cavalry troop (organized and equipped for reconnaissance and security). The light wheeled vehicles (1/4-ton jeeps) in the reconnaissance troops (ideal for border patrols along the Iron Curtain in Germany) also needed to be upgraded to armor-protected, tracked vehicles with plenty of firepower.

In the fall of 1963, as part of a drive to cut the defense budget by at least two percent, the Pentagon focused on Europe, particularly the forces sent to West Germany as a result of the 1961 Berlin crisis. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Brave Rifles) was regarded as the prime candidate for redeployment back to Fort Meade, where it had been stationed prior to the crisis. But the Bonn government objected, believing that it was the wrong signal to send to Moscow at the time. So, the redeployment plans were delayed for six months. By the time the decision was implemented the following spring, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Blackhorse) was selected to be stationed at Fort Meade, not the 3rd. In other circumstances, the Brave Rifles Regiment would have been the one deployed to Vietnam two years later, not the Blackhorse Regiment.

Consequently, in the summer of 1964, about 2,800 11th Cavalry troopers and their families boarded ships in Bremerhaven, Germany and steamed for Baltimore, Maryland. Many of the troopers were near the end of their enlistments, so the Regiment’s strength quickly dwindled to less than 2,000. Over the next 18 months, the 11th Cavalry’s numbers continued to dwindle. Personnel levies came in for higher priority units located overseas. Worst of all, a substantial number of experienced non-commissioned officers (NCOs) were needed elsewhere to train the influx of new recruits resulting from increased draft calls for the growing war in Vietnam. By the end of the year, almost everyone was a replacement and new to the Regiment.

The Blackhorse was under the command of Colonel Don Boyer when it moved from Germany in 1964. Boyer was the real thing—a hero of the battle of the Bulge who had spent four months in a prisoner of war camp in Germany. It was under his guidance that the initial build-up for Vietnam began. In October 1965, Boyer turned the 11th Cavalry over to Colonel Bill Cobb, the man who would forge the Blackhorse Regiment into a battle stallion of unequaled stature.

In the spring of 1965, General William Westmoreland requested a substantial increase in US forces in South Vietnam, in line with his plan to escalate the conflict from scattered firefights with Viet Cong (VC) guerrilla bands to prolonged campaigns against conventional North Vietnamese Army (NVA) force units. The Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) request included an armored cavalry regiment (ACR) “for route security for National Route 1, with base at Xuan Loc” as part of the 1966 buildup.

Almost immediately, MACV started to backtrack, eventually expressing a preference for a mechanized infantry brigade over an armored cavalry regiment. In a leap of logic that does not appear to be supported by any Army doctrine or in-country lessons learned, the MACV history concludes that “mechanized infantry units, by reason of equipment and training, were better suited than the ACR then programmed for the mission of LOC [Lines of Communications] security.”

Lieutenant Colonel Ray Battreall was the most senior armor officer in Vietnam in 1965–66. He remembers that he was called to MACV headquarters one day early in 1966. He was then serving as the senior advisor to the South Vietnamese Armor Command and Westy’s staff wanted to hear his opinion on an ongoing force development issue that involved armor.

I was … asked if tanks could operate in the III Corps area surrounding Saigon. I said they could and was then advised that we were considering bringing either another mechanized brigade … or an Armored Cavalry Regiment to Viet Nam. GEN [General] Westmoreland’s deputy, Lt. Gen. Heintges, favored the mech brigade, but I was able to persuade … Maj Gen DePuy [MACV’s operations officer], that he would get more bang for the buck from the ACR … I also suggested removing the tanks from the Reconnaissance troops while retaining them in each squadron’s tank company.

Back in the Pentagon, the Army Chief of Staff (General Harold Johnson) directed his staff to compare the capabilities of the two unit types and to make a recommendation. Lieutenant Colonel George Patton (later to command the Regiment) was assigned as the study lead. His conclusions are not surprising. The staff study favored the armored cavalry regiment over a mechanized infantry brigade due to a higher density of automatic wea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Foreword by General Frederick M. Franks Jr.
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Preparing for War: Southeast Germany to Southeast United States to Southeast Asia, 1964 to 1966
• Chapter 2 The Blackhorse Enters Combat: September 1966 to May 1967
• Chapter 3 The Fight Intensifies: May to July 1967
• Chapter 4 The Blackhorse Makes Its Reputation: Late 1967 to Late 1968
• Chapter 5 The Bloodiest Year: 1969
• Chapter 6 Expanding the War: 1970 to Early 1971
• Chapter 7 Mission Accomplished: November 1970 to March 1972
• Epilogue Blackhorse Forever: The Legacy
• Glossary
• Appendices
• Sources
• Endnotes
• Plates section
• Copyright