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South Vietnamese Regional Forces
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South Vietnamese Regional Forces
The South Vietnamese Regional Forces (Vietnamese: Địa phương quân, lit. "Local Army"), originally the Civil Guard, were a component of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) territorial defence forces. Recruited locally, they served as full-time province-level forces, originally raised as a militia. In 1964, the Regional Forces were integrated into the ARVN and placed under the command of the Joint General Staff.
The concept of Regional Forces was to counter the Viet Cong (VC) Local Force units, while the ARVN regular forces fought the better equipped VC Main Force units and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). Local militia came to play a very effective role in the war, as the style of small-unit warfare was better suited for guerrilla conflicts with most more familiar with the region and terrain. Despite being poorly paid, these forces were much more capable at detecting infiltration and holding civilian areas. Accounting for an estimated 2-5% of war budget, the Regional Force and the Popular Forces were thought to have accounted for roughly 30% of casualties inflicted upon VC/PAVN throughout the entire war. Part of this derives in these units generally being more capable of engaging in small-unit, highly-mobile tactics which proved difficult for slow-moving equipment-heavy units.
The Civil Guard (Dân vệ) was established in April 1955 by a decree of President Ngo Dinh Diem from members of inactivated wartime paramilitary agencies. Its primary function was to relieve the regular forces of internal security duties, with additional missions of local intelligence collection and countersubversion. The Civil Guard was initially under the direct control of the President, but in September 1958 it was placed under the control of the Ministry of the Interior.
In 1955, with the precipitate withdrawal of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps and renewal of hostilities by North Vietnam both considered likely, a six-week civil guard course was instituted for militiamen.
A survey in May 1957 had revealed that there were 54,000 men enrolled in the paramilitary Civil Guard; 7,000 in the municipal police; 3,500 in the Vietnamese Bureau of Investigation, or Sûreté; an undetermined number in the Gendarmerie; and about 50,000 in the Self-Defense Corps. Impressive in size only, these forces generally were poorly equipped, ill-trained, and poorly disciplined. Unlike the static, part-time Self-Defense Corps, the Civil Guard was a more mobile unit organized to patrol the rural districts and was composed of armed, uniformed, full-time personnel responsible for maintaining law and order and collecting intelligence. Since May 1955, a group of police and public administration specialists from Michigan State University under contract to the U.S. Operations Mission had been working on a number of projects to improve the training and operations of the security forces. The group established a six-week basic training course, which had trained 14,000 Civil Guardsmen by mid-1957, and also set up a national police academy. The Michigan State University advisers saw the Civil Guard as a civilian police force similar to the Texas Rangers.
Diem had different ideas about the guard. Since the entire ARVN would be needed in the event of invasion to defend along the 17th Parallel, he maintained that a strong internal security organization was crucial to control the Central Highlands and the Mekong Delta. Thus, the Civil Guard should be "capable of assisting the army in rear areas in time of war." Diem wanted the Ministry of Defense to assume responsibility for training, disciplining, and supplying the guard, but in peacetime it would remain under the operational control of the interior minister. He wanted the Civil Guard's officers to be graduates of the military academy and to have an additional year of training in jurisprudence and traffic control. Since Diem saw the Civil Guard as a kind of second-line army, he wanted it to be unusually well armed and equipped with helicopters and armored cars. While Diem spoke of internal security and military defense, his real interest in the Civil Guard was political. Most members of the guard were former militiamen from the Catholic regions of North Vietnam who had fled south after the Viet Minh victory in 1954 and were among Diem's most loyal supporters. Diem wanted to develop the Civil Guard into a strong force to counter the power of a possibly disloyal army. When the advisers from Michigan State University insisted that a lightly armed but well-trained territorial police force was more appropriate to the needs of South Vietnam, Diem was contemptuous. United States Ambassador to South Vietnam Elbridge Durbrow and U.S. Operations Mission chief Leland Barrows were dubious about Diem's plans for the Civil Guard and insisted that the Civil Guard was a civilian police force, not a paramilitary body, and thus ought to remain fully under control of the Ministry of the Interior. They believed that Washington would probably view a heavily armed, 50,000-man Civil Guard as an attempt to circumvent the 150,000-man ceiling on the South Vietnamese armed forces. Indeed Durbrow and U.S. Operations Mission chief Leland Barrows believed that the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) had always wanted a larger army and that MAAG commander General Samuel Tankersley Williams, with Diem's encouragement, was simply using the Civil Guard issue as a device for covertly expanding the size of the armed forces.
At the beginning of 1958, the Operations Mission had available about $3.5 million for equipping the guard, which, Williams estimated, was sufficient to arm about 10,000 men with M1 rifles, M1 carbines, Browning Automatic Rifles and submachine guns, yet Barrows refused to release those funds as long as Diem insisted on transferring any functions of the guard to the Defense Ministry. The South Vietnamese government then presented a proposal for the organization and equipment of the Civil Guard. The plan called for a force of 55,000 men organized into companies: 225 light infantry, 15 armored, 21 horse, 26 riverine and 13 mobile infantry. They were to be armed with artillery, light tanks, scout cars, half-tracks and helicopters. The fantastic proposal confirmed the suspicions of the Operations Mission that Diem simply intended to use the Civil Guard as a private army. In January 1959, Diem agreed to allow a newly formed Public Safety Division of the U.S. Operations Mission to assume responsibility for training the Civil Guard, but General Williams, who doubted that Americans with police rather than military backgrounds could successfully reorganize and train the Civil Guard, continued to advocate training by the Defense Ministry with advisers from MAAG.
On 15 February 1960, without consulting General Williams or any other American, Diem began a new program by ordering commanders of divisions and military regions to form ranger companies composed of volunteers from the ARVN, the reserves, retired ARVN personnel, and the Civil Guard. Trained in antiguerrilla warfare, each company was to have 131 men: an 11-man headquarters and three 40-man platoons. The military regions and divisions were expected to organize 50 companies by early March. Of these, 32 would be attached to the various military regions and 18 to the divisions. Williams and his staff saw Diem's newest project as "hasty, ill-considered, and destructive to overall instruments of power." What was needed to conquer the VC, Williams believed, was not specialized units but a reorganized, well-equipped, and revitalized Civil Guard; intensive training for units between operations; an improved counterintelligence system; and a clear chain of command.
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South Vietnamese Regional Forces
The South Vietnamese Regional Forces (Vietnamese: Địa phương quân, lit. "Local Army"), originally the Civil Guard, were a component of Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) territorial defence forces. Recruited locally, they served as full-time province-level forces, originally raised as a militia. In 1964, the Regional Forces were integrated into the ARVN and placed under the command of the Joint General Staff.
The concept of Regional Forces was to counter the Viet Cong (VC) Local Force units, while the ARVN regular forces fought the better equipped VC Main Force units and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). Local militia came to play a very effective role in the war, as the style of small-unit warfare was better suited for guerrilla conflicts with most more familiar with the region and terrain. Despite being poorly paid, these forces were much more capable at detecting infiltration and holding civilian areas. Accounting for an estimated 2-5% of war budget, the Regional Force and the Popular Forces were thought to have accounted for roughly 30% of casualties inflicted upon VC/PAVN throughout the entire war. Part of this derives in these units generally being more capable of engaging in small-unit, highly-mobile tactics which proved difficult for slow-moving equipment-heavy units.
The Civil Guard (Dân vệ) was established in April 1955 by a decree of President Ngo Dinh Diem from members of inactivated wartime paramilitary agencies. Its primary function was to relieve the regular forces of internal security duties, with additional missions of local intelligence collection and countersubversion. The Civil Guard was initially under the direct control of the President, but in September 1958 it was placed under the control of the Ministry of the Interior.
In 1955, with the precipitate withdrawal of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps and renewal of hostilities by North Vietnam both considered likely, a six-week civil guard course was instituted for militiamen.
A survey in May 1957 had revealed that there were 54,000 men enrolled in the paramilitary Civil Guard; 7,000 in the municipal police; 3,500 in the Vietnamese Bureau of Investigation, or Sûreté; an undetermined number in the Gendarmerie; and about 50,000 in the Self-Defense Corps. Impressive in size only, these forces generally were poorly equipped, ill-trained, and poorly disciplined. Unlike the static, part-time Self-Defense Corps, the Civil Guard was a more mobile unit organized to patrol the rural districts and was composed of armed, uniformed, full-time personnel responsible for maintaining law and order and collecting intelligence. Since May 1955, a group of police and public administration specialists from Michigan State University under contract to the U.S. Operations Mission had been working on a number of projects to improve the training and operations of the security forces. The group established a six-week basic training course, which had trained 14,000 Civil Guardsmen by mid-1957, and also set up a national police academy. The Michigan State University advisers saw the Civil Guard as a civilian police force similar to the Texas Rangers.
Diem had different ideas about the guard. Since the entire ARVN would be needed in the event of invasion to defend along the 17th Parallel, he maintained that a strong internal security organization was crucial to control the Central Highlands and the Mekong Delta. Thus, the Civil Guard should be "capable of assisting the army in rear areas in time of war." Diem wanted the Ministry of Defense to assume responsibility for training, disciplining, and supplying the guard, but in peacetime it would remain under the operational control of the interior minister. He wanted the Civil Guard's officers to be graduates of the military academy and to have an additional year of training in jurisprudence and traffic control. Since Diem saw the Civil Guard as a kind of second-line army, he wanted it to be unusually well armed and equipped with helicopters and armored cars. While Diem spoke of internal security and military defense, his real interest in the Civil Guard was political. Most members of the guard were former militiamen from the Catholic regions of North Vietnam who had fled south after the Viet Minh victory in 1954 and were among Diem's most loyal supporters. Diem wanted to develop the Civil Guard into a strong force to counter the power of a possibly disloyal army. When the advisers from Michigan State University insisted that a lightly armed but well-trained territorial police force was more appropriate to the needs of South Vietnam, Diem was contemptuous. United States Ambassador to South Vietnam Elbridge Durbrow and U.S. Operations Mission chief Leland Barrows were dubious about Diem's plans for the Civil Guard and insisted that the Civil Guard was a civilian police force, not a paramilitary body, and thus ought to remain fully under control of the Ministry of the Interior. They believed that Washington would probably view a heavily armed, 50,000-man Civil Guard as an attempt to circumvent the 150,000-man ceiling on the South Vietnamese armed forces. Indeed Durbrow and U.S. Operations Mission chief Leland Barrows believed that the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) had always wanted a larger army and that MAAG commander General Samuel Tankersley Williams, with Diem's encouragement, was simply using the Civil Guard issue as a device for covertly expanding the size of the armed forces.
At the beginning of 1958, the Operations Mission had available about $3.5 million for equipping the guard, which, Williams estimated, was sufficient to arm about 10,000 men with M1 rifles, M1 carbines, Browning Automatic Rifles and submachine guns, yet Barrows refused to release those funds as long as Diem insisted on transferring any functions of the guard to the Defense Ministry. The South Vietnamese government then presented a proposal for the organization and equipment of the Civil Guard. The plan called for a force of 55,000 men organized into companies: 225 light infantry, 15 armored, 21 horse, 26 riverine and 13 mobile infantry. They were to be armed with artillery, light tanks, scout cars, half-tracks and helicopters. The fantastic proposal confirmed the suspicions of the Operations Mission that Diem simply intended to use the Civil Guard as a private army. In January 1959, Diem agreed to allow a newly formed Public Safety Division of the U.S. Operations Mission to assume responsibility for training the Civil Guard, but General Williams, who doubted that Americans with police rather than military backgrounds could successfully reorganize and train the Civil Guard, continued to advocate training by the Defense Ministry with advisers from MAAG.
On 15 February 1960, without consulting General Williams or any other American, Diem began a new program by ordering commanders of divisions and military regions to form ranger companies composed of volunteers from the ARVN, the reserves, retired ARVN personnel, and the Civil Guard. Trained in antiguerrilla warfare, each company was to have 131 men: an 11-man headquarters and three 40-man platoons. The military regions and divisions were expected to organize 50 companies by early March. Of these, 32 would be attached to the various military regions and 18 to the divisions. Williams and his staff saw Diem's newest project as "hasty, ill-considered, and destructive to overall instruments of power." What was needed to conquer the VC, Williams believed, was not specialized units but a reorganized, well-equipped, and revitalized Civil Guard; intensive training for units between operations; an improved counterintelligence system; and a clear chain of command.
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