NVA Sapper.

This is coolbert:

From that previous blog entry:

"This sounds to me as the sapper style attack as was so popular among the communist forces during the Second Indo-China war.".

NVA = North Vietnamese Army.

VC = Viet Cong.

"North Vietnamese Army sapper unit stalking techniques"

From an Internet web site as extracted a translation of a captured document from that era of the Second Indo-China War, that training of a North Vietnamese sapper intense in the extreme!

Here an image showing a NVA sapper in training. My understanding the sapper often if not exclusively went into battle NAKED. So as to not have clothing caught on barbed wire. This man is wearing gym shorts and nothing else. Perhaps for training purposes and modesty sake also?

According to the document the training these particular units [sappers] received were elaborate. "We" as used in all instances referring to the NVA/VC:

* "We learned how to crouch while walking, how to crawl, how to move silently through mud and water, how to walk through dry leaves. We practiced different ways of stopping while we walked. In teams of seven men, we practiced moving in rhythm to avoid being spotted under searchlights, synchronizing our motions, stepping with the toes first, then gradually lowering our heels to the ground, very slowly, step by step.".

* "Wading through mud, we were taught to walk by lowering our toes first, and then the rest of the foot. Picking our feet up, we would move them gently (to break any suction), then slowly pull up the heels to avoid making any noises. If you just pulled them up, without first moving them around gently, you would make sounds."

* "The same thing happened if you don't put your toes down first. We used the same method for walking through water. On dry leaves, we would sling our weapons over our backs and move in a bent over position using hands as well as feet."

* "We were taught to move the dried leaves away with our hands, then pull our feet up underneath our palms so that we wouldn't step on the leaves."

* "We kept moving that way until we reached our objective. Time made no difference."

* "In training, it might take two or three hours to crawl like this through five fences of barbed wire."

End document quote.

See also this You tube video entitled:  "Cheiu Hoi gives sapper demonstration at the 1st Air Cavalry Division Combat Train...HD Stock Footage". I recommend this video to devoted readers to the blog without qualification or reservation. Amazing stuff!

An enemy sapper who has defected [Cheiu Hoi]  to the allied side in Vietnam demonstrates his technique for circumventing a tangle-foot barbed wire obstacle.

For the uninitiated the sapper also first dis-arms an American Claymore mine, reverses the position of the mine to face the American troops and then re-arms. If that mine had been detonated the American defender would have been sprayed with a spew of fragments from his own weapon!!

Again, amazing!

coolbert.