Doctrine of Employment

Doctrine of Employment

Depending on how one counts, two field-army (or corps-level) companies, eight divisional companies, and five brigade detachments were employed in Vietnam in the four-year period before their re-designation as Ranger companies. Eventually 13 Ranger companies were formed. Given the geographical variance of the field force, division, and brigade operational areas, the average field force command-tour lengths of 15 months (I Field Force) and 10 months (II Field Force), division command-tour length of approximately nine-10 months, and the changing tactical and operational situation over the course of the war, characterizing the employment doctrine of any single LRRP/LRP/Ranger unit in Vietnam is problematic, let alone the doctrine of more than a dozen such units. But through examining both the primary and secondary sources, one can identify missions assigned to LRRP/LRP/Ranger teams and from that draw conclusions about their doctrinal employment.

Here, for example, is a list of missions assigned to LRRP teams of 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, by the brigade S2 during the period from June 1966 to November 1967: confirm enemy control of specific terrain, determine if enemy has moved back into an area vacated by brigade maneuver battalion, obtain intelligence on enemy re-supply activity, confirm sightings of enemy troops and identify unit, capture enemy prisoner, conduct reconnaissance in zone to find enemy force (several iterations), support civil-affairs project, conduct road checkpoint, confirm intelligence information obtained from a PW interrogation, reconnoiter an area and establish ambush, provide extended-range listening post/observation post (LP/OP) for forward fire-support base, and establish blocking position for advancing infantry unit. One can also add to this a number of routine close-in ambush patrols around the brigade base camp, which were required of all combat units but also were used by LRRP units to train new personnel in patrol procedures.28 Two trends can be observed in this list: the brigade intelligence officer was assigning the missions, and the preponderance of LRP activity was intelligence-driven and not intended to result in combat.

The main body of the 101st Airborne Division deployed to Vietnam in November 1967. The division formed F Company (LRP), 58th Infantry (Airborne) in January 1968 by combining the forces of 1st Brigade's provisional LRRP platoon with the divisional Recondo School-based unit from Fort Campbell and soldiers from the replacement stream. The 101st Airborne Division used this LRP company for a variety of defensive missions in southern and northern South Vietnam through the late spring of 1968, when the division commander finally released it to the control of the division intelligence staff.29 Here is a list of missions assigned to this LRP unit's teams from late March through November 1968: conduct area reconnaissance to update intelligence information on enemy base camps and units (secondary-interdict and destroy rocket teams or sites), monitor junction of three high-speed trails (secondary-look for regimental base camp), deliver and install seismic-intrusion devices in remote area (multiple occasions), conduct area reconnaissance for suspected enemy base camp, find radar-controlled antiaircraft heavy machine gun, conduct saturation patrols of a border area (multiple teams inserted), find and eliminate rocket teams, observe enemy troop movement in zone (secondary-locate and destroy enemy radio transmitter), find and ambush small parties of enemy soldiers, and attempt to capture a prisoner.30

It is clear from the memoirs of soldiers who served in the 101st Airborne Division's LRP unit that the division G2 assigned missions and members of the G2 staff briefed LRP teams before departure on missions, debriefing them upon their return.31 An officer of this unit informed the USARV Long Range Patrol Conference in August 1968 that “the LRP company receives its missions directly from the division G2, the Commanding General authorizes each mission, and the G3 provides the assets.”32 Of course, many of these patrols resulted in enemy contact, some of it initiated by patrols and more of it by the enemy upon their discovery of LRP teams in their midst. Many brave soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division were killed and wounded in these actions. But the mission analysis alone leads to the conclusion that, in this division, LRP teams were employed more as an intelligence asset than a combat asset.