2/1 196th Area of Operations
Enemy Deployment


NVA Soldier

North Vietnamese Army (NVA)
The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) was known to the American forces as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). The NVA divided Vietnam into military regions; similar to the Tactical Zones defined by the United States. The NVA had four Military Regions (1-4) in North Vietnam. Around 1964-1965, numbers were established for military regions in South Vietnam. B-1 Front (Military Region 5) covered the northern half of South Vietnam. The B-3 Front (Tay Nguyen/Western Highlands Front) roughly corresponding to the VC’s MR 10 and part of MR 1 region. The B-4 and the B-5 Fronts, operating under control of Military Region 4, covered Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces. This was also known as the Tri-Thien-Hue Military Region. The 70B Corps was established to coordinate NVA Divisions and various other units along Route 9 on the west side of these provinces and in Laos. The Southern Regional Headquarters controlled the B-2 Front; Military Regions 6 to 9 and the Saigon-Gia Dinh Special Zone. Military Region 6 covered the rest of ARVN’s II CTZ and the northern part of III CTZ. The westernmost elements MR 6 and MR 7 basically fell into the VC’s Region 10. Military Region 7 covered the ARVN’s III CTZ, down to the Saigon area. In 1967, this region took over the Saigon-Gia Dinh Special Zone; which was pretty much the VC’s regions 1 and 4. Military Region 8 was southwest of Saigon, running from Cambodia to the South China Sea; largely the VC’s Region 2. Military Region 9 covered the southernmost part of South Vietnam; largely the VC’s MR 3.

VC Soldier

Viet Cong
The earliest mention of "Viet Cong" in English is from 1957. American soldiers referred to the Viet Cong as "Victor Charlie". "Charlie" referred to communist forces in general, both Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. The Viet Cong, or the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF), was a political organization and army in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (1955–1975). It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. Many soldiers were recruited in South Vietnam, but others were attached to the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), the regular North Vietnamese army. The relationship between the Viet Cong and the Hanoi government was highly controversial during the war. During the war, communists and anti-war spokesmen insisted the Viet Cong was an insurgency indigenous to the South and identify the Viet Cong with the National Liberation Front, which they stress was a multiparty organization. Although the People's Revolutionary Party, the South Vietnamese communist party, was the front's "paramount member", there were two other parties in the NLF, the Democratic Party and the Radical Socialist Party. The official Vietnamese history of the war states that, "The Liberation Army of South Vietnam (Viet Cong) is a part of the People’s Army of Vietnam". The Viet Cong were responsible for the first US deaths and first major battle engagements in 1959.