John Rambo and the hill defense
In the second chapter of the book, Rambo tells a North Vietnamese Army frontal assault to a hill.
The basic NVA tactic was to get the nearer to the US soldiers without being seen, and engaging them the nearest they could.
Opening fire so close prevented the Americans from defending themselves using helicopters, airplanes and artillery, because of the too high risk of friendly fire incidents.
Then the Vietcong attacked all at once even using hand to hand combat when necessary, and hoping to win mostly because of their larger number.
This was a bloody strategy for both sides, but the only one that let the Vietcong compensate (even if not completely) for the American technological superiority.
Anyway, Rambo makes a mistake in this chapter: the NVA never intentionally used artillery on his own assaulting troops. What he saw can be explained with an unintentional friendly fire episode or an optic illusion. Anyway, as often happens during war, we will probably never know what he really saw that day.
The key words to deepen the subject are “HUMAN WAVE ATTACK”, which is the technical term that describes this strategy.
Here below, a sketch that portrays a human wave frontal assault featuring the Germans against the Russians during World War Two.
