Let's look at the traps used by Vietnamese guerrillas during the war and how they ruined the lives of the occupiers.
Vietnamese traps, being very insidious and effective products, at one time spoiled a lot of blood for Americans.
The jungle in Cu Chi was fraught with many unpleasant surprises, from the already mentioned mines, which even blew up tanks like this M41, to the famous movie homemade traps, some of which can be seen up close.
"Tiger Trap" Ji Ai walks along calmly, suddenly the ground under his feet opens up and he falls to the bottom of a hole studded with stakes. If he is unlucky and does not die immediately, but screams in pain, his comrades will gather nearby, trying to pull the unfortunate man out. Need I say that around the trap in several places there are exits from the tunnels to the surface, to camouflaged sniper positions?
The trap was covered to match the terrain: with leaves
Or covered with turf and grass
Or more humane traps, “Vietnamese souvenirs”. This is a pretty high-tech trap. There are pins at the bottom; in addition, ropes connected to nails are stretched under the round platform. When a soldier steps on an inconspicuous hole, covered on top with a piece of paper with leaves...
The leg falls through and the first thing he does is pierce the leg with pins at the bottom, at the same time the ropes are stretched and pull nails out of the holes, which pierce the leg from the sides, while fixing it and making it impossible to pull it out.
As a rule, the soldier did not die, but as a result he lost his leg, and then received pins removed from his leg in a Saigon hospital as a souvenir. Hence the name.
The next few photos show a similar design.
Or is there a wider trap?
As you probably already noticed, special attention was paid not only to the task of piercing the adversary, but also to pin him in place and not let him get off the hook. This “basket” was placed in flooded rice fields or near river banks, hidden under water. A paratrooper jumps out of a helicopter or boat, OPA! - we've arrived...
The soldiers try to follow the trail
However, it happened that the task was not to injure, but to kill. Then they put on grinds like this, in which G.I. quickly stuffed himself under his own weight.
For those who liked to enter the house without knocking, simply by knocking down the door with a valiant blow, such a device was hung above it. The slow one went straight to the other world, the quick one managed to put a machine gun forward - for such, the lower half of the trap was suspended on a separate loop and made a sofa out of his eggs. So the efficient one, as the Vietnamese guide put it, then went to Thailand, a paradise for transvestites.
Well, the simplest, most reliable and popular design in the film industry. Since it flies much faster than the “home” one, there is no need to worry about having two halves. And so it will sweep away. The guide likes her the most.
The traps were very diverse.
Regular wolf pit
Leading Vietnamese production workers returned to their workplaces. Long nails, thin steel rods - everything will go into use. It is enough to drive more sharp objects into a wooden block, and the base for the trap is ready.
The magazine clearly shows that even women and children participated in the making of traps.
Clamshell trap. The simplest and most common trap. They say that at one time it was mass-produced by Vietnamese schoolchildren during labor lessons. The principle is simple. Placed in a small hole and covered with leaves. When the enemy steps on it, under the weight of the foot, the boards are dented and the nails, previously smeared with manure, are pierced into the foot. Blood poisoning is guaranteed.
Board with spades. It is made on the principle of a rake, at the end of which there is a board with nails. When the enemy steps on the “pedal”, the board joyfully jumps up and hits the soldier in the chest, either in the face, or in the neck, or wherever it hits.
Sliding trap. It consists of two wooden boards moving along guides and studded with pins. The boards are moved apart, a support is placed between them, and they are wrapped with an elastic rubber band (or Pilates tape). When the support holding the slats moves, the latter, under the action of the cord, slide along the guides towards each other. But they are not destined to meet, because someone’s soft body is already between them.
A welcoming trap. Making such a trap is not difficult, and it will delight you for a long time. You and your guests. You will need: two bamboo stalks, steel rods and wire. We connect the bamboo into the letter “T” and drive the rods into the headboard. We hang the finished trap above the door, connect it with a wire and invite a neighbor to come over, for example, to watch football. When a neighbor inadvertently crosses the wire, the trap flies whistling towards the guest.
According to an old Vietnamese belief, hanging a rake over the entrance and smeared with manure is a sign of peace in the house.
Someone was “lucky” to run into this trap. It's better to dismantle it.
The article is written based on the books by Alan Lloyd Peter ""Back. Part 1: Across the Fence" and ""Back. Part 2: Into the Jungle"
During the Vietnam War (1964-1973), Americans were faced with one unexpected and very unpleasant surprise - a large number of Vietnamese traps. Due to the natural features of the area - dense jungle, many rivers and swamps, as well as an underdeveloped road network, the Americans could not fully use vehicles, and were forced to rely on helicopters in huge numbers to move troops. In the Vietnamese jungle itself, in the depths of the territory, American troops, having no other option, were forced to move and fight on foot. And this is in conditions of average summer temperatures of more than 30 degrees and one hundred percent humidity. It is also worth remembering what the rainy season is like in Vietnam - when tropical rains fall almost continuously for several months, flooding vast areas with water. The main character of the movie "Forrest Gump" talks about the rains in Vietnam:
"One day it began to rain and did not stop for four months. During this time we learned all types of rain: direct rain, slanting rain, horizontal rain, and even rain that comes from bottom to top."
American Marines in murky Vietnamese waters
In the wilds of the Vietnamese jungle
Vietnamese swamp. Batangan. 1965
South Vietnamese Army soldiers on the march
A Piasecki H-21 "Shawnee" helicopter transports reinforcements and picks up the wounded. Vietnam. The beginning of the war. 1965
Aerial cavalcade of Bell UH-1 "Huey". 1968
A column of the 25th Division on an M113 armored personnel carrier (APC) is moving along the "federal" road Tau Ninh-Dau Tieng. 1968
It was no better in the mountains of Vietnam. Shau District
In such specific conditions, when even a few dirt roads turn into an impassable mess, and the use of aviation is problematic, the technical superiority of the American army is to a certain extent leveled out and Vietnamese traps become very effective and deadly.
Here are some of them.
The famous Punji trap was installed in large numbers on forest paths, near American bases, and being camouflaged under a thin layer of grass, leaves, soil or water, it was difficult to detect. The size of the trap was calculated exactly to fit the foot in the boot. The stakes were always smeared with feces, carrion and other bad substances. Getting your foot into such a trap, having your sole pierced by stakes and being wounded almost certainly caused blood poisoning. They often had a more complex design.
Broken shoe
Bamboo trap - installed in the doors of rural houses. As soon as the door was opened, a small log with sharp stakes flew out of the opening. Often traps were set in such a way that the blow would fall on the head - if triggered successfully, this would lead to severe injuries, often fatal.
Sometimes such traps, but in the form of a large log with stakes and a trigger mechanism using a tripwire, were installed on paths in the jungle.
In dense thickets, the log was replaced with a spherical structure. It should be noted that the Vietnamese often made stakes not from metal, but from bamboo - a very hard material from which knives are made in Southeast Asia.
Whip Trap - often set along jungle trails. To do this, a bamboo trunk with long stakes at the ends was bent and connected to a guy wire through a block. As soon as you touched a wire or fishing line (the Vietnamese often used it), the released bamboo trunk with stakes hit with all its might the area from the knees to the stomach of the person who touched it. Naturally, all traps were carefully camouflaged.
Big Punji is a larger version of Punji. This trap caused much more serious injuries - here the leg was pierced up to the thigh, including the groin area, often with irreversible injuries in the area of the “main male organ”. The stakes were also smeared with something nasty.
One of the scariest big Punji is with a rotating lid. The lid was attached to a bamboo trunk and rotated freely, always returning to a strictly horizontal position. The lid was covered with grass and leaves on both sides. Having stepped on the platform lid, the victim fell into a deep hole (3 meters or more) with stakes, the lid was rotated 180 degrees and the trap was again ready for the next victim.
Bucket Trap (bucket trap) - a bucket with stakes, and often with large fishing hooks, dug into the ground, camouflaged. The whole horror of this trap was that the stakes were firmly attached to the bucket at an angle downward, and if you fell into such a trap, it was impossible to pull out your leg - when you tried to pull it out of the bucket, the stakes only dug deeper into your leg. Therefore, it was necessary to dig out a bucket, and the unfortunate man, along with the bucket on his leg, was evacuated using MEDEVAC to the hospital.
Side Closing Trap - two boards with stakes were held together with elastic rubber, stretched, and thin bamboo sticks were inserted between them. As soon as you fell into such a trap, breaking the sticks, the doors slammed shut just at the level of the victim’s stomach. Additional stakes may also have been dug into the bottom of the pit.
Spike Board trap (snake board) - these traps, as a rule, were installed in shallow reservoirs, swamps, puddles, etc. As soon as you stepped on the pressure plate, the other end of the board with stakes would forcefully hit upward and towards the person who stepped on it. A successful hit often resulted in death. An example of such a trap being triggered from the film "Southern Hospitality".
The Vietnamese have launched mass production of traps
Press-action cartridge trap in a bamboo container. Various cartridges could be used, including hunting cartridges with shot or buckshot.
Although all these traps look impressive, of course, the damage they cause cannot be compared with mines and tripwire grenades. By constantly mining the territory and setting up tripwires, the Vietnamese managed to turn the presence of the American military on foreign soil into a real hell.
"Pineapple" - grenades, high-explosive shells and other ammunition suspended from tree branches. To trigger it, you had to touch the branches. One of the most common traps during the Vietnam War.
Stretching - installed on the ground or close to it. The situation was aggravated by the fact that in the forest floor of the jungle, in the twilight, it is very difficult to notice the trap, and even more so in forty-degree heat and one hundred percent humidity, which clearly do not contribute to concentration. The photo from Vietnam shows a well-installed tripwire with a Chinese hand grenade in the grass. Even with camera flash it is very difficult to notice.
Very often the Vietnamese installed tripwires underwater. It was almost impossible to detect them in muddy water.
Often, a vessel made of thick bamboo filled with a mixture of ammonia nitrate and diesel fuel was installed under a grenade or other ammunition. This technique greatly increased the damaging effect of a grenade explosion. So, on December 6, 1968, in the Ho Chi Minh Trail area, one such tripwire led to the death of 5 Marines and injuries of varying degrees of severity to another 12 from the group. Tripwire is the most common trap during the Vietnam War.
Naturally, as in any other big war, the Vietnamese massively used mines of various types - ordinary push-action, jumping, tripwire, directional, which were often set to non-removable, landmines along the roads to blow up vehicles and armored vehicles, as well as ambushes and sabotage behind enemy lines.
We can talk about these traps for a very long time, paying tribute to the ingenuity, cruelty and resourcefulness of the Vietnamese. For the Americans, these “surprises” came as a very unpleasant surprise.
Due to the natural features of the area - dense jungle, many rivers and swamps, as well as an underdeveloped road network, the Americans could not fully use vehicles, and were forced to rely on helicopters in huge numbers to move troops. In the Vietnamese jungle itself, in the depths of the territory, American troops, having no other option, were forced to move and fight on foot. And this is in conditions of average summer temperatures of more than 30 degrees and one hundred percent humidity. It is also worth remembering what the rainy season is like in Vietnam - when tropical rains fall almost continuously for several months, flooding vast areas with water. The main character of the movie "Forrest Gump" talks about the rains in Vietnam:
"One day it began to rain and did not stop for four months. During this time we learned all types of rain: direct rain, slanting rain, horizontal rain, and even rain that comes from bottom to top."
American Marines in murky Vietnamese waters
In the wilds of the Vietnamese jungle
A Piasecki H-21 "Shawnee" helicopter transports reinforcements and picks up the wounded. Vietnam. The beginning of the war. 1965
South Vietnamese Army soldiers on the march
Vietnamese swamp. Batangan. 1965
Aerial cavalcade of Bell UH-1 "Huey". 1968
A column of the 25th Division on an M113 armored personnel carrier (APC) is moving along the "federal" road Tau Ninh-Dau Tieng. 1968
In such specific conditions, when even a few dirt roads turn into an impassable mess, and the use of aviation is problematic, the technical superiority of the American army is to a certain extent leveled out and Vietnamese traps become very effective and deadly.
Here are some of them.
The famous Punji trap was installed in large numbers on forest paths, near American bases, and being camouflaged under a thin layer of grass, leaves, soil or water, it was difficult to detect. The size of the trap was calculated exactly to fit the foot in the boot. The stakes were always smeared with feces, carrion and other bad substances. Getting your foot into such a trap, having your sole pierced by stakes and being wounded almost certainly caused blood poisoning. They often had a more complex design.
Broken shoe
Bamboo trap - installed in the doors of rural houses. As soon as the door was opened, a small log with sharp stakes flew out of the opening. Often traps were set in such a way that the blow would fall on the head - if triggered successfully, this would lead to severe injuries, often fatal.
Sometimes such traps, but in the form of a large log with stakes and a trigger mechanism using a tripwire, were installed on paths in the jungle.
In dense thickets, the log was replaced with a spherical structure. It should be noted that the Vietnamese often made stakes not from metal, but from bamboo - a very hard material from which knives are made in Southeast Asia.
Whip Trap - often set along jungle trails. To do this, a bamboo trunk with long stakes at the ends was bent and connected to a guy wire through a block. As soon as you touched a wire or fishing line (the Vietnamese often used it), the released bamboo trunk with stakes hit with all its might the area from the knees to the stomach of the person who touched it. Naturally, all traps were carefully camouflaged.
Big Punji is a larger version of Punji. This trap caused much more serious injuries - here the leg was pierced up to the thigh, including the groin area, often with irreversible injuries in the area of the “main male organ”. The stakes were also smeared with something nasty.
One of the scariest big Punji is with a rotating lid. The lid was attached to a bamboo trunk and rotated freely, always returning to a strictly horizontal position. The lid was covered with grass and leaves on both sides. Having stepped on the platform lid, the victim fell into a deep hole (3 meters or more) with stakes, the lid was rotated 180 degrees and the trap was again ready for the next victim.
Bucket Trap (bucket trap) - a bucket with stakes, and often with large fishing hooks, dug into the ground, camouflaged. The whole horror of this trap was that the stakes were firmly attached to the bucket at an angle downward, and if you fell into such a trap, it was impossible to pull out your leg - when you tried to pull it out of the bucket, the stakes only dug deeper into your leg. Therefore, it was necessary to dig out a bucket, and the unfortunate man, along with the bucket on his leg, was evacuated using MEDEVAC to the hospital.
Side Closing Trap - two boards with stakes were held together with elastic rubber, stretched, and thin bamboo sticks were inserted between them. As soon as you fell into such a trap, breaking the sticks, the doors slammed shut just at the level of the victim’s stomach. Additional stakes may also have been dug into the bottom of the pit.
Spike Board trap (snake board) - these traps, as a rule, were installed in shallow reservoirs, swamps, puddles, etc. As soon as you stepped on the pressure plate, the other end of the board with stakes would forcefully hit upward and towards the person who stepped on it. A successful hit often resulted in death.
The Vietnamese have launched mass production of traps
Press-action cartridge trap in a bamboo container. Various cartridges could be used, including hunting cartridges with shot or buckshot.
Although all these traps look impressive, of course, the damage they cause cannot be compared with mines and tripwire grenades. By constantly mining the territory and setting up tripwires, the Vietnamese managed to turn the presence of the American military on foreign soil into a real hell.
"Pineapple" - grenades, high-explosive shells and other ammunition suspended from tree branches. To trigger it, you had to touch the branches. One of the most common traps during the Vietnam War.
Stretching - installed on the ground or close to it. The situation was aggravated by the fact that in the forest floor of the jungle, in the twilight, it is very difficult to notice the trap, and even more so in forty-degree heat and one hundred percent humidity, which clearly do not contribute to concentration.
The photo from Vietnam shows a well-installed tripwire with a Chinese hand grenade in the grass. Even with camera flash it is very difficult to notice.
Good shot. An explosion of ammunition at a Marine base as a result of sabotage. Vietnam. March 18, 1968
To prevent their own people from falling into traps, the Vietnamese developed an entire signaling system of sticks, leaves and broken branches arranged in a certain way. An experienced person could use these marks to determine not only that a trap was installed nearby, but also the type of trap.
This is not to say that the Americans did not struggle with this. The traps and signaling system were carefully and constantly studied. Regular training was conducted with personnel, and pocket instructions on traps and their disarming were issued. Miners began to be placed at the head of the groups.
Disarming a trap
Rewards were paid to local residents for reports of found traps.
USMC announcement of reward for reporting decoys
However, the American military still continued to fall into traps and be blown up throughout the war.
Vietnam's war with America was brutal and unequal in strength. But the fearless Vietnamese fought desperately, using natural resources and their ingenuity.
The Vietnam War lasted from 1964 to 1975. It was attended by the USA, Vietnam, USSR, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, China and the DPRK. The war claimed many lives and had only one goal: the possession of all of Vietnam and the possibility of placing military bases on its territory to control the Asia-Pacific region. The US Army, as it turned out later, was poorly prepared for this war. It was almost impossible for the Americans to conduct ground operations in the local jungle with a bunch of Vietnamese traps set by the local population.
All local rebels dressed in camouflage and knew the terrain very well. It was extremely difficult for American soldiers to notice them. US armored vehicles could not move through the jungle, so the Americans could only rely on infantry and air support. Vietnam's war with America was brutal and unequal in strength. But the fearless Vietnamese fought desperately, using natural resources and their ingenuity. Their traps were truly dangerous.
- Punji. The Vietnamese installed these traps near American bases on the trails, perfectly camouflaging them under a layer of grass or earth. They were extremely difficult to detect. An ordinary punji was designed to fit the size of a human foot, was half a meter deep and resembled a cube with spikes that were lubricated with various wastes. A person who fell into it could not only injure his leg, but also easily get blood poisoning. Other punjas were three-meter inverted cubes. Falling inside, a person died from sharp spikes that reached the length of the groin area. Then the cube turned 180 degrees and waited for a new victim. There was a punji and even more with a lid rotating in different directions, but in the end always returning to a clearly horizontal position. It was impossible to get out of such a trap.
- Bamboo traps. It was usually installed at the entrance to houses. When the enemy entered, a stick with spikes flew at him. The blow was to the head or stomach. Such a trap easily crushed the bones of the skull and ripped open the insides. The Vietnamese installed similar traps, but of a larger size, on the trails in the form of tripwires. Here the blow from her fell to the full height of a person.
- Whip traps. Sometimes the Vietnamese installed a trip wire in the jungle, attaching a bamboo trunk to it, which they bent. Sharp stakes were tied tightly to the end of the trunk. If the enemy touched the fishing line or wire, then the freed trunk dealt an instant blow with stakes from the stomach to the knees.
- Bucket traps. It was similar to the punji, but it used fishhooks set at an angle and the most ordinary buckets. The bucket was buried and carefully camouflaged. When falling into such a trap, sharp hooks dug into the enemy’s leg, causing considerable pain. It was impossible to get out of it without digging up a bucket. Although these Vietnamese traps were not lethal, they greatly reduced the number of enemy combat-ready soldiers.
- Traps with closing sides. The Vietnamese made them from two boards held together with elastic rubber and stretched them. Bamboo was inserted between them and this structure was placed over a dug hole, at the bottom of which stakes or poisonous snakes could be located. Falling into the trap, a person found himself pinned at the level of his stomach.
- Spike board. The traps were camouflaged plates to which a board with stakes was attached. If the opponent stepped on the plate, he received a strong blow from the bottom up with the board.
- Classic stretching. Was on the ground or at a low altitude from it. The trap was very difficult to spot. This was hampered by dense thickets, tall grass, the twilight of the jungle and terrible heat with a humidity of 100%. Exhausted American soldiers at that time often fell into such traps.
I bring to your attention a selection of the most terrible traps that the Vietnamese partisans set. The sight of some of them sent shivers down my spine. Not for the impressionable.
Homemade partisan traps from the Vietnam War: “Vietnamese souvenir.” Pins were fastened at the bottom; in addition, ropes connected to nails were stretched under the round platform. When a soldier stepped on an inconspicuous hole, covered on top with a piece of paper with leaves.
The leg would fall through and the first thing he would do was pierce his leg with pins at the bottom, at the same time the ropes were stretched and pulled nails out of the holes, which pierced the leg from the sides, while fixing it and preventing it from being pulled out. As a rule, the soldier did not die, but in As a result, he lost his leg, and then received pins removed from his leg in a Saigon hospital as a souvenir. Hence the name.
This “basket” was placed in flooded rice fields or near river banks, hidden under water. A paratrooper jumps out of a helicopter or boat, OPA! - we arrived...
They also set up these grinders, in which the soldier stuffed himself under his own weight.
And such terrible spinning things...
For those who liked to enter the house without knocking, simply by knocking down the door with a valiant blow, the following device was hung above it:
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