[SG2] AAR: Escape from Tangana - Long Tan

> Thomas Barclay wrote:

Sounds a bit like the battle of Long Than.

Where a relatively green company of Australian infantry got ambushed by 2
battalions of Mainforce and a battalion of local VC, in the rain in a
plantation.

see http://vietvet.org/visit/maps/longt.htm for a map

A quote from http://www.q-net.net.au/~dazsal/longtan.html

> Captured enemy documents and the interrogation of prisoners revealed

For the full story, try
http://users.mildura.net.au/users/marshall/lt/lt.htm

Unlike this scenario, the Australians had plenty of artillery from a NZ
battery. And they knew how to use it. After a few hours, reinforcements
arrived in the shape of an Armoured Cavalry (APC) Squadron and more troops.

Funnily enough I went to Uni with a guy from Beijing who'd been a "Military
Advisor", in charge of some 57mm RRs the NVA were using at the time. He nearly
got squashed by an M113 twice, as the APCs just drove through the VC
positions, then back through again, in almost zero visibility.

He said that it was a classic Horseshoe ambush: that the orders were to get in
close, to avoid the Australian artillery and US air strikes (the latter were
prevented by the weather in the event). But that with the rain, command and
control was impossible, there was almost no cover, the Australians fired
single shots rather than automatic so were difficult to locate, and seemingly
every round they fired hit. The VC just could not work out why the heck
everything was turning to custard, because "by the book" the Australians had
been suckered completely, a complete
intelligence foul-up for them. He said the VC had lost about 50%
casualties, including just about all the brand-new heavy weapons.

I might add that according to the company commander's home page at
http://users.mildura.net.au/users/marshall/harry/harry.htm
he still doesn't believe it was an ambush.