Tagging this one is a little confusing, as all the characters in the foreground are wearing the uniform of the PAVN, despite the NLF flag one of them is waving. Their equipment reinforces the belief that these are PAVN, as being the official army of North Vietnam, they'd be the ones with field radios, combat boots, and Type 56's.
That said, there are what looks to be a couple NLF fighters following behind, with the black outfits and carrying M1 Carbines. But the NLF and PAVN never really fought together during the war: pre-1968 the NLF were fighting in the southern provinces while PAVN fought in the North near the DMZ, and after 1968 the NLF was all but wiped out and PAVN basically took over the war in its entirety.
Maybe a few of the remaining NLF fighters are joining a PAVN attack in 1973 or 1974? I dunno. Have I been thinking about this way too hard? Almost certainly.
Tagging this one is a little confusing, as all the characters in the foreground are wearing the uniform of the PAVN, despite the NLF flag one of them is waving. Their equipment reinforces the belief that these are PAVN, as being the official army of North Vietnam, they'd be the ones with field radios, combat boots, and Type 56's.
That said, there are what looks to be a couple NLF fighters following behind, with the black outfits and carrying M1 Carbines. But the NLF and PAVN never really fought together during the war: pre-1968 the NLF were fighting in the southern provinces while PAVN fought in the North near the DMZ, and after 1968 the NLF was all but wiped out and PAVN basically took over the war in its entirety.
Maybe a few of the remaining NLF fighters are joining a PAVN attack in 1973 or 1974? I dunno. Have I been thinking about this way too hard? Almost certainly.
Both the southerners and the northern reinforcements fought in the NLF, whether in conventional or guerrilla battles. Although in the later stages the number of northern reinforcements was greater than the number of southerners or southern orgins, the actual ratio was not more than 50%. The majority still had many southern soldiers who could have remained after 1968 or were new recruits. Whether they were original NLF divisions or northern reinforcements, when they entered the South, they were all NLF soldiers. There was no distinction, such as Pavn being regular and NLF being guerrilla, as from many US sources.
Both the southerners and the northern reinforcements fought in the NLF, whether in conventional or guerrilla battles. Although in the later stages the number of northern reinforcements was greater than the number of southerners or southern orgins, the actual ratio was not more than 50%. The majority still had many southern soldiers who could have remained after 1968 or were new recruits. Whether they were original NLF divisions or northern reinforcements, when they entered the South, they were all NLF soldiers. There was no distinction, such as Pavn being regular and NLF being guerrilla, as from many US sources.
While it's certainly true that the NLF was reinforced by large amounts of volunteers (and "volunteers") from the North, I'm talking more about uniforms/equipment. Even the northern reinforcements to the NLF did their best to integrate into the NLF, using their equipment and wearing their outfits. And especially in the early years of the conflict, Hanoi for political reasons needed to maintain a fiction of separation between North Vietnam and the NLF, so NLF fighters being too open about their connection to North Vietnam would have been a big no-no.
This image, however, shows fighters openly wearing the uniforms and equipment of the PAVN fighting alongside the NLF, or to be precise, the NLF fighting alongside them. Again, northern reinforcements to the NLF were never that blatant, so it stands to reason that the characters in the foreground aren't NLF but PAVN, except this then goes back to my point earlier about how those formations never really fought together until the very end. An alternative could be that these are northern reinforcements to the NLF who show no desire to integrate into the NLF or hide their PAVN origin, but again, that didn't really happen until the very end of the war when the NLF was being basically absorbed as PAVN tanks advanced on Saigon.
Finally, the assertion that any communist fighter in South Vietnam was NLF is not at all consistent with historical sources from any party in the conflict. As early as 1964, Hanoi was sending North Vietnamese regular soldiers into the South to train and equip the NLF, by 1965 full PAVN divisions were engaged in combat, and in 1967 PAVN were responsible for sparking many of the "border conflicts" intended to draw the Americans away from the cities in preparation for Tet. PAVN flew their own flag, had their own command structure, and cared just as little for the local southern population as the Americans did. There were definite distinctions between the NLF and PAVN, which is one of the big reasons why there was such resentment amongst what remained of the NLF any time they were subsumed by the regular army.
