NLF and PAVN battle tactics

VC and PAVN battle tactics comprised a flexible mix of guerrilla and conventional warfare battle tactics used by Viet Cong (VC) and the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) to defeat their U.S. and South Vietnamese (GVN/ARVN) opponents during the Vietnam War.

The VC was supposedly an umbrella of front groups to conduct the insurgency in South Vietnam affiliated with independent groups and sympathizers, but was in fact entirely controlled by the North Vietnamese communist party and the PAVN. The armed wing of the VC was regional and local guerrillas, and the People's Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF). The PLAF was the "Main Force" – the Chu Luc full-time soldiers of the VC's military muscle. Many histories lump both the VC and the armed wing under the term "Viet Cong" in common usage. Both were tightly interwoven and were in turn controlled by the North.^: 12–239 Others consider the VC to primarily refer to the armed elements. The PAVN was the regular army of North Vietnam. Collectively, both forces – the southern armed wing and the regulars from the north were part of PAVN, and are treated as such in official communist histories of the war.