A combined U.S. Special Forces-Vietnamese Special Forces operational directive which specified that camp operations begin and, where possible, end in the hours of darkness was complied with by the CIDG camps. This tactic, based on the realization that the night belongs to him who uses it, was a sharp and welcome departure from previous practice. The substantial jump in the number of the enemy killed in the last quarter of 1966 (817 to 1,302) was unquestionably influenced by this change in tactics.
Procedures were developed to produce annually a U.S. Special Forces campaign plan to co-ordinate future camp installations. A campaign plan for fiscal year 1967 was produced in September 1966, and one for fiscal year 1968 was completed in July 1967. This development grew out of a command conference in Nha Trang in August 1966 at which General Westmoreland directed the commander of the 5th Special Forces Group to make a close examination of the present and proposed deployment of the group's operational detachments throughout Vietnam. He specified that each detachment be examined to insure that it had a mission and a location that would enable it to exert its full potential. He suggested that A detachments and their civilian irregular strike forces be replaced where practicable by South Vietnamese Army or Regional Forces and Popular Forces units and that any CIDG camp improperly located to carry out its mission be relocated. Planning was to be co-ordinated with corps senior advisers and Vietnamese corps commanders.
A flood campaign plan for operations in the delta region during flood conditions was developed. The plan was built around use of some four hundred watercraft (including eighty-four airboats), helicopters, sophisticated U.S. Navy craft, and waterborne maneuvers, with civilian irregular forces in the boats.
Projects Omega and Sigma were formed and, along with Project Delta, conducted operations in the field.
The 5th Special Forces Group administrative and logistic organization was critically examined with the object of improving control and supervision. A number of elements were created and installed as new parts of the staff including new comptroller, judge advocate, aviation, Air Force liaison, and staff engineer sections, and a new acting inspector general. The existing S-2 (intelligence) section was completely overhauled, and the S-3 section as well as the open mess association was revised. New radio research and historical units were created, as was a new military intelligence augmentation detachment.
New funding controls were imposed and inspected, and new
