Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
government to adopt them.120 Available evidence indicates that the standard ARVN division of 1959 was patterned after the 1954 U.S. Army division—reduced in scale, and without organic armor, aviation, and band.
Each ARVN standard division had 10,450 men organized in three regiments, each of which was capable of independent action and could be broken into company-size task forces. Each division had two artillery battalions equipped with towed 105 mm howitzers and 4.2" mortars, one engineer battalion, and technical and logistics support companies. The seven divisions were formed into two Corps. There were also four armor battalions, one airborne brigade, one marine group, one air force fighter-bomber squadron, two C-47 transport squadrons, two light aircraft observation squadrons, and one squadron of helicopters.121
In 1964 Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams (Chief MAAG Vietnam 1955–60) during the course of an interview was asked whether MAAG had created the Vietnamese Division in the image of the American Division. His vehement denial included the statement that "Actually, there was little similarity between the South Vietnamese division in existence then [1959] or now [1964]."122 However, an examination of the following table and figures indicates that there were more similarities than differences in the overall structure of the two organizations. All of the technical services were to be found in the 1959 ARVN Division, although at somewhat reduced strength in some cases. Division artillery was 50 percent heavier in the U.S. Division and was concentrated in 105 howitzer battalions with some 155 mm, 8-inch and 763 mm weapons. The ARVN Division had a 4.2-inch mortar battalion in addition to the 105 mm battalion. Maneuver units, the regiments of the U.S. and ARVN Division, were about equal in strength. Both regiments contained a mortar company. There were more regiments in the U.S. Division (5) as opposed to ARVN's 3, and the U.S. regiments were divided into rifle companies (4 per regiment). In the ARVN Division there was an intermediate battalion echelon. In this respect the 1959 ARVN Division more closely resembled the 7-11R Regiment of the U.S. Army 7R Division (1955). This regiment type was heavier than both the ROCID 7-11T Infantry Regiment and the ARVN 1959 Regiment and was evidently capable of more sustained operations, since it had organic support units attached to it including a company of tanks. A similar regiment (7–11R) without the technical support units was supposed to provide the division with the flexibility to conduct operation with task forces of any size, a stated goal of the authors of the ARVN Divisional reorganization.123 Thus, while the mirror image accusation is not entirely correct, neither is the denial that there were no similarities between the U.S. and ARVN Divisions. The evidence available suggests that clearly the blueprint for the 1959 ARVN Division reorganization was to be found in the TOE's of the U.S. Army.
5. Manpower policies in Vietnam in the late 1950's resulted in allocation of the best personnel to the Vietnamese Armed Forces.
