Explain why the Vietcong adopted guerrilla warfare tactics during the conflict in South Vietnam.

There were many reasons why the VietCong adopted Guerilla Tactics against the allies. Most of which stemmed from the fact that the could effectively utilise their surroundings to entrap, evade and destroy the allies from a positions which were 'hidden in plain sight'

1) The VC did not possess the military might of the US or their South Vietnamese counterparts so they used their strengths by using the terrain to create a huge system of booby traps, pathways and underground tunnels which enabled them to hit the enemy with suprise attacks only then to return to their long network of underground tunnels. An example of this was on Hamburger hill where the allies spent several days taking this vantage point with many lives lost only for the VC to return once the allies had left

2)The term 'Farmer by day and freedom fighter by night' arose from the fact that many VC would intergrate within the civilian villages to maintian the ancestral land and then become a VC fighter by night, This was the reasonign why the US later adopted the Seacrh and Destroy initiative which was aimed at destorying the VC supplies and protecting civilians, However one soldier exclaimed 'if they wern't VC when we arrived, they were when we left'. (these are the kind of quotes that will pick up extra marks) The strategic hamlets programme under operation sunrise, was also used to prevent civilians joining the VC by means of isolation. But this actually aided VC tactics and one VC could infiltrate the camp and distribute VC proporganda. 

3) Although the VC later recieved supplies from the Soviet Union and China through means of the Ho Chi MInh trail, Maintaining Guerilla tactics proved economically viable as they used their knowledge and experience of the surroundings to slaughter the allies. The economic disparity necessitated a cheap alternative to expensive bombs and guns demonstrating the effectiveness of the VC's pragmatic approach to warfare

4) it could also be mentioned the importance of previous successes of Guerilla tactics in Africa previously as well as the apparent incapability of the US to adapt to this style of warfare, Guerilla tactics enabled the VC to avoid counter-insurgency created by the kennedy adminstration and bombings runs as the VC could simply use the canopy of the jungle as a disguise

There is alot more to be said but this is just a brief example of the kind of indicative content students will have learn in order to achieve a high grade