Project Eldest Son

Project Eldest Son

A covert operation in Vietnam by Richard Baber

The original version of this article appeared in The Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers (SOTCW)

Now as most of the regular readers here will know I`m not particularly into modern period gaming. French Indo-China and the Algerian War of Independence is about as close as I come. But that doesn`t of course mean I don`t read other more modern periods and sometimes find subjects which I then researched further as potential articles for The Journal, this is one of those.

 Project Eldest Son (later known as “Italian Green” or “Pole Bean”) was a program of covert operations conducted by the United States Studies and Observation Group (SOG) during the Vietnam War. The goal of the project was to replace a portion of enemy ammunition with highly explosive and dangerous sabotaged ammunition, and thus to cause the enemy to question the safety of their ordnance.

SOG's operators - Army Special Forces, Air Force Air Commandos and Navy SEALs - worked directly for the Joint Chiefs, executing highly classified, deniable missions behind enemy lines in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam.

The idea of Eldest Son came from the fertile mind of SOG's commander, 1966-68, Colonel John K. Singlaub, a World War II veteran of covert actions with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). "I was frustrated by the fact that I couldn't airlift the ammunition we were discovering on the [Ho Chi Minh] Trail" in Laos, Singlaub explained. It was not unusual for SOG's small recon teams - composed of two or three American Green Berets and four to six native soldiers - to find tons of ammunition in enemy base camps and caches along the Laotian highway system. But SOG teams lacked the manpower to secure the sites or carry the ordnance away. Further, it could not be burned up, and demolition would only scatter small-arms ammunition, not destroy it.

SOG team moving through the bush

Though obscure, this trick was not new. In the 1930s, to combat rebellious tribesmen in northwest India's Waziristan - the same lawless region where Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists hide today - the British army planted sabotaged .303 rifle ammunition. Even before that, during the Second Matabele War (1896-97) in today's Zimbabwe, British scouts (led by the American adventurer Frederick Russell Burnham) had slipped explosive-packed rifle cartridges into hostile stockpiles, to deadly effect. 

SOG would do likewise, the Joint Chiefs decided on August 30, 1967, but first Col. Singlaub arranged for CIA ordnance experts to conduct a quick feasibility study. A few weeks later, at Camp Chinen, Okinawa, and Singlaub watched a CIA technician load a sabotaged 7.62x39 mm cartridge into a bench-mounted AK rifle. "It completely blew up the receiver and the bolt was projected backwards," Singlaub observed, "I would imagine into the head of the firer."

Sabotaging the ammunition proved the easiest challenge. The CIA's Okinawa lab also did a very professional job of prying open ammo crates, unsealing the interior metal cans and then repacking them so there was no sign of tampering. In addition to SOG sabotaging 7.62 mm and 12.7 mm rounds, these CIA ordnance experts perfected a special fuse for the Communist 82 mm mortar round that would detonate the hand-dropped projectile while inside the mortar tube, for especially devastating effect. Exactly 1,968 of these mortar rounds were sabotaged, too.

Project Eldest Son's greatest challenge was "placement" - getting the infernal devices into the enemy logistical system without detection. That's where SOG's Green Beret-led recon teams came in. Since the fall of 1965, our small teams had been running deniable missions into Laos to gather intelligence, wiretap enemy communications, kidnap key enemy personnel, ambush convoys, raid supply dumps, plant mines and generally make life as difficult as possible in enemy rear areas. As an additional mission, each team carried along a few Eldest Son rounds - usually as a single round in an otherwise full AK magazine or one round in an RPD machine gun belt or sealed ammo can - to plant whenever an opportunity arose.

When an SOG team discovered an ammo dump, they planted Eldest Son; when a SOG team ambushed an enemy patrol, they switched magazines in a dead soldier's AK. It was critically important never to plant more than one round per magazine; belt or ammo can, so no amount of searching after a gun exploded would uncover a second round, to preclude the enemy from determining this was sabotage.

Lightly armed with non-standard US weapons (in this case M1 carbines)

Planting sabotaged 82 mm mortar ammo proved more cumbersome because these were not transported as loose rounds, but in three-round, wooden cases. Thus, you had to tote a whole case, which must have weighed more than 25 lbs.

A very clever insertion was accomplished by SOG SEALS operating in the Mekong Delta, where they filled a captured sampan with tainted cases of ammunition, shot it tastefully full of bullet holes, then spilled chicken blood over it and set it adrift upstream from a known Viet Cong village. Of course, the VC assumed the boat's Communist crew had fallen overboard during an ambush. The Viet Cong took the ammunition, hook, line and sinker.

In Laos, American B-52s constantly targeted enemy logistical areas, which churned up sizeable pieces of terrain. SOG exploited this opportunity by organizing a special team that landed just after B-52 strikes to construct false bunkers in such devastated tracts, then "salt" these stockpiles with Eldest Son ammunition.

However, there were dangers in transporting these “tampered” ammunition and in November, 1968 a  helicopter carrying SOG's secret Eldest Son team, flying some 20 miles west of the Khe Sanh Marine base, was hit by an enemy 37 mm anti-aircraft round, setting off a tremendous mid-air explosion. Seven cases of tainted 82 mm mortar ammunition detonated, killing everyone on board, including Maj. Samuel Toomey and seven U.S. Army Green Berets.

But as a result of these cross-border efforts, Eldest Son rounds began to turn up inside South Vietnam. In a northern province, 101st Airborne Division paratroopers found a dead Communist soldier grasping his exploded rifle, while an officer at SOG's Saigon headquarters, Captain Ed Lesesne, received the photo of a dead enemy soldier with his bolt blown out the back of his AK. "It had gone right through his eye socket!" Lesesne reported.

Sniper covering his team

Possible tabletop Scenario idea

A 5-6 man SOG team must infiltrate to a known VC arms stash somewhere along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They have with them two “sealed” cans of Chinese 7.62mm ammunition each laced with the special tampered bullets; the plan is for the team to add the cans to the stash and then withdraw without alerting the VC to their presence.

The team must make their way silently across the table avoiding being spotted by random VC sentries or patrols; there is also the possibility of booby-traps (such as pungi-sticks), any enemy must be dealt with quickly and quietly to avoid alerting other VC elements of the teams presence. The cash itself is un-guarded as the VC believes this area (over the border in neutral Cambodia) is safe from US attacks. 

Encounter table (1 on D6 each turn)

1 – 2 Noise (team freeze for one turn)

3 – Wild pig/stray dog (2 in 6 chance of the noise bringing a VC patrol to the area in 1-3 turns)

4 - Lone VC sentry armed with SKS carbine (table 1 below)

5 - Booby-trap (table 2 below)

6 – VC patrol, 4 -6 men (table 1 below)

Table 1

Role	effect
1-3	Oblivious of team, walks on by
4	You spot first and may ambush or hide
5	Hears noise and is searching (for you)
6	Sees you first raises the alarm/attacks

Table 2

Role	effect
1-3	Trap spotted, take one turn to bi-pass
4	Pungi-sticks (scout spots on 4-6)  *
5	Grenade/anti-personnel mine (spot on 4-6) **
6	C4 block/claymore (spot on 4-6) ***

* If not spotted, one team member gets spiked and injured; there is a 2 in 6 chance that his scream will alert the local VC.

** If not spotted, one team member will be killed/seriously injured by the explosion which will bring a VC patrol to the area in 1-3 turns

*** If not spotted entire team killed or seriously injured – game over……..    

SOG unit

Usually 4-6 US personnel; either - Green Berets, LRRP, Marine Recon or SEALs; all men highly skilled and motivated.

Armed with a variety of weapons – M16, M14, Colt Commando, combat shotgun (scouts particularly employed these), M3 SMG, AK47, M1 carbine, silenced pistols, knives, grenades, etc.

They wore a variety of uniforms too – US fatigues, French style “tiger stripe” fatigues and traditional Vietnamese dress (worn to confuse the enemy); camouflage paint was almost always applied to conceal pale skin.

For variety you could replace US personnel with natives (ARVN Rangers/airborne, Montagnards, etc).

The VC

4-6 men armed with AK47s and/or SKS carbines and Chi-com grenades. This is a regular local patrol sweep, these men whilst not asleep are not on high alert; they are fully aware of their surroundings and have knowledge of all the local trails and booby-traps/arms cashes. Once the alarm is raised other VC patrols of similar size or larger (including LMG or RPG teams) will be drawn to the area.

Conclusion   

This type of game is an interesting change from the usual search and destroy type scenarios, stealth and skill being preferred to fire-power. This would work well with an umpire controlled VC and almost a role-playing type structure for the US player (s).  

I played this game a couple of times as a solo; in the first game - the SOGs planted their “present”, but lost one man to a mine on the withdrawal and were forced to run for it, pursued by the VC who never managed to make visual contact. In the second game, twice the SOGs had to take out VC sentries before they even arrived at the stash. A really unlucky series of roles then had the team spotted by a VC patrol, which led to a mad chase back across the board to the extraction point. 

Whilst searching the internet for further information on Eldest Son, I came across several forums and chat rooms with comments on this operation during Vietnam; some of these made reference to incidents both in Iraq and Afghanistan where insurgent weapons “exploded”. Several of the posters wondered if Operation Eldest Son had been resurrected?

So it occurs to me you could transfer the whole thing to these areas with modern spec.ops. boys Vs Taliban or Iraqis. The desert/arid terrain will create its own problems for the team with less cover, you could also place the cash within a built up area creating new problems with both observation and elevation issues.  

Sources

I must thank Rob Morgan and his friend Lyle Hegstead for passing onto me an article from American Rifleman magazine (May 2008) which is the basis for this piece.

The internet provided some other useful bit and pieces –

http://www.jcs-group.com/military/war1964/project.html