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Just as Dead. Far more reliable than their rockets and mortars is the Viet Cong's trusty, Russian-made AK-47, a stubby automatic assault rifle that is more rugged and dependable than the Americans' skittish M-16 rifle. The AK47, now widely used by Viet Cong troops, fires a 30-round clip compared with the M-16's 20-rounder, is light and quick-loading and has fewer parts to jam. It is so efficient that some individual U.S. soldiers have taken captured AK-47s for their own use in battle, relying on captured arms caches to keep themselves in ammunition. The Viet Cong boast two other 7.62-mm. sharpshooter rifles—one a sniper's weapon and the other a semiautomatic rifle that is rated excellent by U.S. arms experts.
Along with their fancier weapons, the Viet Cong still have plenty of old-style arms that can kill someone just as dead as the new ones. Several of their heavy machine guns predate World War II, and most of them have steel-rimmed wooden wheels. Since the Viet Cong are truck-poor, their Chinese 75-mm. recoilless rifle, which was designed for vehicle mounting, comes simply on two wheels so that it can be dragged overland manually. Then there are the even more rustic land mines, booby traps and Rube Goldberg-style gadgetry that the Viet Cong sometimes seem to prefer even to their newly acquired modern amenities. Not long ago, an American patrol near a 1st Air Cavalry base in the Central Highlands came across a monster crossbow hidden in the jungle. It was cocked at the sky, ready to shoot a six-foot spear into some unsuspecting chopper.