unit history information
for 361 AWC
57 AHC
MACV SOG CCC
From date 690501 to 691231
361 AWC was a US Army unit
57 AHC was a US Army unit
MACV SOG CCC was a US Army unit
Primary service involved, US Army
Pleiku Province, II Corps, South Vietnam
Location, Camp Holloway
Description: The 361st Escort Company's unit history states that a normal day's mission has the company assign two light fire teams to the FOB mission while two others are placed on stand-by at Camp Holloway. The history was written in 1970 and covers all of 1969. This normal day commitment began on May, 1969 when it was decided that the two UH-1C gunships normally provided by the 57th AHC were too slow and expended too quickly under the highly dangerous conditions of the FOB mission.
A normal FOB mission consists of four AH-1G Cobra gunships, four UH-1Hs from the 57th AHC, and four VNAF 'Kingbee' CH-34s. The gunships divide into a primary and secondary light fire teams. The primary team's job is to escort the UH-1H and CH-34 helicopters into and out of the LZs or provide needed close aerial fire support as is necessary for beleaguered FOB RTs or exploitation forces. The secondary team's duty is to back up the primary team and take its place once the primary team expends.
Normally the FOB missions are insertions or extractions of small 6-9 men RTs requiring two troop carrying helicopters for the operation. Occasionally, platoon and company-sized elements are inserted to attract the enemy to their location and destroy them though tactical air power and AH-1G sorties.
Each mission takes place in enemy controlled territory consisting of a high mountain area, with mainly triple canopy jungle, leaving few LZs available. Most, if not all of these LZs, are constantly watched by enemy signalmen and an enemy reaction force is quickly called to that location upon insertion. Throughout the year, the enemy kept increasing its mobile AA strength until it can now easily move these weapons nearby the new LZs used by the RTs, locate our RT, and attack him while setting up a helicopter trap with these AA weapons. This forces our helicopters to attempt an extraction under highly dangerous conditions. These are the most dangerous times and have resulted in most of the battle damage suffered by our aircraft through the year. Enemy aircraft weapons encountered at these times have ranged from 50 caliber, 12.7mm, 23mm, to 37mm weapons. Often our pilot face the 50 cal and 12.7mm AA weapons down low while receiving 23mm and 37mm fire approaching or exiting their patterns.
A normal pattern run on FOB missions is just off the tree-tops in a race-track pattern. Normally the outbound aircraft uses 40 pounds of torque and tries to make the outbound run as fast as he can and then cuts down on power applied to hold a steady 20-30 pounds in-bound to give as much coverage as possible. The pattern is run extremely short to keep coverage for each aircraft at the maximum. A heavy fire team is outstanding on FOB since there is constant coverage at all times and less exertion is required of each aircraft.
The source for this information was 1969 Annual Sup Unit Hist by CPT Manns provided by Bettie Lou Jordan 1998
Additional information is available on CD-ROM.
Please send additions or corrections to: Gary Roush Email address: webmaster@vhpa.org
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Date posted on this site:
05/13/2023