Origin

Vietnam

Battles & Operations

• Battle of Khe Sanh (21 January - 9 July 1968)

  The Battle of Khe Sanh was a 77-day North Vietnamese siege of a US Marine Corps combat base near the Laotian border and the Demilitarized Zone that began on 21 January 1968; the base was abandoned in July. About 6,000 Marines of the 26th Marine Regiment and South Vietnamese Rangers held the base and its hill outposts against two to three NVA divisions, supplied entirely by air and supported by one of the heaviest bombing campaigns in history. The siege was lifted in April by Operation Pegasus; whether Hanoi meant to take the base or to distract from the Tet Offensive is still debated.

Weapons

• K-50M

  The K-50M is a North Vietnamese submachine gun of the late 1950s and 1960s: a rebuilt Chinese Type 50, itself a copy of the Soviet PPSh-41. North Vietnamese arsenals shortened the barrel jacket, moved the front sight onto the barrel, added a pistol grip, and replaced the wooden stock with a telescoping wire stock in the style of the French MAT-49. The result was lighter and handier than its parent. It armed Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops through the war with the United States, especially before the AK-47 became universal.