Project Eldest Son was a program of covert operations conducted by the United States Studies and Observation Group (SOG) during the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

. The project focused on placement of exploding cartridges into supplies used by communist combat forces in southeast Asia. United States technicians assembled 11,565 7.62x39mm cartridges for AK-47

AK-47

The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...

 rifles, 556 12.7x108mm heavy machine gun

Machine gun

A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....

 cartridges, and 1,968 82mm Type 67 mortar

Type 67 mortar

The Type 67 82mm Mortar is Chinese infantry support weapon developed in year 1967. It is a modernization of the older Type 53 82mm mortar, which is the Chinese copy of Soviet PM-41 82mm mortar.The mortar was widely used in the Vietnam War...

 shells to detonate in the weapon when firing was attempted. Project Eldest Son is an example of unconventional warfare

Unconventional warfare

Unconventional warfare is the opposite of conventional warfare. Where conventional warfare is used to reduce an opponent's military capability, unconventional warfare is an attempt to achieve military victory through acquiescence, capitulation, or clandestine support for one side of an existing...

. The missions under this program were implemented successfully in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

History

Small arms ammunition sabotage had previously been employed by the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 against rebellious tribesmen during the Second Matabele War

Second Matabele War

The Second Matabele War, also known as the Matabeleland Rebellion and in Zimbabwe as the First Chimurenga, was fought in 1896–97 between the British troops and the Ndebele people....

 (1896-1897) and the Waziristan campaign (1936–1939). In both cases, ammunition sabotage had been effective because the tribesmen were heavily reliant on salvaged ammunition rather than an industrialized supply chain of newly manufactured ammunition. Colonel John K. Singlaub

John K. Singlaub

John Kirk Singlaub is a highly-decorated former OSS officer and a retired Major General in the United States Army, and a founding member of the Central Intelligence Agency . He was a joint founder, with Congressman Larry McDonald, of the Western Goals Foundation, a conservative private...

, a World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 veteran of the Office of Strategic Services

Office of Strategic Services

The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...

, suggested similar methods while he commanded SOG from 1966 to 1968.

Methods

Captured ammunition was partially disassembled and reassembled with substituted components. Rifle and machine gun cartridges had the smokeless powder

Smokeless powder

Smokeless powder is the name given to a number of propellants used in firearms and artillery which produce negligible smoke when fired, unlike the older gunpowder which they replaced...

 replaced with a high explosive of similar appearance which would generate approximately five times the design pressure of firearms. The bolt and pieces of an exploding AK-47 receiver would typically be projected backward into the head of the individual firing the rifle. Substitute fuze

Fuze

Fuze Beverage, commercially referred to as just Fuze , is a manufacturer of teas and non-carbonated fruit drinks enriched with vitamins. Currently the brand consists of five vitamin-infused lines: Slenderize, Refresh, Tea, Defensify, and Vitalize...

s were placed in the mortar shells to detonate the shell when the mortar fired. Explosions of the team-fired machine guns and mortars often killed or injured anyone near the exploding weapon.

A single sabotaged cartridge or shell would then be placed in a magazine or case of good ammunition to avoid revealing the cause of the explosion. These sabotaged ammunition containers were carried by SOG Green-Beret patrols and left behind when guerrilla

Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...

 ammunition stashes were discovered. A few stashes were created where circumstances might be interpreted as indicating the troops transporting or storing that ammunition had been killed.

Goals

The goal of the project was to cause the enemy to question the safety of their ordnance. Physical damage and injuries observable by communist forces were augmented by forged documents to generate mistrust between Vietnamese troops and Chinese suppliers. One pretending to be a Viet Cong document acknowledged rumors of exploding ammunition, but portrayed them as an exaggeration of a negligibly small problem. Another acknowledged a few thousand problems resulting from poor Chinese quality control, but estimated future risks would be less. Official documents distributed to US forces with assumption they would reach communist hands advised troops not to use captured AK-47s because faulty metallurgy caused them to explode when fired.

Termination

Some details of Project Eldest Son were revealed in United States news publications in 1969 when less than half of the sabotaged rounds had been placed. The project was renamed Italian Green and then Pole Bean and an accelerated placement program was initiated to utilize as much as possible before authority for the program expired. These conditions allowed communist forces to ascertain the true cause of their weapon failures, but raised doubt about the safety of their ammunition supplies in combat areas.