![Bins of ammo in a Barge Matal safehouse](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Bins_of_ammo_in_a_Barge_Matal_safehouse.jpg)
Project Eldest Son (also known as “Italian Green” or “Pole Bean”) was a program of covert operations conducted by the United States'
Studies and Observation Group
Study or studies may refer to:
General
* Education
**Higher education
* Clinical trial
* Experiment
* Observational study
* Research
* Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning
Other
* Study (art), a drawing or series of drawin ...
(SOG) during the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
. The project focused on placement of
exploding cartridges into supplies used by communist combat forces in southeast Asia. United States technicians assembled 11,565
7.62×39mm
The 7.62×39mm (aka 7.62 Soviet, formerly .30 Russian Short) round is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge of Soviet origin. The cartridge is widely used due to the worldwide proliferation of Russian SKS and AK-47 pattern rifles, as ...
cartridges for
AK-47
The AK-47, officially known as the ''Avtomat Kalashnikova'' (; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is a gas-operated assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian small-arms d ...
rifles, 556
12.7×108mm
The 12.7×108mm cartridge is a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun and anti-materiel rifle cartridge used by the former Soviet Union, the former Warsaw Pact countries, modern Russia, China and other countries. It was invented in 1934 to create a cartrid ...
heavy
machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...
cartridges, and 1,968 82mm
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 (UW) is broadly defined as "military and quasi-military operations other than conventional warfare" and may use covert forces, subversion, or guerrilla warfare. This is typically done to avoid escalation into conventional ...
. The missions under this program were implemented successfully in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
[Green Berets at War, Stanton, S.L. publisher Ballantine Books, 1999, p. 234 ]
History
Small arms ammunition sabotage had previously been employed by the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
against rebellious tribesmen during the
Second Matabele War
The Second Matabele War, also known as the Matabeleland Rebellion or part of what is now known in Zimbabwe as the First ''Chimurenga'', was fought between 1896 and 1897 in the region later known as Southern Rhodesia, now modern-day Zimbabwe. ...
(1896–1897) and the
Waziristan campaign (1936–1939)
The Waziristan campaign 1936–1939 comprised a number of operations conducted in Waziristan by the British Indian Army against the fiercely independent tribesmen that inhabited this region. These operations were conducted in 1936–1939, when op ...
. 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, a
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
veteran of the
Office of Strategic Services, 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
Finnish smokeless powderSmokeless powder is a type of propellant used in firearms and artillery that produces less smoke and less fouling when fired compared to gunpowder ("black powder"). The combustion products are mainly gaseous, compared t ...
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
fuzes 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 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
,
, war = the Vietnam War
, image = FNL Flag.svg
, caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green.
, active ...
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.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Project Eldest Son
Operations involving American special forces