Navy Times By: Joe Follansbee, Vietnam Magazine 12/15/2019
The guerrilla nature of warfare in Vietnam required the U.S. Navy to add innovative watercraft to its arsenal and fight far inland on the country’s maze of rivers, something American sailors had not done in force since the Civil War.
Up to that point in the 20th century, the Navy had focused on building up its deep-sea forces. But submarines and aircraft carriers were of little use against irregular units relying on sampans and junks to ferry supplies and fighting men on the country’s river highways.
On March 21, 1966, just six months after the U.S. Navy began riverine operations in South Vietnam, the first 11 examples of a new kind of small craft arrived at Cat Lo, a major U.S. naval combat and logistics base on the northern shore of Cape Vung Tau.
The craft was designated “patrol boat, river,†or PBR, a high-speed, shallow-draft, diesel-powered freshwater patrol craft with a fiberglass hull and water jet propulsion. The PBR was the first jet-propelled watercraft used in combat, and it became an integral element of the “
Brown Water Navy.â€
The new boats were placed under the control of Task Force 116, for what was known as Operation Game Warden.
Game Warden forces were charged with disrupting Viet Cong infiltration and resupply operations, destroying VC insurgents in their areas of operation and enforcing South Vietnamese government curfews.
Game Warden units performed harassment and interdiction operations, river patrols and minesweeping operations, especially along the main Saigon shipping channels. They were authorized to board and search all river craft—except foreign-flagged steel-hull merchant ships, warships and military, police or customs craft, unless specifically authorized by the task force commander.
More:
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/12/15/arsenal-the-river-patrol-boat-was-the-backbone-of-the-brown-water-navy/
