@Colonel Bill,
Interesting commentary but, as you said, you weren't in Viet Nam. I was, twice.
Re: call-signs. My call-sign, when I had one, was Waxwing Bonito Three Seven Zulu. This was not generated by SOI, which I doubt was in use in Southeast Asia, but on the fly by company HQ. It certainly wasn't changed every 24 hours, or 24 weeks for that matter.
Re: SOI authentication. No SOI, so no authentication.
Re: radio chatter. If the 1st Armored Division deployed, not as a division, but as a group of independent battalions with little contact with each other there might be more extraneous chatter. It gets lonely out in the boonies and some radio traffic was of the "I'm still alive, how about you?" type. Big deal. As for reporting the coordinates of the enemy when the unit comes under fire, you sort of need to know where the enemy are, which is not necessarily available intel when you're fighting guerrillas in horrible terrain. Remember, this was pre-GPS and pre-satellite recon, so what you had was a map and a compass.
Re: moving TOC every day. Armored divisions can move their TOC every day but Viet Nam was mostly a foot-soldier's war, supplied from the air, and once a battalion hit the ground, the BTOC was set up, the line companies began operations, and the BTOC stayed put until the operation was over.
I admit a: some of this is very subjective, b: I was an NCO, not an officer, and as such had no access to the secret knowledge, and c: I was in II Corps during my first tour and I Corps during my second tour, so I have no knowledge of SOP in the Delta or in I Corps north of Phu Bai.
LT
