People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN)
| Quân đội Nhân dân Việt Nam | ||||
| People's Army of Vietnam | ||||
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“Determined to win.” The North Vietnamese armed forces are not as well trained nor as well armed as their foes, but they make up for this disparity through their superior scouting abilities and public support from their homeland. Their actual fighting force is irregular, composed of North Vietnamese soldiers and guerrilla sympathizers from both sides of the border. Their tactics are not to be trifled with; using hit and run techniques, they melt into the jungle before their enemy has a chance to fire back. Many fighters are armed with a mixture of foreign firearms and improvised homemade weaponry, but what they lack in firepower they make up for with guile, stealth, speed, and an unbreakable will to defend their homeland.
History
The PAVN was formed in 1944 without an official name as a propaganda arm of the Vietnamese Communist Party and a guerrilla force. Helped by the United States' OSS, the precursor to the CIA, Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap organized about a platoon of communist supporters, armed with badly outdated firearms, as the first unit of the PAVN. By 1947, the group was one regiment strong; by 1949, one division. By 1954, the officially-renamed People's Army of Vietnam was at six infantry divisions and one artillery division in strength, mostly equipped with captured French and American rifles and howitzers, and it was with that force that Vo Nguyen Giap defeated the French in conventional warfare at Dien Bien Phu, ending decades of French rule in Indochina.
With the newly-independent Vietnam suddenly split in two by the 1954 Geneva Accords, and with Ngo Dinh Diem's southern Republic of Vietnam staunchly rejecting any vote on reunification, the PAVN had a new task: to reunify the two Vietnams. In 1959, the PAVN began investigating routes through Laos and Cambodia by which it might provide arms and reinforcements to the Viet Minh, South Vietnam's communist anti-government paramilitary force. At first, small units of the PAVN's now 14 divisions slipped down a series of roads in Laos and Cambodia, but by 1965, entire divisions marched down the “Ho Chi Minh Trail” into the south. Forced to contend with not just the Army of the Republic of Vietnam but also the United States Military, the PAVN grew to adopt guerrilla techniques again alongside more conventional means, fighting an insurgency in order to convince the US that the war was unwinnable.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of young North Vietnamese men fought in the PAVN during the Vietnamese War of Independence and the Vietnam War. Though their own totalitarian government was responsible for thousands of needless deaths, in the end, the PAVN forced the US to withdraw and triumphed over the ARVN. Today, it is a badge of pride to have served in the PAVN.
Characteristics
Much of the PAVN's cosmetics compared to the NLF are quite common and shared. The default Tunic and Pants, as well as its other varieties are based off the khaki designs. The shirt includes two pointed flapped pockets while the trousers included a rear pocket as well as buttons to adjust the waist. The PAVN uniforms offer two design choices for each shirt, the default tan khaki and the camouflaged version as well. Other noticeable cosmetics include a variety of headgear, mainly the iconic tan pith helmet; the pith helmet features a couple of versions, such as camouflaged leaves. There are also other featured headgear unique to the PAVN, such as hats and camouflage head-wear. Other characteristics shared among a majority of troops includes a brown rucksack with a shovel as well as a canteen bottle.
Similar to the NLF, are a variety of heads, five different head models; each head features different characteristics such as skin, facial structure, and age. Each head features three types of hair colors: black, grey, and white. There are also a few voices featured in-game, representing those of different dialects such as age and place of origin.
Customization
Weapons and Equipment
Trivia
- The original designs of the PAVN uniforms were planned to be green as they were common throughout the late years of the war, although they were replaced with tan uniforms as the green colors were thought to cause more team kills.
- The North Vietnamese will sometimes speak in English when taunting or killing the enemy.
- There are three total voice actors for the North Vietnamese, two of which are not native Vietnamese; Duong Duc Nghiem, a native Vietnamese, voice acts both a soldier and the North Vietnamese announcer.
- When on fire, the Japanese lines from the first Rising Storm can be heard.
- During later updates after the game's release, a questionable change had made all North Vietnamese first person animations make the North Vietnamese run with two hands instead of one; this remains inconsistent though, as all North Vietnamese run with one hand in third person animations.