The Cambodian Civil War was a military conflict of the Cold War in Asia that pitted the guerrilla forces of the Maoist-oriented Communist Party of Kampuchea (nicknamed the Khmer Rouge) and the armed and security forces of the Nonaligned Kingdom of Cambodia from 1967 to 1970, then between the joint Monarchist, Maoist and Marxist-Leninist National United Front of Kampuchea alliance and the pro-western Khmer Republic from 1970 to 1975. Main combatants comprised:
A wide variety of weapons was used by all sides in the Cambodian Civil War. American military aid was funnelled to the FANK through the Military Equipment Delivery Team, Cambodia (MEDTC) program. Authorized a total of 113 officers and men, the team arrived in Phnom Penh in 1971, [2] under the overall command of CINCPAC Admiral John S. McCain Jr. [3] In the early months of the War, most Cambodian Army infantry, armoured and artillery units fought the PAVN and Khmer Rouge with a mix of surplus World War II-vintage French and U.S. and modern Soviet and Chinese small-arms, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces either inherited from Khmer Royal Army stocks or delivered as emergency aid by the Americans. [4] ANK infantry battalions later sent to South Vietnam for retraining between February 1971 and November 1972 under the US Army-Vietnam Individual Training Program (UITG) were re-equipped upon their return to Cambodia with modern U.S. small-arms, comprising revolvers, automatic pistols, assault rifles, light machine guns, medium and heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, anti-tank rocket launchers, mortars and recoilless rifles. [5] Besides infantry weapons, the U.S. MEDTC also provided the FANK branches with more modern U.S. military equipments, which included aircraft, armoured and transport vehicles and long-range artillery pieces, plus naval and riverine vessels. Although the UITG and MEDTC aid programs allowed the FANK to standardise on modern U.S. weapons and equipment, they never superseded entirely the earlier weaponry, particularly in the case of the territorial units and rear-echelon support formations. In addition to U.S. support, the FANK received further military assistance from South Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos, [6] Thailand, Indonesia, [7] the Philippines, [8] Singapore, [9] the Republic of China (Taiwan), Australia and New Zealand. [10]
During the early phase of the War, between 1967 and 1970, the Khmer Rouge likewise was largely equipped with WWII-vintage French, Japanese, American, and more modern Soviet and Chinese weapons either collected from arms caches established during the First Indochina War or seized from Khmer Royal Army units. [11] With the establishment of the FUNK coalition and the subsequent creation of its CPNLAF armed wing, the Khmer Rouge, the Khmer Rumdo and the Khmer Issarak began to receive military assistance mainly from North Vietnam, the Soviet Union, Albania, Romania, North Korea and the People's Republic of China. [12] As the war progressed, these factions were provided with modern Eastern Bloc military hardware, including semiautomatic and fully automatic small-arms, artillery pieces, armoured and transport vehicles of Soviet and Chinese origin, mostly being funnelled through the North Vietnamese. Although the CPNLAF standardized on Soviet and Chinese weapons and equipment by the time of their first full-scale solo offensive in January 1973, [13] its guerrilla forces continued to make use of captured enemy stocks until the end of the War.
The Khmer Rouge used a small number of field guns or captured howitzers from government forces.
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