Efforts were made to adapt the aircraft to COIN requirements. The A1 Skyraider proved to be perfect:this indestructible veteran was still in service with the Navy and Marines and was adopted by the USAF and the South Vietnamese Air Force. The Douglas B26 invader also proved to be very well suited to this type of warfare. The T28 Trojan training aircraft, with a more powerful engine and heavy armament, became an excellent parade against the guerrillas.
The helicopters also received on-board weapons, the Bell UH-1A, the first version of the Huey, was equipped with machine guns and rockets to keep the enemy at bay while the troops were landed
IN 1961 Johnson, then Vice President, announced that the Americans might be forced to retaliate if they came under Communist fire. an unprecedented moral shock for the population there was no state of war at any time. If it was ever clearly stated, the purpose of the fight was gradually forgotten.
Allied troops (New Zealanders, Australians, South Koreans were fighting with the Americans) had to obey drastic limitations that limited their effectiveness. Field operations were decided in Washington itself! Even in 1965 at the time of the strategic bombings, it was Washington that decided the smallest details of the operations, going as far as the weight of the bombs to be used and the number of planes to be engaged...
This made the American troops even more foreign to the country; the morale of the poorly led South Vietnamese forces was close to zero.
But all these decisive elements were ignored for 7 years by the American leaders until the "Vietnamization" of Nixon.