Basic Viet Cong units were equipped primarily with Chinese, Russian, and Czech weapons. They also had French submachine-guns of the latest make and East German arms, and some units were equipped with Mauser carbines, SiG 44 assault rifles, and other pistols, rifles, and machine guns of the former WW2 German Wehrmacht and the simple to use anti-tank rockets the Panzerfaust all from Red Army WW2 booty and sent to South Vietnam via China.

The VC continued to use captured weapons, especially our machine gun the M60, but the weapon they coveted most, as we did over the less than reliable M16, was the AR-15 Colt, which, despite it being 5.6mm caliber had an extraordinary rate of fire and impact. In addition, Viet Cong “regular” units were also equipped with 60mm. and 80mm. mortars, and even larger calibers, light and medium artillery, antitank rockets, bazookas, and anti-aircraft guns.

The obvious advantage of receiving supplied weaponry was that the VC did not have to worry about their previous dependence on stolen or battlefield recovered South Viet government and American equipment and having to use the enemy's ammunition.

When the VC lacked conventional weapons, they manufacture their own crude but to varying degrees effective weapons. They produced a weapon best described as a slingshot gun. It had a barrel of beaten metal and loaded with nails, bits of metal, cuts of bamboo, and stones. Release was by way of a flintlock style mechanism, and the "round" could catapult quite some distance. At short distances the slingshot gun "round", while not normally fatal, could inflict grievous wounds. Some VC groups fought with arrow slingshot guns, which also had a devastating effect, or used catapults that hurled bundles of spears; these were not particularly accurate, but when a spear hit someone, the wound received often proved fatal.

In addition to this “armory”, there was a homemade "mortar," with a wooden ramrod in its barrel. At the bottom of the rod, there was an explosive delivery charge, in essence a kind of improved Molotov cocktail than a conventional mortar as it had a bottle filled with gasoline or other highly inflammable liquid attached to the ramrod. Initial ignition was by gasoline soaked wadding ignited prior to firing. The mortar’s “round” could travel a considerable distance. There were a multitude of other designed “fugasses”, improvised weapons, both mechanical and explosive, some being very effective whist others not so, but overall they got the designed for job done. The job being to maim, kill, an enemy, or to instill fear and / or panic in that enemy.

The above highlights the VC's adaptability and resourcefulness in acquiring and creating weapons, and demonstrates the VC's ingenuity in adapting to their circumstances by utilizing available resources to maintain a fighting force against our technological superiority. It also helps to remove the much-vaunted urban myth that our guys were up against just a bunch of peasant farmers, when in fact it was a difficult deadly fight against a dedicated and resourceful enemy.