3rd Brigade was given orders by General Stanley R. Larsen, I Field Force, Vietnam Commander and General Richard T. Knowles, 1st Air Cavalry Division Forward Headquarters Commander to prepare for "an air assault near the foot of the Chu Pongs", at , west of Plei Me. On November 13, 3rd Brigade Commander Colonel Thomas W. Brown, acting following the order issued by Gen. Larsen and Gen. Knowles, met with Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore the commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, and told him "to conduct an airmobile assault the following morning" and to conduct search and destroy operations through 15 November. Meanwhile, an ARVN intelligence source by intercept of radio communication indicated that some PAVN B3 Field Front recon elements and transportation units had already moved out of their assembly areas to attack the Plei Me camp. Landing zones Col. Brown selected Lt. Col. Moore and his men for the mission, with the explicit orders not to attempt to scale the mountain. There were several clearings in the area that had been designated as possible helicopter landing zones, typically named for a letter of the NATO phonetic alphabet. Moore selected: LZ X-Ray: at as his landing zone, a flat clearing surrounded by low trees at the eastern base of the Chu Pong Massif and bordered by a dry creek bed on the west. The Ia Drang River was about to the northwest. LZ Albany: about to the northeast of X-Ray at LZ Columbus: about east of Albany at LZ Tango: about to the north of X-Ray at LZ Yankee: a similar distance south of X-Ray at . LZ Yankee was on sloping ground and could only fit about 6–8 helicopters at one time. LZ Whiskey: south-east at LZ Victor: at about to the south-southeast. Artillery support would be provided from fire support base "FSB Falcon", about to the northeast of X-Ray at . General Knowles stated that he had selected the initial landing zone used by Hal Moore and his troops, knowing quite well that the PAVN lacked anti-aircraft guns and heavy mortars that had been destroyed during the attack on the Plei Me camp and that the PAVN could have positioned on the hillsides overlooking the landing zone to gun down the helicopters and to decimate the cavalry troops landing on the ground. LZ X-Ray was approximately the size of a misshapen football field, some 100 meters