The communist forces were principally armed with Chinese[REF] and Soviet weaponry[REF] though some guerrilla units were equipped with Western infantry weapons either captured from French stocks during the First Indochina war or from ARVN units or bought on the black market [REF].
The US service rifle was initially the M14 (though some units were still using the WWII-era M1 Garand for a lack of M14s).