Both the PAVN and the PLAF made use of hidden caches of different kinds to store equipment, weapons, and rations for operations in South Vietnam. The shape these caches could take varied, but they were commonly buried or placed in hidden tunnels (which was a common way for local PLAF to supply regional and even main force PLAF units).

The most detailed description of these caches come from American sources. To find and retrieve these caches would deprive their enemy of everything they needed to continue their operations. But how to find them? American, South Vietnamese, and other allied nations made use of the people who would know: defectors from the PLAF/PAVN. In some cases, they were simply Hoi Chanh (ralliers) who wanted to prove their new loyalty to the South Vietnamese government (and even gain some money in the process), or they were Kit Carson Scouts, defectors in employment by the various allied nations (but most prolifically by the United States).

For example, on June 22nd 1969, a Hoi Chanh led Company A, 3d Battalion, 47th Infantry, a national police field force, and the Giong Trom District police chief to a cache that was buried around 3 to 4 inches below ground 35 miles southwest of Saigon. The cache were not only hidden by thick undergrowth and bamboo, but also by booby traps (that luckily didn't function). What the found inside the cache could easily have supplied quite a few soldiers:

"Weapons found were two German machineguns, one AK-47, one M-16, one Thompson submachine gun, two BARS, 11 grease guns, 16 Chi-Com carbines, six Russian light machineguns and one Chi-Com rifle.

The cache also contained 204 B-40 rockets, one B-41 rocket, 19 4.2 mortar rounds, 149 60mm mortar rounds, 66 82mm mortar rounds, 18 57 mm recoilless rifle rounds, 16 Soviet anti-tank hand grenades, 46 Bangalore torpedo sections, four land mines, 200 rounds of .50 caliber machinegun ammunition, two radios, four barrels and two wheels for a Soviet heavy machinegun, nine containers of explosives, seven cans of 60mm Chi-Com fuses, 100 to 150 feet of commo wire and various magazines."

This is a classic example of how one such operation could look like. Another example comes from Kit Carson Scout Pham Van Binh who served with Company A, 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry, 23rd Infantry Division. While working in his home territory, Pham actively went out looking for hidden caches, which he found by using the "thump" method (that is, thumping the ground until he heard the hollow sound of a buried cache). All in all, he helped find 11 barrels hidden underneath 10 inches of dirt, 8 which were empty, but which contained a total of around 2,500 pounds of rice that were likely meant to ration local PAVN units.

These examples give some insight into how weapons and supplies were hidden by the PLAF and the PAVN, and how they could be found in the field.