For the first time in America, citizens were seeing an actual real-time broadcast and footage from a war. Scenes from the Vietnam War were televised on the the news in color for citizens to watch and witness all over America. Traumatic pictures and videos were released to the public in newspapers and on telivision showing the images of war. This is mainly why there was such a high rate in protests against this war from 1954-1975.
In 1974, computerized axial tomography (CAT) scanners were invented. They were able to produce cross-sectional pictures of a person's interior body using x-rays. This was a hue advancement in medicine and helped the war effort a lot by more accurately diagnosing injured soldiers. CAT scanners are much faster and more accurate than traditional x-rays and saved many lives by informing doctors of what type of treatment a soldier would need and how fast he would need it. This advancement lowered the number of American deaths in the Vietnam War caused by injury.
A major weapon during the Vietnam War was napalm. Napalm was used first by the US to burn down any bushes and forest to reduce the risk of enemy guerrilla fighters. Then we started using it to bomb cities and towns. Napalm was made from plastic polystyrene, hydrocarbon benzene, and gasoline, it was a sticky subtance which when ignited, turned to a deadly fire which reached temperatures ranging from 1,500 to 2,200 degrees fahrenheit. This produced a fire which could stick to anything and anyone. Throughout the course of the war, eight million tons of bombs were dropped over Vietnam.