Download the TIRSA tactical incident dataset

Downloads and caches the Tactical Incident Report Activity (TIRSA) dataset covering ground combat incidents reported through tactical situation reports from 1966 to 1973. TIRSA is one of the source files combined in get_comb_inc_dta.

Usage

get_tirsa(cache = TRUE, force = FALSE)

Format

A data frame with 37 variables (row count varies by version). Key variables include:

incident_id: Unique incident identifier.
message_year: Year of the report message.
message_month: Month of the report message.
message_week: Week of the report message.
date: Date of the incident.
hamlet_id: Hamlet identifier.

Source

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, MD. Electronic records collected by the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Source file: Tactical Incident Report Activity (TIRSA), OPSANAL system. See Smith (2025) and its Online Appendix for full archival accession details.

Arguments

cache: Logical. If TRUE (default), the downloaded file is saved locally and reused on subsequent calls without re-downloading.
force: Logical. If TRUE, re-downloads the file even if a cached copy already exists. Default is FALSE.

Value

A data frame with 37 variables. Row count varies by version.

Details

Each row is a discrete combat incident.

References

Smith, Gregory L. (2025). "Beyond body counts: Vietnam war ground combat data." Conflict Management and Peace Science. doi:10.1177/07388942251391081

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
  tirsa <- get_tirsa()
  head(tirsa)
} # }