03 THE EASTER OFFENSIVE VIETNM 1972 - VOLUME 2 - TANKS IN THE STREETS.pdf

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CONTENTS

Abbreviations

Also by Albert Grandolini in the Asia@War

series:

The Easter Offensive – Vietnam 1972.

Volume 1: Invasion across the DMZ

Published in 2015 by:

Helion & Company Limited

26 Willow Road

Solihull

West Midlands

B91 1UE

England

Tel. 0121 705 3393

Fax 0121 711 4075

email: info@helion.co.uk

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Twitter: @helionbooks

Visit our blog http://blog.helion.co.uk/

Text © Albert Grandolini 2015

Photographs © as individually credited

Color profiles © Tom Cooper 2015

Maps © Helion & Company Limited. Drawn

by George Anderson

Designed & typeset by Farr out Publications,

Wokingham, Berkshire

Cover design by Farr out Publications,

Wokingham, Berkshire

Printed by Henry Ling Limited, Dorchester,

Dorset

ISBN 978-1-914377-25-9

British Library Cataloguing-in-

PublicationData

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

publication may be reproduced, stored,

manipulated in any retrieval system, or

transmitted in any mechanical, electronic

form or by any other means, without the

prior written authority of the publishers,

except for short extracts in media

reviews. Any person who engages in any

unauthorized activity in relation to this

publication shall be liable to criminal

prosecution and claims for civil and criminal

damages.

Cover: These T-54Bs were destroyed by the

ARVN 8th Regiment on the northern sector

of An Loc. The men painted their regimental

number on the hulls in order to claim the

kills and earn 50,000 piaster, around $50,

for each tank destroyed. (US Army); VNAF

A-1H, serial 135281, of the 514th Fighter

Squadron from the 23rd Tactical Wing of

Bien Hoa AB – May 1972. It was armed with

Mk-82 HE bombs and CBU-25 dispensers

(color profile).

Background

Hanoi’s strategic surprise

The opening salvos

The siege of An Loc

Ordeal on Route 13

The battle for the Central Highlands

The siege of Kontum

Aftermath

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Note: In order to simplify the use of this book, all names, locations and geographic

designations are as provided in

The Times World Atlas,

or other traditionally accepted major

sources of reference, as of the time of described events.

ASIA@WAR VOLUME 2

Abbreviations

AAA

ACS

AFB

APC

ARVN

ATGM

Brig Gen

Capt

CBU

CIA

C-in-C

Col

Col Gen

COSVN

DCAT

DMZ

FAC

FSB

Gen

KIA

Anti-aircraft

Anti-Aircraft Artillery

Armored Cavalry Squadron

Air Force Base (used for US Air Force bases)

Armored Personnel Carrier

Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the South

Vietnamese Army

Anti-tank guided missile

Brigadier General (military commissioned officer

rank)

Captain (military commissioned officer rank)

Cluster bomb unit

Central Intelligence Agency (USA)

Chief-in-Command

Commanding Officer

Colonel (military commissioned officer rank)

Colonel General (top military commissioned

officer rank)

Central Office for South Vietnam

Division Combat Assistance Team

Demilitarized Zone, separating North from

South Vietnam

Forward Air Controller, usually airborne

controller in observation aircraft

Fire Support Base

General (military commissioned officer rank)

General-purpose (bomb)

Headquarters

Killed in action

Kilometer

Lieutenant (military commissioned officer rank)

Lt Col

1st Lt

2nd Lt

Maj

MANPADS

MBT

MIA

NCO

PAVN

PoW

RAC

RF/PF

SA-2 Guideline

SA-7 Grail

SAM

UHF

USAF

USMC

USN

VNAF

VNMC

WIA

Lieutenant Colonel (military commissioned

officer rank)

First Lieutenant (military commissioned officer

rank)

Second Lieutenant (lowest military

commissioned officer rank)

Major (military commissioned officer rank)

Man-portable air defense system(s) – light

surface-to-air missile system that can be carried

and deployed in combat by a single soldier

Main Battle Tank

Missing in action

Military Region

Non-commissioned officer

People’s Army of Vietnam, the North Vietnamese

Army

Prisoner of War

Regional Assistance Command

Regional Forces/People’s Forces from the ARVN

ASCC codename for S-75 Dvina, Soviet SAM

system

ASCC codename for 9K32 Strela-2, Soviet

MANPADS

Surface-to-air missile

Ultra High Frequency

United States Air Force

United States Marine Corps

United States Navy

Vietnamese Air Force, Air Force of South

Vietnam

Vietnamese Marine Corps

Wounded in Action

CHAPTER 1

BACKGROUND

On 30 March 1972 the South Vietnamese positions along the

Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) – that separated North Vietnam from

the South – were suddenly shelled by hundreds of heavy guns and

multiple rocket launchers (MRL). Shell-shocked soldiers in a series

of outposts along the former ‘McNamara Line’ scrambled out of their

bunkers only to be then met by the accompanying onslaught of the

regular North Vietnamese divisions – supported by hundreds of tanks

that smashed through their defensive lines. Thus began one of the

fiercest campaigns of the Vietnam War, but also one of the less well-

documented, as most American ground troops had been withdrawn

following the introduction of the ‘Vietnamization’ policy which aimed

to hand the South Vietnamese greater war-effort responsibilities.

The nature of the war itself at this point had changed dramatically –

evolving from a guerrilla one into a conventional conflict that set the

trend until the fall of Saigon three years later. The North Vietnamese

would learn the hard way how to conduct mechanized operations

against a far better organized southern force (the previous volume

in this series

The Easter Offensive – Invasion across the DMZ

looks

in great detail at the context of the fighting, along with the growth

of both armies: The South Vietnamese Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)

and the People Army of Vietnam (PAVN) in the North).

The campaign pitted two sides that had both been significantly

modernized and expanded, with the South Vietnamese – aided by

America – between 1969–1972 increasing the size of its military forces

from 825,000 to over one million – with 120 infantry battalions in

11 divisions, supported by 58 artillery battalions, 19 armored cavalry

regiments, and many engineer and new tank squadrons. After years

of neglect, Washington also gave top priority to equipping the ARVN

with over one million M16 rifles being delivered, as well as 12,000

M60 machine guns; 40,000 M79 grenade launchers, 790 4.2inch

(107mm) mortars, 10,000 radios and 20,000 trucks. In addition, to

confront the North Vietnamese T-54s, around 56 M48 medium tanks

were also delivered by 1972.

By now, the regular force made up less than half of the South

Vietnamese forces (535,000 men) being complemented by Territorial

Forces which played a key role in the pacification program. They

THE EASTER OFFENSIVE VIETNAM 1972 VOLUME 2: TANKS IN THE STREETS

CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND

Lieutenant General William Westmoreland, Commander of the MACV, and

Lieutenant General Cao Van Vien, Chief of the South Vietnamese Joint

General Staff, sitting side by side. The much politicized ARVN turned the

JGS into a mere advisory, rather than an operational, command. The most

crucial military decisions remained in the hands of President Nguyen Van

Thieu and his four Corps commanders. (US Army)

Different to the US–South Vietnamese dual command structure, the North

Vietnamese High Command was centralized around the Communist Party

Political Bureau. One of its leading figures was Senior General Vo Nguyen

Giap, Commander-in-Chief of the PAVN since its creation. He also held the

post of Defense Minister and President of the powerful Central Military

Commission. He is seen here, second from left in civilian clothes, during a

1971 visit to the Soviet Army Malinowski Armored Academy of Moscow,

where many North Vietnamese officers attended courses.

(Albert Grandolini Collection)

included 282,000 Regional Forces (RF), organized into battalions and

assigned to military provincial control, and 243,000 Popular Forces

(PF) organized into platoons and assigned at district level. These RF/

PF soldiers were now also re-equipped with modern M16 rifles and

M79 grenade launchers, but their main task was only to deal with

local Viet Cong because, when facing regular PAVN units, they were

usually not up to the challenge. Finally, there were more than 500,000

within the People’s Self-Defense Forces (PSDF) but these militias

were only part-time guards operating at village and hamlet levels, and

armed with Second World War M1 rifles and carbines. Tactically, the

divisions were grouped within four Corps and each Corps was in turn

assigned to a particular Military Region (MR). The 1st Corps operated

in MR I which covered the northern part of the country, from the

North Vietnamese border to south of Da Nang; the 2nd Corps was

assigned to the MR II, covering the Central Highlands and the coastal

area between Qui Nhon to Phan Rang; the 3rd Corps operated within

the MR III, covering the area around Saigon; and finally, the 4th Corps

served in MR IV, containing most of the Mekong Delta Area.

The Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), which was

set up as an advisory body to the ARVN, became increasingly less

influential with the arrival of US ground units. However, as the war

progressed the importance of the MACV advisory assets grew again

and advisory structure very closely paralleled that of Vietnamese

military command and control organization – with the headquarters

providing the advisory function to the ARVN JGS. Under this, a

Regional Assistance Command (RAC) was assigned to each of the four

ARVN Corps-Military Regions, and under the US RAC Commander

(usually a Major General) were two types of advisory teams – province

advisory teams and division advisory teams. Each province was

headed by a South Vietnamese colonel, and his American counterpart

was the province senior advisor who controlled the District and

Territorial Forces advisory teams. The province team was responsible

for advising the province chief in both civil and military aspects of

the ongoing pacification and development programs. In addition to

province advisory teams, there was a Division Combat Assistance

Team (DCAT) deployed to each South Vietnamese infantry division.

Elite units, such as the Airborne Rangers and Marines, were generally

organized along the same lines as regular ARVN units, but as

American forces began withdrawing from the country, the number

of advisors also dwindled. Thus, they now only operated at divisional

and regimental levels apart from in the Marine Division where they

continued at battalion level. By January 1972 there were only 5,416

American advisors in the whole of South Vietnam.

In North Vietnam, since the failure of the Tet Offensive in 1968,

the main PAVN units had also evolved into a modern mechanized

force and were themselves now being greatly supported, but by the

Soviet Union and China – who had both delivered heavy artillery and

tanks between 1970–1971. However, the motorization phase did not

run smoothly because many North Vietnamese divisions could not be

upgraded and trained on schedule as they were already deployed in

the field, and the PAVN then found it difficult to create units ready for

the new form of mechanized and combined arms operations. Mobile

training teams were thus sending units forward whilst other regiments

or divisions rotated back into North Vietnam for refitting. Yet, despite

all these difficulties, the PAVN modernization process continued

unabated and led to a force of some 16 divisions and four armored

regiments by early 1972. This force of 433,000 men and 655 tanks was

also supplemented by around two million men and women, including

870,000 light infantry, which belonged to the Militia Command.

Also, some 104,000 ‘regulars’ and 26,000 guerrillas officially belonged

to the Viet Cong, who were officially independent from the Central

Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the military wing of the National

Liberation Front (NLF) – a fictitious designation allocated to the Viet

Cong for propaganda purposes. Within the Viet Cong itself though,

morale was faltering and Hanoi was forced to bolster its ranks whilst

the COSVN had become nothing but a Forward Command Post of the

PAVN that needed constant support from the B-2 Front. However, the

PAVN expansion process continued throughout the Easter Offensive

despite huge losses and the number of regular battalions rose from

149 in 1969, to 285 in December 1972. Some 3,000 Soviet advisors and

technicians also supported the expanding PAVN along with dozens of

Chinese, Cubans and other Warsaw Pact personnel.

However, for all the North Vietnamese expansion and

modernization, the South had one clear superiority – its air capabilities.

The Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) had more than doubled its size

under guidance from America, increasing to nine tactical wings;

42,000 personnel; and nearly 1,000 aircraft, including A-1 and A-37

ground attack aircraft; and F-5A fighters – but most at all, the South

Vietnamese could still count on vital American air support from

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