This study explains how the armies of North and South Vietnam, newly
equipped with the most modern Soviet and US tanks and weaponry, fought
the decisive armored battles of the Easter Offensive.
Wearied by years of fighting against Viet Cong guerillas and North
Vietnamese regulars, the United States had almost completely withdrawn
its forces from Vietnam by early 1972. Determined to halt the expansion
and improvement of South Vietnamese forces under the U.S.
"Vietnamization" program, North Vietnam launched a major
fourteen-division attack in March 1972 against the South that became
known as the "Easter Offensive." Hanoi's assault was spearheaded by
1,200 tanks and was counteracted on the opposite side by Saigon's newly
equipped armored force using U.S. medium tanks. The result was ferocious
fighting between major Cold War-era U.S. and Soviet tanks and mechanized
equipment, pitting M-48 medium and M-41 light tanks against their T- 54
and PT-76 rivals in a variety of combat environments ranging from dense
jungle to urban terrain. Both sides employed cutting-edge weaponry for
the first time, including the U.S. TOW and Soviet 9M14 Malyutk
wire-guided anti-tank missiles.
This volume examines the tanks, armored forces, and weapons that clashed
in this little-known campaign in detail, using after-action reports from
the battlefield and other primary sources to analyze the technical and
organizational factors that shaped the outcome. Despite the ARVN's
defensive success in October 1972, North Vietnam massively expanded its
armor forces over the next two years while U.S. support waned. This
imbalance with key strategic misjudgments by the South Vietnamese
President led to the stunning defeat of the South in 1975 when T54 tanks
crashed through the fence surrounding the Presidential palace and took
Saigon on April 30, 1975.
