02 THE EASTER OFFENSIVE VIETNM 1972 - VOLUME 1 - INWASION ACROSS THE DMZ.pdf

(6587 KB) Pobierz

CONTENTS

Abbreviations

Also by Albert Grandolini in the Asia@War

series:

The Easter Offensive – Vietnam 1972. Volume

2: Tanks in the Streets

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

website: www.helion.co.uk

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 Lightning Source Ltd, Milton

Keynes, Buckinghamshire

ISBN 978-1-914377-24-2

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication

Data

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: The offensive across the DMZ was

spearheaded by two armored regiments.

These Type 63s from the 66th Battalion of

the 202nd Armored Regiment ‘swim’ across

the Ben Hai River on the eastern part of the

DMZ. (PAVN); T-54B number 391 of the PAVN

203rd Armored Regiment, northwest of

Dong Ha, April 1972 (color profile).

The origin of the campaign

The allied forces

The communist forces

Prelude to the storm

Invasion across the DMZ

Stalemate at Hue

The ARVN on the offensive

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 1

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 Vietnams

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

USMC

USAF

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). A 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 Marine Corps

United States Air Force

United States Navy

Vietnamese Air Force, Air Force of South

Vietnam

Vietnamese Marine Corps

Wounded in Action

CHAPTER 1

THE ORIGIN OF THE CAMPAIGN

The aftermath of the communist Tet Offensive in 1968 brought with it

a change of resolve in Washington for a long-drawn war in Vietnam.

Even if the local Viet Cong forces and its administrative infrastructure

had been badly defeated, the US was mired in a strategic stalemate

with North Vietnam as they had shown no sign of abandoning the

objective of imposing communist rule in the South.

An increasing percentage of American public opinion now openly

questioned the reason for fighting there – and in view of this in

1969 the United States initiated its ‘Vietnamization’ policy in South

East Asia. The ever-increasing public sentiment further led the new

Richard Nixon administration to call for a ‘highly forceful approach’

to the policy so that South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu

assumed greater responsibility for the war-effort. The devised scheme

called for a massive upgrade of South Vietnamese military capacity

whilst gradually reducing the number of US troops deployed in the

field. Four years into this policy, significant results were witnessed in

South Vietnam, with 47,000 guerrillas that had ralllied the government

in 1969, and 32,000 in 1970, a trend that continued the following year.

Even if one is cautious using Vietnam War statistics due to different

collation methods, by early 1972 guerrilla activity in the countryside

was at its lowest ebb for decades. The Viet Cong had also not been able

to recover from the losses suffered during the Tet Offensive and the

heavy fighting of 1969–1970. Its underground administrative network

had also been badly weakened by Operation Phoenix coordinated by

the CIA, where between 26,000–41,000 suspected enemy civilians

were ruthlessly executed. The rural economy was now also recovering

thanks to massive US economic aid and an agrarian reform program

initiated by Saigon. US advisors attached to the pacification campaign

repeatedly indicated that the situation was steadily improving, with

most of the South Vietnamese peasants rejecting the Viet Cong and

people showing no real enthusiasm for the corrupt regime.

Tactically the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) brought

in over one million men, including half of them from peasant militias

to support most of the combat operations. The newly reinforced units

were at the vanguard of the cross-border operations into Cambodia in

1970 and in Laos in 1971, in order to destroy and disrupt the enemy

THE EASTER OFFENSIVE VIETNAM 1972 VOLUME 1: INVASION ACROSS THE DMZ

CHAPTER 1: THE ORIGIN OF THE CAMPAIGN

General Vo Nguyen Giap was the Commander-in-Chief of the North

Vietnamese armed forces in 1972. He was also the founder of the People’s

Army of Vietnam and turned it from a guerrilla into a conventional force.

(PAVN)

Lieutenant General Abrams succeeded General Westmoreland as head of

the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) in 1969. (US Army)

logistical system. These operations revealed the strong and weak

points of the ARVN (for example, when it operated a common US-

South Vietnamese offensive benefiting from American expertise, like

in Cambodia). They performed well – running aggressive sweeps. In

Laos they had no American advisors due to political rumblings and

thus engaged in insufficient numbers which meant the ARVN were

less effective.

A plan to attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail had long been on the

Pentagon agenda and six US divisions were supposedly available.

However, when the Nixon administration finally gave the green light

it was the ARVN – alone with less than half the planned force and

far less firepower – that undertook with the brutal task. Furthermore,

for the first time the South Vietnamese faced an enemy fighting a

conventional battle organized on a Corps level, with tanks, artillery

and a strong anti-aircraft gunning umbrella. Consequently, helicopter

assaults suffered the worst losses experienced during the entire

conflict with 168 destroyed and over 618 damaged. The withdrawing

mechanized columns suffered extensively in very difficult terrains

along jungle trails.

Anti-war sentiment in the US continued to grow notably after the

cross-border raids into Cambodia in 1970 forcing Nixon to accelerate

the withdrawal of US troops. Furthermore, the US administration

now wanted to withdraw as quickly as possible from a conflict riddled

with morale and discipline problems along with racial rioting, fearing

this would spread to the whole of the armed forces. The anti-war

sentiment also led to great difficulties in recruiting enough officers and

specialists to fill all the required posts of a US Army that had grown

to 1,512,000 men and women in 1969, with an additional 310,000

USMC personnel. Recruitment problems also hit the elite institutions

like the Air Force pilots’ community, where many of them preferred to

quit for better paid jobs with airline companies rather than continue

to stay with the military. Budgetary constraints due to an increasing

economic downturn would also soon force the Pentagon to reduce the

size of its armed forces, which in early 1971 had already been slashed

by 400,000 men. The troops deployed in South Vietnam were now

required for garrison duties in Western Europe, Japan, South Korea

and elsewhere, which meant that around 177,000 American soldiers

left Vietnam in 1971.

By January 1972 there were only 158,000 US troops left in the

country and during that month President Nixon announced that he

would withdraw a further 70,000 troops by 1 May. Between February

and April 58,000 troops returned to the United States, making it the

single largest troop withdrawal of the war, meaning that by the end

of March there were only 69,000 US troops left in the country – most

in logistical roles supporting two depleted brigades. What remained

were army aviation elements as well as a reduced USAF presence

providing air support to the South Vietnamese.

The negotiations that started in Paris in May 1968 between the

United States and the communist side also bogged down, not due

in small measure to the intransigence of the South Vietnamese

delegation. However, Washington – in a master-stroke of diplomacy

– opened direct negotiations with China, widening the existing

gap between Peking and Moscow. This resulted in the now historic

trip of President Nixon to Peking in February 1972. The Americans

had also approached the Soviets within the cadre of a new détente

policy in the Cold War, with the purpose of reducing the number

of strategic weapons. Washington hoped that the main supporters

of North Vietnam would talk Hanoi into some sort of compromise

but this was not the case. North Vietnamese leaders proved to be

independent of their bigger communist cousins and skilfully followed

their own agenda by playing Moscow against Peking. In doing this

Plik z chomika:

DARUCH41

02 THE EASTER OFFENSIVE VIETNM 1972 - VOLUME 1 - INWASION ACROSS THE DMZ.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: