Easter Offensive

North Vietnamese Type 59 tank captured by South Vietnamese 20th Tank Regiment south of Dong Ha

Date	March 30 – October 22, 1972
Location	South Vietnam
Result	South Vietnam repulsed the main assaults with U.S. support. North Vietnam gained significant territories.

Belligerents

Commanders and leaders

I Corps:
Hoàng Xuân Lãm (replaced by Ngô Quang Trưởng)
II Corps:
Ngô Du (replaced by Nguyễn Văn Toàn)
III Corps:
Nguyễn Văn Minh

Tri-Thien-Hue Region:
Văn Tiến Dũng
B-2 Front:
Trần Văn Trà
B-3 Front:
Hoang Minh Thao

Strength

Total ARVN: 758,000
U.S. forces:

U.S. Air Force

U.S. 7th Fleet

200,000–300,000
322 tanks and APCs

Casualties and losses

U.S. claim: ~10,000 killed, 33,000 wounded, 3,500 missing
PAVN claim: 213,307 killed and wounded, 13,000 captured.
More than 1,000 tanks and APCs destroyed
Hundreds of military aircraft and helicopters shot down

U.S. estimate: 40,000–75,000 killed or missing, ~60,000 wounded
250–700 tanks and APC destroyed

The Easter Offensive (Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Xuân hè 1972, or Mùa hè đỏ lửa, the Red fiery summer as romanticized in South Vietnamese literature) was a military campaign conducted by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN, the regular army of North Vietnam) against the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, the regular army of South Vietnam) and the United States military between March 30 and October 22, 1972, during the Vietnam War. This conventional invasion (the largest offensive operation since 300,000 Chinese volunteers had crossed the Yalu River into North Korea during the Korean War) was a radical departure from previous North Vietnamese offensives. The offensive was not designed to win the war outright but to gain as much territory and destroy as many units of the ARVN as possible, to improve the North's negotiating position as the Paris Peace Accords drew towards a conclusion.

The U.S. high command had been expecting an attack in 1972 but the size and ferocity of the assault caught the defenders off balance, because the attackers struck on three fronts simultaneously, with the bulk of the North Vietnamese army. This first attempt by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) to invade the south since the Tet Offensive of 1968, became characterized by conventional infantry–armor assaults backed by heavy artillery, with both sides fielding the latest in technological advances in weapons systems. In the I Corps Tactical Zone, North Vietnamese forces overran South Vietnamese defensive positions in a month-long battle and captured Quảng Trị city, before moving south in an attempt to seize Huế. PAVN similarly eliminated frontier defense forces in the II Corps Tactical Zone and advanced to seize the provincial capital of Kon Tum, which would have opened the way to the sea, splitting South Vietnam in two. North-east of Saigon, in the III Corps Tactical Zone, PAVN forces overran Lộc Ninh and advanced to assault the capital of Bình Long Province at An Lộc.

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Wikipedia