The battle background of the Tet Offensive

When time entered 1968, a stalemate occurred on the Vietnam battlefield. Although the U.S. military has absolute strength and technological advantages, it still feels helpless in the face of attacks by the North Vietnamese regular army and South Vietnamese guerrillas. The protracted war has made anti-war voices in the United States increasingly louder. President Lyndon Baines Johnson is facing the greatest political pressure since he was elected president. On the other hand, the Hanoi government is also feeling great pressure. The U.S. military's superior strength and modern weapons have caused serious losses to its armed forces, and their morale has been somewhat low. If this situation is not changed quickly, the outcome of the Anti-American War will be unimaginable. To reverse this unfavorable situation, we must choose the right moment to launch a violent attack on the US military. It was against this background that General Vo Nguyen Giap, Minister of Defense of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, began to brew a plan in his mind.

Vo Nguyen Giap was ready to give it a go. In regular battles, whenever they encounter the US military, his troops are always beaten to pieces. Even if it can be said that the North Vietnamese army was not in retreat, to be honest, it was at least being forced into retreat by the US military. The Hanoi government was very aware of the growing anti-war fervor in the United States and the severe social divisions caused by the war. What General Vo Nguyen Giap needed was to deliver a fatal blow to the United States to break the will of the Washington government to continue the war in Vietnam. At the same time, such an action can also let the world know the nature of the Saigon government, thereby shaking its legitimacy. At that time, with the support of the United States, it was obvious that the Saigon government was in its prime. To some extent, the timing was not in Giap's favor. Although the Hanoi government believed that the Americans would eventually become as war-weary as the French colonists before them, the longer this went on, the stronger the Saigon government would become. If the US military's involvement in Vietnam continues for another year and a half, the strength of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) will be severely damaged. And with the continuous development of the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN), North Vietnam will not be its opponent even without US intervention. General Vo Nguyen Giap's strategy was to strike quickly, just in time to cause some trouble for the United States during the 1968 presidential election.

General Vo Nguyen Giap prepared to launch a bold attack on the enemy on two fronts. With the victory of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu still fresh in his mind, General Vo Nguyen Giap planned to attack the U.S. Marine Corps' heavy fire point (a military base that could fire heavy artillery fire on the enemy) at Khe Sanh. At the same time, the North Vietnamese Regular Army (NVA) and the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front planned to jointly attack all major cities and provincial capitals in South Vietnam. If the United States decides to defend Khe Sanh base while fighting begins elsewhere in South Vietnam, the Americans will find that their front is stretched too far. If American and South Vietnamese forces were forced to fight on all fronts at the same time, they would suffer defeats large and small, and would ultimately lead to their own disaster at Khe Sanh. When the Battle of Khe Sanh is ongoing, it will inevitably attract the attention of US military commanders, which will facilitate the North Vietnamese regular army and the Vietnamese Communist Party (VC) to prepare for a large-scale attack on South Vietnam's cities. When North Vietnam's all-out attack on cities in South Vietnam entered a fever pitch, the U.S. military, which had stretched its front too long, would be unable to avoid the capture of the Khe Sanh base. In this way, General Vo Nguyen Giap would repeat his victory fourteen years ago.

A very questionable fact is that the North Vietnamese regular army and the Vietnamese expected to defend all or some of the towns they captured. The South Vietnamese National Liberation Front is obviously expecting a large number of civilians in these cities to rise up. Except for a few cities, none of these predicted scenarios have happened. Most citizens in various cities in South Vietnam were not interested in the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front and the Saigon government. It was obvious that the Vietnamese Communists expected much higher support than they actually received. This was obviously something they did not expect. The purpose of North Vietnam's operation was not just to simply win a battle. Its key purpose was to make the U.S. military stationed in Vietnam suffer the humiliation of consecutive defeats, and at the same time to effectively subvert the Saigon government. According to North Vietnam's thinking, even if the U.S. and South Vietnamese troops eventually force the North Vietnamese regular army and the Vietnamese to retreat into the jungle, what will be left behind will be a ruins full of rubble, and at the same time there will be piles of refugees, and the entire society will be full of hatred. Dissatisfaction with the United States and the Saigon government. Americans, hit by a series of defeats, will completely lose confidence in this war. The launch date of this offensive was set in January 1968, which was during the Lunar New Year in Vietnam.

Khe Sanh Village is located in the northwest corner of South Vietnam, just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and close to the Laos border. During the First Indochina War, Khe Sanh was garrisoned by the French. During the Second War, Khe Sanh became an important base for U.S. special operations forces. The importance of Khe Sanh lies in its proximity to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Through Khe Sanh, US artillery can bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail; US observation posts can also monitor the activities of the North Vietnamese regular army to the south at all times. If necessary, they could call in an air strike, and they could also provide alerts to CIA/Meo strike teams stationed across the border in Laos. U.S. special operations forces also often lead the local Montagnard people (referring to the mountain tribes in the border area between southern Vietnam and Cambodia) to attack North Vietnamese regular army vehicles operating in the area. This is also something that makes the Hanoi government have trouble sleeping.

In 1967, the U.S. Marines took over Khe Sanh and turned the place into a large heavy firepower point for the U.S. military, while the U.S. Special Operations Forces moved its base to a Montagnard village called Lang Vei. small village.

By the end of 1967, it was obvious that General Vo Nguyen Giap was already planning an operation. Broadcasts from Hanoi also continued to mention the great victory, and also talked about spreading the war to various cities in South Vietnam. The 325th and 304th Divisions of the North Vietnamese regular army are advancing towards the Khe Sanh area, while the North Vietnamese 3rd Division is lined up on Highway 9, ready to intercept US reinforcements from Quang Tn. It is obvious that North Vietnam has issued a gauntlet to the US military. The two North Vietnamese divisions deployed in Khe Sanh have participated in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and have rich combat experience and tenacious combat effectiveness. So General Westmoreland, the supreme commander of the U.S. military in Vietnam, rushed to respond. Although the weather will be very bad in the next few days, air support and air supplies will inevitably be affected, but General Westmoreland ordered the US military to strengthen the defenses of the Khe Sanh base. It was obvious that General Westmoreland was unwilling to repeat the mistakes of the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. What was different from that time was that U.S. air power was capable of carrying out devastating strikes against the North Vietnamese troops assembled on the ground. Except for the North Vietnamese anti-aircraft artillery, which was still a bit of a threat, U.S. aircraft were simply in an uninhabited land. Moreover, the U.S. military can supply supplies through helicopters and low-altitude transport aircraft parachute drops, thus reducing its reliance on land supply transportation.

As of the end of January, approximately 6,000 U.S. Marines had been flown to Khe Sanh to strengthen the base’s defense. Thousands of U.S. military reinforcements were also rushed to northern Hue. At this time, the build-up of the North Vietnamese Army continued: in the end, approximately 20,000 North Vietnamese troops were deployed around Khe Sanh, and some estimate this number to be 40,000. According to General Vo Nguyen Giap's arrangement, North Vietnamese artillery would be deployed in the demilitarized zone, and he would then order the attack force to attack the fortified hills surrounding Khe Sanh. These hills were occupied by the US Marines after a fierce battle in 1967. General Vo Nguyen Giap calculated that after capturing these hills, the artillery of the North Vietnamese regular army would move to hills with an altitude higher than the Khe Sanh base. Then, just like what happened at Dien Bien Phu, waves of tenacious North Vietnamese infantry would fight their way toward the base, until finally the American defenders were cornered and Khe Sanh Base was captured. The White House and the American media believe that the moment of decisive battle has arrived. TV news also reported all day long that General Vo Nguyen Giap would repeat the Dien Bien Phu victory, so that the daily living conditions of the US military at Khe Sanh base occupied the top spot in the news reports.