March 30 – October 22, 1972 · South Vietnam Theater
March 30 – October 22, 1972
North Vietnam's conventional invasion of South Vietnam with 120,000 troops and Soviet-supplied tanks. US ground forces had been largely withdrawn; South Vietnamese troops bore the brunt, supported by massive American air power. Nixon ordered B-52 strikes and the mining of Haiphong Harbor. The offensive was eventually repulsed at enormous cost, but revealed the South Vietnamese army's fragility without US air support.
Commanders