Paint it Black - The Attack on Lang Vei

“Oh, hell, they have tanks. They’re right on top of us!” –First lieutenant Fred McGrath’s final radio broadcast from Lang Vei.

When the Communist forces of North and South Vietnam launched the 1968 Tet Offensive one component was the siege of Khe Sanh. The fortified hilltop positions at Khe Sanh were located near the border of North and South Vietnam. An important strongpoint to the south and west of Khe Sanh was at Lang Vei. It was from Lang Vei that US trained Montagnard and Laotian natives would launch raids into communist held territories to disrupt the “Ho Chi Minh” trail by which the Communist insurgency throughout South Vietnam was supplied, and to capture prisoners for intelligence. Destroying the US outpost at Lang Vei was key to Communist success in the siege as well as their larger war effort.

The Communist offensive was launched by the 24th Regiment of the 304th Infantry Division (one of the formations that had fought at Dien Bien Phu fourteen years earlier). The assault force would also include Soviet built PT-76 tanks of the NVA’s 198th Tank Battalion of the 203rd Armored Regiment, the first these types of weapons would be deployed by the Communists in the war, as well as heavy artillery batteries in North Vietnam. The battle here would usher in a new phase of the Vietnam conflict. Can you do as well or better than your historical counterpart?