Military Model Scene

Title: Tanks in the Easter Offensive 1972
Author: William E. Hiestand
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-4728-4902-1

Number 303 in the New Vanguard series from Osprey, the Vietnam War's great conventional clash. A 48-age soft-cover book which includes the usual mix of informative text along with various data tables, archive images and of course the excellent artwork which Osprey are so well known for.
Best known as a largely guerrilla war, once the US forces began to withdraw from Vietnam, the war began to shift to the use of more conventional forces, and more simply those of North vs South. After the Introduction it examines the Tanks, Doctrine and Organisation of both sides. The South was reliant on US equipment, while the North moved on from the WW2 era equipment they had used and began to add early Cold War equipment from both Russia and China. That is expanded on to consider the Technical Factors of each type of armoured vehicle, again on both sides. This leads into the story of the various prongs of the 1972 offensive, the initial successes, and then how they were held or in places, pushed back. The results provide the material for a Battle Analysis, along with the various lessons that came out of the results, including the impact of new weaponry, and the influence these were all to have not only on the later fighting in Vietnam itself, but one events elsewhere in the world as well.
An interesting read on this particular period of the long running war in Vietnam, and clarifies the time when different vehicles types were brought into use in the region. For anyone interested in the history of the Vietnam War, I think this will be interesting, and of course also a good inspiration for modellers.
Thanks to Osprey for our review copy.

Robin