“Tank biathlon” won by Vietnam.
Many don’t realize that when North Vietnam finally crushed South Vietnam it was with an armor-tipped attack that a Guderian, Rommel, Zhukov or Patton would have recognized.
Exactly. And if the US had kept it’s word to it’s South Vietnamese ally, kept them logistically supplied, and provided the same level of air support that blunted the North Viet’s 1972 Easter Offensive, then the later offensive would probably have resulted in failure also.
South Vietnamese ground units, particularly their M-48a3 tank units, did some very determined and resolute fighting, particularly on the DMZ and the II and III Corp tactical zones.
I always thought it was funny that for the final push into Saigon in 1975 some in the Vietnamese hierarchy wanted the drive to be spearheaded by reconstituted Viet Cong* units. The North Vietnamese Army basically told them screw that. We won you lost.
*After devastating loses at Khe Sahn and the Tet Offensive, the VC ceased to be an effective fighting force and it’s few remaining troops we absorbed into the NVA.
And a complete committal of their armed forces, such that Moscow thought Hanoi had lost its marbles by leaving itself open to a counter-invasion.