General Offensive and Uprising of Spring 1975: Outstanding Military Art

According to Lieutenant General, Dr. Do Minh Xuong, Director of the Army Academy, the motto: "Speed, boldness, surprise, sure victory" is a unique feature of the art of strategic combat command of the Party and the General Command. It is both a guiding ideology and a prominent military action motto in the General Offensive and Uprising in the Spring of 1975 .

Liberation Army tanks entering the Independence Palace at noon on April 30, 1975. Photo archive.

From the practice of the General Offensive and Uprising in Spring 1975 , we can draw some lessons about the unique, distinctive and creative features of the art of strategic combat command .

The art of directing and organizing the "people's fight" force

Our people's resistance war against the US to save the country had the characteristics of both a war of liberation and a war to defend the Fatherland. Our Party not only focused on building the Army as the core to conduct the war but also maximized the intelligence, strength, traditions and experiences of Vietnam from ancient times to fight the enemy with the strength of the entire nation, aiming to defeat the professional military forces with the giant, professional and cruel war machines of the enemy.

The Central Military Commission monitors the development of the Ho Chi Minh campaign to liberate Saigon, Hanoi , April 1975. Photo archive.

The object of the art of organizing and using our forces in combat and strategy is to mobilize the strength of the entire people to fight the enemy, including the armed forces of three types of troops, linked with the resistance forces of each commune, hamlet, village, district, province, and city, closely combined with the main force - the core and shock force of the people's war.

During the 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising, that battle formation and force ensured that when attacking the enemy, we were always in the proactive position. The more we fought, the more the enemy revealed weaknesses and was forced into the danger of defeat. Thanks to the art of directing and organizing the entire people to fight the enemy, we had the conditions to concentrate our forces on attacking large cities, destroying and capturing the enemy; at the same time, we had the conditions to attack the enemy widely in the forests, mountains, countryside and city suburbs, eliminating hundreds of thousands of enemies from combat.

Thanks to the very flexible and creative art of organizing the entire people's force to fight the enemy, we formed a fire net of the people's war, destroyed many planes and warships, completely defeated the plots and tricks of invasion of the US imperialists, causing the US and puppets to completely fail both militarily and politically .

The art of unique and creative strategic command

On the basis of the people's war line, the art of strategic warfare according to the people's war line, closely combining guerrilla warfare with conventional warfare, military struggle with political struggle and military agitation, we have successfully fought on the entire front line, fighting both in front and behind the enemy, in all three strategic regions.

Liberation Army completely took control of Da Nang city, March 19, 1975. Photo archive.

In the 1975 Spring strategic offensive, to destroy the enemy's forces, it was necessary to arrange and use strong strategic groups in key battlefield directions, making the general offensive develop strongly, encouraging political forces and mass forces to rise up widely, achieving great victories, making the enemy unable to cope.

The art of directing strategic operations through successive attacks continuously, overlapping each other, attacking the entire front line or most of the front line, causing the enemy to be in chaos and unable to withdraw forces from various places to support Saigon.

The steel fists of the main force encouraged the local armed forces to enthusiastically coordinate the attack, and encouraged the political forces of the masses in the inner city and towns to rise up together. The strength of the entire nation was like a "rising tide, a flood", unstoppable, causing the enemy's position to quickly disintegrate and collapse.

The art of commanding to create strategic combat positions to gain decisive victory

During the strategic offensive phase, it was necessary for us to organize 5 strategic army groups to create and transform the strategic combat situation, in order to accelerate the pace of attack at high speed, making it difficult for the enemy to resist and be defeated quickly.

The Politburo of the Central Executive Committee of the Vietnam Workers' Party met to decide to launch the 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising (from December 18, 1974 to January 8, 1975). Photo: Archive.

The unique feature in our battle formation is that of people's war, inherited from the tradition and experience of our ancestors in history. We attack the enemy with 2 forces, 3 types of troops, in all 3 strategic areas and operate in an interlocking position, interspersed with the enemy on the entire front line.

Our main army corps were firmly established from the South of the 17th parallel to Saigon, entering the Mekong Delta. We did not attack the enemy's vertical front line, where the enemy had a large depth of defense, but from the enemy's front line footholds, we organized attacks in a position of sure victory. The battle strategy was to attack horizontally where the enemy's forces were thin and weak, coming from the west, so we could quickly capture the enemy's basic defense line, we only needed one breakthrough campaign to reach strategic depth.

Our strategic combat posture divided the enemy's strategic posture and broke the enemy's strategic chain, isolated enemy forces into clusters, put them in a difficult situation and made them unable to rescue, relieve, or support each other.

The art of promoting the combined strength of military and service branches in large-scale operations

During the 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising, we used and promoted well the combined arms and services operations on a large scale. The forces of the various arms and services were organized, used flexibly and creatively, and coordinated closely according to a unified plan, creating a combined strength to destroy the enemy across the battlefield.

Ho Chi Minh Campaign Command monitors and directs the campaign, April 1975. Photo: Archive.

Specifically: Armored units, together with infantry, conduct raids, leading units to penetrate deeply to capture important targets and pursue the enemy; Special Forces units penetrate deeply and attack dangerously at important targets in the city, capture and protect bridgeheads, ensuring that units penetrate deeply to capture targets in coordination with the campaign;

Air defense troops shot down aircraft to protect the airspace, protect the campaign formation, and fight airborne, ground, and water enemies; Artillery troops brought into play their firepower, actively supporting infantry and tanks to attack the enemy according to plan, fighting airborne and retreating enemies;

The Air Force provided good transportation and command services, and in particular, successfully fought a battle at Tan Son Nhat airport, implementing modern military and service coordination in the strategic decisive battle. The supporting services such as engineering, communications, and transportation were used in the right functions and tasks, effectively promoting their capabilities and strengths to ensure the campaign developed smoothly and as intended.

The art of directing the application of flexible and creative tactics to successfully carry out campaign tasks

During the campaigns of the 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising, the Central Military Commission and the General Command directed the forces to flexibly, creatively and successfully apply various types of tactics such as maneuvering the enemy, deceiving the enemy, luring the enemy into our plan to fight; fighting the enemy both inside and outside fortifications, in all types of forests, mountains, countryside, plains, and urban areas...

Party and State leaders on the podium at the rally celebrating Vietnam's great victory, May 15, 1975.

In particular, the success of combined arms operations against cities, towns and large military bases in the following forms: attacking the enemy in bases, towns and large cities; marching attacks; mobile attacks; fighting airborne enemies; pursuing the enemy in conditions with and without preparation time... has developed remarkably and achieved high combat efficiency.

“The 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising was a high-level development of the Vietnamese people's war. The creative and unique developments in the art of strategic combat command during the 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising contributed to further perfecting and enriching the treasure trove of Vietnamese military art in the Ho Chi Minh era, leaving valuable lessons for the cause of building and defending the Fatherland today and in the future,” Lieutenant General, Dr. Do Minh Xuong emphasized.

The article uses materials from the scientific conference "The Great Victory of Spring 1975 with the new development era of the Vietnamese nation".

Source: https://khoahocdoisong.vn/tong-tien-cong-va-noi-day-xuan-1975-nghe-thuat-quan-su-vuot-bac-post269493.html