FORGOTTEN Tank Attack of the Vietnam War 🪖 Battle of Lang Vei

War history in 10 seconds: On the night of 6–7 February 1968, North Vietnamese forces launched a devastating attack against the Lang Vei Special Forces Camp in South Vietnam.

Located near the Laotian border and close to Khe Sanh, Lang Vei was defended by U.S. Army Special Forces personnel and hundreds of CIDG troops.

Then the defenders encountered something that was still relatively unusual on the battlefield in South Vietnam—North Vietnamese tanks.

Under the cover of darkness, forces of the People's Army of Vietnam attacked the camp with infantry supported by Soviet-designed PT-76 amphibious light tanks.

The tanks broke through defensive obstacles and penetrated the camp while defenders desperately fought back using machine guns, small arms and anti-tank weapons, including M72 LAWs and 106 mm recoilless rifles.

Fighting continued at close range as North Vietnamese troops overwhelmed defensive positions and pushed deeper into the camp.

By morning, Lang Vei had been overrun.

The battle became an important early example of North Vietnamese armor being used directly against an American-supported position in South Vietnam and demonstrated how the battlefield was evolving beyond the jungle infantry warfare commonly associated with the conflict.

Today, the Battle of Lang Vei remains overshadowed by the nearby Battle of Khe Sanh, despite being one of the Vietnam War's most dramatic nighttime armored attacks.

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