After two protracted years of fighting that wore down the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the North Vietnamese decided to launch their final offensives in January 1975. The president of South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu, decided upon a wide range of strategic withdrawals to consolidate his forces that saw the northern half of the country abandoned to the enemy. The scheme turned into a disaster, and by March 1975 the whole North Vietnamese regular battle corps, some 550,000 troops and 700 tanks, was massed at the gates of South Vietnam's capital and subsequent events led to some of the fiercest fighting of the Vietnam War. Volume 4 of Target Saigon examines the final campaigns of the conflict in Vietnam, in which the Communist forces engaged in a highly mechanized war of manoeuvre. Despite being heavily outnumbered, many of the ARVN's units put up a fierce resistance, inflicting heavy casualties upon the advancing Northern forces, in a series of battles that were far from the rout often described. Target Saigon Volume 4 is illustrated with a number of maps, 130 photographs and over 30 original colour artworks illustrating the men, vehicles and aircraft of this campaign. AUTHOR: Military historian and aviation-journalist Albert Grandolini was born in Vietnam and gained an MA in history from Paris 1 Sorbonne University. His primary research focus is on contemporary conflicts in general and particularly on the military history in Asia and Africa. Having spent his childhood in South Vietnam, the Vietnam War has always been one of his main fields of research. He authored the book Fall of the Flying Dragon: South Vietnamese Air Force (1973-1975) two volumes on Vietnam's Easter Offensive of 1972 for Helion's Asia@War Series, and three volumes on Libyan Air Wars for Africa@War Series, and has written numerous articles for various British, French, and German magazines. 130 b/w photos, 34 colour profiles, 8 maps
