Lastly:
95In Chinese Military Strategy in the Third Indochina War, Edward O’Dowd argues the Chinese conducted an ineffective military operation against Lang Son. His criticism covers the PLA’s artillery doctrine, personnel system, and logistics system. 96 The Chinese offered a different assessment. The 55th Army’s after-action report admitted that 1,271 Chinese troops had been killed and 3,779 wounded at Dong Dang and Lang Son. In addition, thirty tanks and thirty artillery pieces had been lost. However, the Chinese credited themselves with having inflicted 10,401 casualties on the Vietnamese defenders, most of them from the PAVN’s 3rd Division and the local units under its command along with a small force of the PAVN’s 327th Division. This number did not include those killed by gasoline, explosives, and flamethrowers in the tunnel complex of the French Fort and the caves at Lang Son. The 55th Army also recorded the destruction of forty-four PAVN tanks and six armored vehicles and the capture of a significant number of weapons, including 3 tanks, 3 armored vehicles, 29 trucks, 32 motorcycles, 99 artillery pieces, 2,200 small arms, 17,000 artillery rounds, and tons of other military supplies. Prior to withdrawing from Lang Son, the 55th destroyed 2,920 military and public facilities, literally turning the city into a ruin. 97 General Xu’s forces returned to China convinced that the combination of artillery fire and fierce ground combat at Lang Son had taught Vietnam a harsh and unforgettable “lesson.”
From the BOOK: DENG XIAOPING'S LONG WAR
