According to allied estimates, the North Viet�namese, who had massed their forces to attack in the face of superior supporting arms, had lost at least 13, 000 soldiers killed. Allied troops claimed to have captured or destroyed 5, 170 individual and 1, 963 crew-served weapons, 2, 001 trucks, 106 tanks, and more than 20, 000 tons of ammunition, not counting am�munition the North Vietnamese had expended in the fighting. In addition, the enemy had lost about 90, 000 gallons of fuel and lubricants and 1, 250 tons of food.55

Allied commanders believed that Lam Son 719 had thrown the enemy off balance strategically. Temporar�ily, at least, the offensive disrupted the southward movement of North Vietnamese troops and supplies; it forced the Communists to commit men and material to the Laos campaign that otherwise would have gone to South Vietnam. Rebuilding and restocking of the base areas between Tchepone and the Vietnamese border would occupy the enemy for most of the 1971 dry season, thereby assuring postponement of any im�mediate major offensive, and causing a reduced level of enemy activity in MR 1 for most of the year. Prophetically, as it turned out. the MACV command history for 1971 stated that "Lam Son 719 might even have forestalled any major offensive until the spring of 1972."56

In Lam Son 719, tor the first time, the South Viet�namese conducted a multi-division offensive without the assistance of U.S. advisors; most command and control responsibility fell upon the ARVN com�manders and their staffs. While the ARVN perfor�mance had been uneven, most U.S. commanders insisted that the overall results gave encouraging evi�dence that the Vietnamese were learning how to fight their own war.

Lieutenant General Sutherland, the XXIV Corps commander, acknowledged some major ARVN short�comings, including "a lack of effective long-range plan�ning by higher level staffs, a serious disregard for communications security, a general lack of a sense of supply discipline, and a failure to delegate authority to subordinates." Nevertheless, he pointed out that "without U.S. advisors" and without the possibility of reinforcement or direct support by U.S. ground com�bat forces, the ARVN had "carried the war into an ene�my controlled area, far removed from the familiar confines of their normal areas of operation . . . ." Sutherland concluded:

The forces that participated in Lam Son 719 proved that the Republic of Vietnam possesses] a viable military organi�zation that is significantly more capable, cohesive and bet�ter led than the military organization that existed . . . only three years ago. The overall results of Lam Son 719 indicate that Vietnamization is progressing well in MR 1 . . . 67

Even in such optimistic assessments, nevertheless, U.S. commanders had to acknowledge one disturbing fact: the ARVN had depended heavily on American helicopter and fixed-wing air support at every stage of the Laotian offensive, both to launch the attack in the first place and then to rescue the South Viet�namese from the worst consequences of their own mili�tary deficiencies. The South Vietnamese Armed Forces had yet to prove that, by themselves, they could defeat the North Vietnamese Army in a major conventional battle. Vietnamization, whatever progress could be reported, remained an unequal contest between the slow pace of RVNAF improvement and the inexora�bly quickening pace of American withdrawal.