John Vietnam 1966 (sorry i'm late)

In 1966 America launched several large scale military operations in Vietnam hoping for a head on battle with the Vietcong. In the early months of 1966 Operation Crimp (the largest operation of the war) took affect in a hope to capture the North Vietnamese headquarters. It ended in failure with no base being found. crimp was followed by several seek and destroy missions which aimed for large scale direct conflict but those too were failures producing only two minor skirmishes. The next few months went back and forth between attack and defend for the Americans with no major losses or gains for either side. In July however the Vietcong took heavy losses in fighting near Con Thien, but they are able to regain their forces by October. The U.S. then launched more large scale seek and destroy missions but to no avail. The year ended with U.S. forces having reached 385000 men with 6000 dead and 30000 wounded while the North Vietnamese had nearly 61000 dead and their troop levels reaching nearly 280000.