Battle of the Iron Triangle had achieved combat parity and were pushing against the ARVN's outer line of defense around Saigon. Battle of the Iron Triangle The Battle of the Iron Triangle took place from 16 May to 20 November 1974, when the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) 9th Division captured Rach Bap and An Dien The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) regained the lost towns in a series of costly counterattacks. The Iron Triangle was an important strategic location, bounded on the north by the jungle and overgrown rubber plantations of the Long Nguyen Secret Zone, on the west by the Saigon
Battle of the Iron Triangle especially in the northern part, were thick with elephant grass, higher than a man's head. The surface was scarred by countless bomb and shell craters so that vehicular movement off the narrow, rough dirt roads was nearly impossible; even tracked vehicles had difficulty. A vast network of tunnels and trenches, most of them caved-in and abandoned, laced this ground that had been the scene of battles since the First Indochina War. A weak string of three ARVN outposts protected the northern edge of the Triangle, from Rach Bap () on the west, close by the Saigon River, along local Route