Arguably, however, the Communists may never have realistically expected their Tet offensive to cause an uprising throughout South Vietnam and probably had in mind a more limited and attainable goal. A case could be made that at least in I Corps, their main objective was not Khe Sanh, but Hue. They perhaps hoped that the capture of Hue would result in the defection of the South Vietnamese forces and the loss of other population centers in the two northern provinces of South Vietnam. Such a result would have cut the allied lines of communication and left the 3d Marine Division suspended without support in the northern regions bordering the DMZ and Laos. This would have left the Communists in a strong position for obtaining their own terms. Given both the resources that the North Vietnamese put into the battle and the tenacity with which they fought, it was obvious that the Hue campaign was a major component of the entire Tet offensive. According to an enemy account, the North Vietnamese military command in planning the offensive took into consideration that the U.S. and South Vietnamese had concentrated their forces in the north, expecting an attack along Route 9. It viewed Hue as the weak link in the allied defenses in the northern two provinces.

The battle for Hue was a relatively near thing. Only the failure of the North Vietnamese to overrun the Mang Ca and MACV compounds permitted the allies to retain a toehold in both the Citadel and the new city. With the holding of these two positions, the Americans and South Vietnamese were able to bring in reinforcements to mount a counreroffensive. Even then, if the enemy had blown the An Cuu Bridge across Route l on the first day, the Marines would not have been able to send in their initial battalions and supplies into the city. If the enemy had made a stronger effort to cut both the water and land lines of communications, the outcome of the struggle for Hue would have been less predictable. The Marine rapid response and quick adaptability to street fighting together with the fact that the South Vietnamese forces did not defect permitted the allied forces to attain the upper hand. Fortuitously, the 1st Air Cavalry Division had arrived in northern I Corps prior to Tet and was eventually able to commit four battalions to the battle. By the end of February, the allies controlled Hue.

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