repeated attacks by 122mm rockets on 28 January, but damage was light. The PAVN/VC failed to hold the occupied villages and sustained heavy losses and their military effectiveness decreased significantly. The most important gain was the recapture of Đức Cơ in time to receive the ICCS, this achievement aside, by mid-February the military balance in the highlands was generally the same as it had been at the end of December 1972. PAVN Military Region 6 included five South Vietnamese provinces, the mountain provinces of Tuyen Duc and Lâm Đồng and the coastal provinces of Ninh Thuận, Bình Thuận and Bình Tuy. This was a sparsely populated region and relatively isolated from the war. The ARVN had no regular forces deployed there and the RF and PF maintained effective control. The PAVN/VC in MR 6 had only four PAVN infantry battalions, one PAVN artillery battalion, and two VC infantry battalions, all of them weak and understrength. Action began on the night of 26 January with an attack on a hamlet north of Da Lat, the capital of Tuyen Duc. Another PAVN/VC force attempted unsuccessfully to enter a hamlet north of Phan Thiết in Bình Thuận. Although local forces interdicted Highway 20 east of Bao Lac in Lâm Đồng Province, South Vietnamese forces cleared the route by 30 January. Another thrust was repulsed with heavy losses at Tánh Linh District town in Bình Tuy on 27 January. On the morning of the 28th, the day the ceasefire was to become effective, the number of hamlets entered increased significantly, especially in Bình Thuận, but a PAVN battalion entering a suburb of Da Lat was quickly ejected. The RF and PF performed capably, and by the end of January the situation was clearly under South Vietnamese control. Highway 1 through the coastal provinces was never successfully cut, and the only lasting result of the campaign was the serious depletion of the PAVN/VC's local force battalions. III Corps The PAVN's Eastern Nam Bo Region was roughly the same as South Vietnam's III Corps (Bình Tuy, Gia Định, Hậu Nghĩa and Long An Provinces were excluded). In addition to scheduling attacks close to the ceasefire date, the PAVN in October 1972 had also learned that it lacked the strength to infiltrate the Saigon area with main forces. Operations in Eastern Nam Bo did not begin until a few days before the ceasefire was to become effective