 The horrendous losses inflicted on Viet Cong units struck into the heart of the irreplaceable infrastructure that had been built up for over a decade . MACV estimated that 181 @,@ 149 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops had been killed during 1968 . From this point forward , Hanoi was forced to fill one @-@ third of the Viet Cong 's ranks with North Vietnamese regulars . However , this change had little effect on the war , since North Vietnam had little difficulty making up the casualties inflicted by the offensive . Some Western historians have come to believe that one insidious ulterior motive for the campaign was the elimination of competing southern members of the Party , thereby allowing the northerners more control once the war was won . 
