With the arrival of another spring in Korea there was strong likelihood that the Chinese Communists facing the Marines across a 33-mile front of jagged peaks and steep draws would launch a new offensive. This would enable them to regain the initiative and end the stalemate that had existed since October when they were rebuffed in the battle for the Hook. Winning new dominating hill or ridge positions adjacent to the Marine MLR, in that uneasy No-Mans-Land buffer zone between the CCF and UN lines, would be both militarily and psychologically advantageous to the Communists. Any new yardage or victory, no matter how small, could be exploited as leverage against the “Wall Street capitalists” when truce talks resumed at the Panmunjom bargaining table. Further, dominant terrain seized by the CCF would remain in Communist hands when the truce went into effect. Although wise to the tactics of the Chinese,[353] UN intelligence had not anticipated the extent or intensity of the surprise CCF attack that opened up at 1900 on 26 March when the Communists sent battalions of 700 to 800 men against Marine outposts of 50 men. [353] Since the first of the year division intelligence reports had given the CCF the capability of mounting limited objective attacks ranging from company to regimental size. _PacFlt EvalRpt_, p. 9-28, quoting 1stMarDiv PIR 860, dtd 4 Mar 53. The late March attack centered primarily on a trio of peaks where Marines had dug in three of their key outposts--Carson, Reno, and Vegas. Rechristened from earlier, more prosaic names of Allen, Bruce, and Clarence, respectively, the Nevada Cities hill complex was located approximately 1,500 yards north of the MLR fronting the 5th Marines right sector. The trio was the province of 1/5, which manned the western (left) part of the regimental area. Ultimately, however, reverberations ran through nearly 10,000 yards of division front, from the two Berlin outposts, 1,000 yards east of Vegas, to COP Hedy, midpoint in the 1st Marines center sector. Continuous attacks and counterattacks for possession of the key Vegas outpost raged unabated for five days. The action escalated into the bloodiest fighting to date in western Korea, resulted in loss of a major outpost, and the killing or wounding of nearly 1,000 Marines. It was a partial success for the enemy, but he paid a high price for the real estate: casualties amounting to more than twice the Marine losses, including 800 known killed and a regiment that was decimated by the Marine defenders.