GOOD MORNING VIETNAM - The Game

The last post contained the scenario and this one describes the game, played by email and WhatsApp. It’s mainly with maps because my pictures of figures in the jungle are all filled with trees and bushes, the figures hid very successfully behind them.

This is the opening situation, V.C. Cowie has been in country for 7 days, most of the time putting things to rights and has only had 1 day to deploy his forces. I think he was more worried about possible rival VC than anyone trying to rescue the pilot he held as a captive.

So this is where he was as his men bivied on the night of day 7. He had split his forces into a number of smaller groups to try and cover the area better. The regular NVLA have been split into 3 groups SG1, 2 & 3.

SG1 was guarding the base along with a few odds and sods from other squads, SG2 was to check out one of the possible landing sites, LZ C12 and SG3 as you can see, made it to the LZ B10

The VC had been kept in 2 big squads of approximately 12 men each. VC b was to check out the village of Aguioc, and VC c had romped down the track towards Cang.

Early on the morning of day 8, about 03:00 hours all the Vietnamese units saw a plane exploding high in the sky, this was the reason for the scenario and BAT21 ejected and landed in the centre of the map, he hid his parachute and moved 1k north and holed up waiting for rescue.

At 04:00 the satellite passed over and picked up his homing beacon, at 05:00 Owen Snapcase was being briefed and at 06:00 he landed at LZ6, his call sign was BRUCE4X.

The team encountered no opposition and moved out immediately headed North and directly for BAT21’s last known position.

VC c actually saw the Australian team arrive in the choppers in the far south.

At this point I got confused with the scale thinking they were only 4k apart, when they were eventually actually 16k apart and wouldn’t have seen each other, such are the vagaries of war.

Mid day and VCc are following up on the chopper landing, here I used the local NCO’s initiative and V.C. Cowie back at base doesn’t know anything about it. The NCO sent a runner back to base to inform him of the situation.

SG3 in the north send a runner back to base to tell them nobody has used the LZ in a long time and await further orders.

SG2 is still pushing through the dense jungle and has not made it to LZ C12 yet.

Sometime in the morning Bird Dog (the air rescue coordinator) flew over and made contact with BAT21 and then BRUCE4X. He confirms to BRUCE4X that everything is OK with BAT21 and he is safe in hiding.

Bruce4X knows nothing about any of the VC activity and has moved north, directly for BAT21’s last known position. Travelling slowly and carefully to avoid detection and ambush, it would take 3 days to get to their objective.

VC Cowie was ignoring the downed airman and so his radio operator picked up some radio chatter between Bird Dog and BAT21, this indicated that this call sign was highlighted on a list and he should contact Hanoi immediately. They told him he needed to capture BAT21 but it was imperative he be taken alive. So VC Cowie recalled all the northern troops and pulled the VC c squad back to look for the airman who had ejected from the ECW plane and was wanted so desperately by Hanoi, thus leaving Bruce4X a clear run north.

Note VC Cowie’s transmitter could reach all the radios on and off the table but the individual back pack radios had a limited range.

It was at this point I realized I’d cocked up with the scale down in the south when Bruce wanted to know where the trail was, according to the info I gave him he should have fallen over it by now. Dohh!

By day 9 at 12:00 VC c had made good time up the track and were between Bruce4X and Bat21. They had a bit of luck with the die roll to chose a starting point on the track to begin their search for Bat21 and were almost spot on where the plane was hit. VC Cowie was given a choice of where he would like his troops to search and reasonably decided to go North East.

The runner sent to bring back SG3 ran into a wild boar and was injured. This slowed him down reaching the group and had far reaching consequences.

VC b and SG2 were almost back at the base.

I’d realized early on when designing the scenario that the Vietnamese might spend all the game wandering around aimlessly never meeting the rescue team and so I used a random event chart to give them something to do and keep them sharp. Some times it worked brilliantly and added to the story, some times it was a bit lacklustre.

As the runner from VC c arrived back at base he rolled on the event table and had an encounter with Poachers or Bandits further rolling and there was no actual contact, just a sighting.

Close of play day 9 the VC c have bivied for the night. You can see that they are going in a NE direction but will miss Bat21. BRUCE4X had changed his line of march taking him slightly NW, he had been getting reports from the Bird Dog that there were enemy troops around the area that shows the SAM site, although at this point no one knew it was there. Bird Dog knew about the troops because he was getting shot at flying from the SE to BAT21’s position but he hadn’t seen anyone. I was just testing to see if he got shot down.

The other key thing to happen during the day was that there had been no answer from BAT21 on the two occasions that the Bird Dog had flown over his position, they did however know that his homing beacon was still in the same location. I rationalised this event because it was obvious that the NVLA troops around the SAM site would be looking for him and he went to ground to avoid detection.

I also thought it would add to BRUCE4X’s tension rating.

I had to have a SAM site to shoot down the ECM plane in the 1st place, so the story was that the NVLA were building a road down from the north and the SAM’s were to protect the building crew. The ring around the site was the limit of the defenders area of control.

VC Cowie didn’t know they were there and he was out of radio range of VC c’s small radio so they couldn’t tell him but his radio was powerful enough so they could hear his commands, just not respond.

In the North VC b also had an encounter with Poachers or Bandits but again further dice rolling and no actual contact just a sighting and they returned to base uneventfully. Then SG2 returned for the night as well.

The event for the base was distant gunfire, which coincided nicely with the event for SG3 which was ambush.

SG3 walked straight into an ambush, VC Cowie was expecting rival VC’s and so was I, because there were enemy troops on my event table and enemy for the VC had to be bandits, VC or US troops and I didn’t want the complication of US troops.

My rational with ambushes was along the lines that provided the ambushers stayed still the ambushee’s would find them very difficult to see, I was using an opposed dice roll but heavily weighted towards the guys waiting in ambush. Anyway SG3 was ambushed by 3 VC and they killed 3 out of the 4 of VC Cowie’s team, the other one got away and reported the debacle back to base.

The rival VC made off in a random direction, going South quickly and leaving a trail that was easy to follow, again random die but I did think it would be ideal for it to lead to another ambush.

BRUCE4X had changed the direction of his march again following information from the Bird Dog. I think I mentioned him a couple of times but VC Cowie was too busy cleaning his house to sell it and I think this went over his head. He then tried to set fire to it and this probably meant that he couldn’t worry about Bird Dog who was a small plane used by the Americans to guide downed pilots to helicopter rescue.

VC c entered the zone of control of the SAM protectors and the dice decided that they didn’t end up in a fire fight. As I said earlier they had seen the airman come down in a parachute and tried to find him, not very energetically because that was VC Cowies job but they had found the parachute that BAT21 hid and decided to loan him 48 men to help with the search.

Ignore the counters down in the bottom left are just spare parked ones.

Bird Dog had made contact with BAT21 in the morning run and in his evening run he facilitated BRUCE4X making direct radio contact with BAT21. They arrange a meeting for the following morning, tea and cakes were not mentioned. By this time Bat21 had not eaten for 3 days but had been drinking stream water through his sock at BRUCE4X’s suggestion.

BRUCE4X also finally finds the track.

In the north SG2 guided by the survivor from the ambush and VC b were sent to examine the ambush site and follow up the enemy.

In the mean time the Poachers walked into VC Cowies base demanding to see the old Camp Commandant. This was very tense because VC Cowie was probably quite paranoid by now, and who can blame him. He insisted that they drop their weapons and my initial die roll said they wouldn’t. It was the stand off at the OK corral and VC Cowie insisted they drop them. After looking at the situation, they were out numbered 2 or 3 to 1 I rolled again and got a slightly more favourable die roll and things calmed down.

They were known to one or two of the old VC who were around the base and VC Cowie quizzed them on local events and they all had a good time and drank too much alcohol.

During the afternoon the VC c and their NVLA helpers were conducting an organised search for BAT21, the NVLA had already found his parachute and so they had a good place to start.

This was the search map sent to VC Cowie, you can see the location of the parachute and if you blow the map up you can also see where I rubbed out Bat21’s location which was a mile north of the chute. The VC and NVLA under Doug’s direction had searched an area going in a NE direction but had missed Bat21.

I realised later that they had searched the area that he had moved through, and so I thought he might have left tracks or some trail from where his chute was, to where he was currently hiding.
I rolled a die with high being some trail, 5 faint and 6 clear and I rolled a 6 so someone had seen tracks but had not said anything at the time. This was rectified during the evening bivi and as this is the map at the end of the day, in the morning they would go back and see if they could locate the trail.

Day 11 dawned and the Bird Dog saw the SAM site and called in an air strike on it. He had already seen the road that was under construction and I decided he would try and follow it and the die roll determined he saw the SAM site.

This was loads of fun for me as I called it out on the radio real time for BRUCE4X, I would have loved to see Martins face because he had no idea what was going on and then about half way through he twigged it.

This is a transcript of the call that I put out real time over WhatsApp.

Day 11 7:00

Bat21, Bruce4X this BIRD Dog.

Put your Tin Hats on. I’ll be back. Bird Dog Out.

Bird Dog calling any Jocks out there near position !!!!!!!!!, I have a present for you. Over

(Martin) Jocks? We’re Aussies mate, fair dinkum.

Bird Dog this is Major Domino we are 5 min away from your position. Over.

(Martin again) sorry not quite with it. What’s happening?

Major Domino, drop your bombs on my smoke, but be careful I have friendlies down below. Over

(Martin again) right bird dog is guiding in a friendly air strike.

Wilco Bird Dog what colour smoke. Over.

Purple. Over

Wilco, we’re on our way.

(Martin again) right we take cover.

My next post to Martin was – Back with you Bruce, I’ve done playacting.

You see a plume of purple smoke about 10k ESE of your current position.

Shortly followed by the plume of smoke from the bombs dropped by 2 Phantoms that come screaming in from the East over your position, curve fast to the SW and disappear.

I then went on with out radio conversation between Bird Dog and BRUCE4X, informing him of the SAM’s etc etc. This was for me the highlight of the game, being able to play act in real time and get some energy into it as a real time event.

This action meant that the NVLA helpers would withdraw to their SAM base and leave team VC c on their own and then the loss of the SAM’s meant that the road building crew were vulnerable and so would pack up and go home tomorrow.

BRUCE4X then met up with BAT21 and they started to withdraw in a westerly direction tending a bit north. This was to be a major problem.

There were 2 encounters for VC Cowie in the late morning VC b ran in to a possible ambush, map on left, this turned out to be a red herring and there was no actual ambush but the VC had a masterly set piece manoeuvre to flank it and at the same time pin it frontally. It’s a shame there was no one there.

SG2 heard a patrol coming up behind them, map in centre, originally I was going to make this the rival VC group but rolled some dice and came up with a NVLA patrol, they were obviously being recalled to the SAM site.

Anyway VC Cowie created the perfect ambush, this was one of the pictures I sent to him, the 2 blurred figures in the foreground are his SG2 ambushers, and the chaps in the green berets are the NVLA patrol. They came straight towards him obviously following his tracks and without asking if he could recognise the figures just opened fire. They walked right into the ambush and he killed and wounded 5 of his own side, only realizing his mistake when they started shouting in Vietnamese.

I probably shouldn’t have used Royal Marine Commando figures, as it was a bit misleading. ;)

The ambush part way through, the guy here at the front was shot down a few moments later. VC Cowie had 3 men blocking the line of advance and a couple of men at the rear closing the back door, as I said a very good ambush, that would only have failed if the enemy had been spread out in a line across their direction of march.

In the mean time VC c had marched on a compass bearing to where they thought BAT21’s tracks were, rather than go back to his parachute and start from the known point, which would have been the most accurate thing to do. Anyway, no one can walk on a compass bearing without some deviation and the roll indicated they were slightly off their compass course to the north. Maybe you can see where this is going.

And that was the point that Bruce4X heard the pursuit and decided to change direction from going west to going north to get out of the way of the pursuers and then Bat21 fell, creating the noise that alerted VC Cowie. This is the map on the right above.

So essentially a series of mistakes and die rolls that could have gone either way left us in the situation that VC c with 11 men were within a couple of hundred metres of Bruce4X with 4 men and Bat21 and they had heard a noise.

VC Cowie sent 4 men to investigate the noise and the rest of the squad remained stationary, they walked into Bruce and didn’t walk away. The chap in the red Beret is BAT21, just to make him stand out to me, and there are 3 of the team waiting in ambush, the 4th member is over to the right as we look at it.

You need to look carefully but there are 4 of VC c out their, I can only see 2 of them. They were advancing quietly in a line abreast 3 wide with the 4th man bringing up the rear.

After the ambush there are 3 wounded and 1 dead VC, BRUCE4X sent a man to search each of the enemy collecting food, weapons and the squads radio, then he interrogated the 3 wounded, before killing them with a silenced .22 pistol. This proved to be a serious mistake, but at this stage I imagine he was fairly confident that he had eliminated the enemy who he knew were following him.

VC Cowie then advanced the remaining 7 men on a line parallel to the one the original 4 men had taken but slightly to the north of it, so he wouldn’t fall into the same ambush. I rolled some more dice and he arrived close to BRUCE4X position 2 min before they were due to leave. Both sides heard sounds that were fairly certainly human. VC advanced on the SAS who had changed their line of axis and were waiting in ambush again. 7 men v 4, not counting BAT21 who was sitting behind the line holding his pistol with the safety on. BRUCE4X didn’t trust him not the cock up after the falling incident. I was fairly certain with the way the previous ambushes had gone that the SAS would win but maybe take a casualty, which would slow them down and enliven the rest of the game.

The final fight was vicious, VC Cowie had spread his men out over a long line and they advanced straight to where they had heard the sound of Bruce’s men packing up, unfortunately for them Bruce heard them as well and so was prepared and in ambush mode. As with all the ambushes the victims walked right in to it.

Just to remind you.

Snapcase's men were the cream of the service all grade 5 except Snapcase who was 6.

The Team - Left to right

Specky Brown - Specialities Pointman and Demolition duty. Armed with an SLR assault rifle, bayonet, throwing knife, 2 frag’s, 2lb’s of plastic and 2 Claymore Mines.

James ‘Jimmy’ Green – Specialities RTO and Medic. Armed with SLR assault rifle, bayonet, 2 Frags, 2 Stun grenades and 2 Claymore Mines. Plus his Radio.

Mike Jones – Specialities Pigman and Medic. Armed with an M60 GPMG, 9mm Browning Automatic, fighting knife and 2 Claymore Mines.

Owen Snapcase call sign Bruce4X – Specialities Intelligence and Point. Armed with an Owen SMG, .22 pistol with suppressor, Fighting Knife, 2 Frags and 2 Claymores.

The VC were all grade 3 apart from the lead NCO who was 5 and the LMG man who was 4.

Sgt Owen Snapcase looked left and could see Brown nearest and Jonesy with the M60 in the distance, well hidden by the foliage.

Looking right he can see Green, looking alert and ready for anything.

Here follows another transcript from the game log.

Snapcase “I’m very proud of these boys, lets not get any of them shot today. Is the noise getting any closer.”

Me “Yes you hear a noise, sounds like something stood on a twig. Nothing to see yet”.

Snapcase “OK we wait patiently”

Snapcase “tell BAT21 to face the rear, just by swivelling on the spot, just to keep an eye on our rear.”

Me “OK – You think you spot something, looks human but disappears before you can be certain.”

Snapcase “Jones and Green are watching to our right and left”

Me “OK”

Me “ All along your line you see men pointing to their eyes and then in various directions, you see a chap in a boonie hat and shorts.” He’s a vague shadow in the distance”

Snapcase “Can I identify who they are?”

Me “Not clearly”

Snapcase “OK we wait for them to get closer”

Me “VC, this is the one you can see, he’s 20m away”

Snapcase “OK my plan is to open fire just before they see us, I want us to be ready with grenades at hand”

Me “I’m not sure how you will know just before they will see you”

Me “You spot another one who steps from behind a tree only 15m away”

Snapcase “OK we open fire and banjo them.”

Me “Green has already gone for his banjo because 1 of the 2 men he’s clocked went for his guitar”

Snapcase “Duelling banjos!”

Me “On your right you see Green hit, the first VC you saw you are sure you hit him but he remains standing. On your left you hear Jones open fire with the M60 LMG, followed immediately by the sound of a RPD LMG in reply”

Snapcase “Throw a grenade in the direction of the RPD”

Me “You shoot at the same chap as before and he drops, but you see leaves shredded from the bushes around your hiding place from someone you haven’t located yet.

Snapcase “Shoot back in that direction and then throw another grenade”

Me “Specky Brown shouts he has taken his targets down and will move left to cover Jonesy”

Me “You have no visible target”

Me “ the incoming fire is now coming from your 2 flanks, the centre is quiet.

Snapcase “OK, I crawl to Greens right, towards that body and shoot anything I see”

Me “The M60 has stopped firing”

Me “A grenade explodes on your left”

Me “You hear a scream, sounds like Specky”

Me “Then it goes black as I threw a 6, 6 and 5 to hit you and I’m afraid you are dead.

Snapcase “Bollocks”

Snapcase “ is that the end”

Me “I’m afraid so, what a shock, I’m gutted”

Snapcase “Great fun though”

A similar dialogue went on with VC Cowie.

For a more dispassionate re-telling of the action, read on.

At the last minute the VC NCO saw Jimmy Green in front of him but as he raised his rifle Green was faster and fired first, missing completely, the tension had taken it’s toll, the NCO fired back and Jimmy fired no more, badly wounded and out of the action.

Snapcase and Specky Brown were in the middle of the SAS line and they both hit and either wounded or killed a couple of VC’s although it took Snapcase 2 attempts before he put his man down. Over on the left of the SAS line, was Jonesy with the big M60, he fired on 2 VC but missed both. He needed 5’s or 6’s to hit and had 4 dice to do it with. Further to Jonesy’s left was the VC’s LMG and he had managed to avoid detection as he approached.

Seeing the flash from the M60 meant he had no trouble locating his target and he opened fire, also missing, he needed 6’s with 4 dice so a bit more excuse. At this point there were 3 VC firing on Jonesy and he was returning it but was obviously rattled because he couldn’t put any of them down. Eventually Snapcase heard Specky shout that he had no targets and was going left to help Jonesy, which he did just as the big man was hit and also badly wounded.

Specky threw a grenade but rolled a 2 so fumbled it and the return fire killed him outright. Snapcase was taking incoming fire and couldn’t locate the shooter, then everything went black. The VC NCO was the shooter and rolled 6, 6 and 5, three hits, killing Snapcase instantly, he would never see Australia again.

Sgt Owen Snapcase was awarded the VC, posthumously, Private Brown was awarded the DCM, posthumously, Green and Jones were also awarded the DCM, the Australian War Office are not sure if their awards are also Posthumous awards or not. Their bodies have not been recovered and there are some rumours that they are held North of the border in a POW camp, if there is the slightest hint of these rumours proving true there will be a reckoning.

According to Sgt Snapcase RIP the local Australian SAS motto is GO HARD OR GO HOME. Snapcase and Brown’s bodies were recovered and flown home, will Green and Jones be Hard or Home?

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM

It's a long story but I've been playing a few games using the internet, Email and WhatsApp to communicate and last week was my turn to create a scenario and host the game and as I've just done a round up for the two guy's who played, I thought I might post it here as well.

Basically I stole the idea from the film BAT 21 which I watched years ago, I enjoyed the film then and found a poor copy on YouTube and re-watched it for idea's. It's set in Vietnam in the 60's and early 70's, a country and war of which I have very little knowledge, a bit like zombies and disapproved of at the time, but I was young and thought we could change the world for the better and look how that turned out.

I have a wiki link to the actual operation to rescue this man and it's absolutely amazing what was done to effect his rescue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Bat_21_Bravo

Anyway the main thing was we all enjoyed sending each other links to music videos, the music is something we all had in common and it was great to hear some of it again.

The view from a Huey looking down on a small hamlet or village, surrounded by trees and vegetation and you can just hear the Stones singing Paint it Black as the choppers arrive. I did think to put a video link but while I think the music is outstanding I'm not sure about the footage, I'll leave that to you.

This post will just be the information I sent to Sgt Owen Snapcase and Cowie Long Oi and the next one will be how the game played out. When I sold them the pitch for the game I wanted to avoid all the pre-conceived ideas wargamers bring to the table. You both know what your objectives are, you know where the enemy is, you know who's on who's side etc etc.

I've found the original sales pitch and so added it here.

Vietnam Background
OK listen up men, this is the background story. It’s not as tense as the recent hostage situation we’ve experienced and it’s not as entertaining as the future Throppet confrontation we are about to experience, but it’s the best I can do to bring you down to some serious wargaming roots.

Four teams, two Charlie, and no surfboards, two US, also no surfboards, you are individually one of these teams so could be on the same side but not allied or could be antagonistic. You’re operating in a large expanse of fairly virgin jungle and so might never meet up, but then again you might. This is Vietnam in the 70’s, the drugs are good but the music’s better, watch where you step because it could be on a mine a punji stick or your CO’s pet snake.

Briefings done and will be sent shortly, whoever says "don’t call me shortly" will get 10 points deducted and a black mark. I still haven’t done anything to round up my previous game so don’t expect to have a clue how this one scans either, all I’m hoping to do is create problems and tension, there’s no point’s for being sent home in a body bag or being buried in an unmarked grave for the wild animals to dig you up and crunch on your old bones.

Extra points will be awarded for videos linked to good music or napalming innocent forests. Although anyone caught shooting unarmed and defenseless women will suffer 3 nights on a bed of punji sticks followed by something really nasty.

I’m planning on three actions a gaming day, morning, afternoon and night, mostly I don’t expect much to happen, what dangers lurk unseen in primal forest? Once something happens I shall ask what you would like to do, until then it will just be following your overall orders/requests, so I’m hoping it’s not too boring.

I’d like to involve you both where I can, even if you are not involved in the actual conflict or situation if that’s OK with you both. So for example if Doug runs into a water Buffalo then Martin might be the Buffalo, although with it being Vietnam the Buffalo is probably not called Martin but Chew En Li or something similar.

Wish Celia Happy birthday from me and how about putting Ride of the Valkyries on for Tuesday/ Wednesday, I can kick off as soon as you get back based on the info I’ll send.

So all they knew was that there were 2 potential US operations and 2 Vietnamese ones, neither knew if they were both on the same side or opposite sides in the conflict and initially one of them had no idea what his objectives were.

The Recon Team 

This was the info sent to the Mad Lord Snapcase.

Specky Brown leading the 4 man team of Recons out of the jungle after a 7 day patrol. He was Pointman for the team but his second speciality was demolition, he liked blowing things up. Life was so much simpler with a pound or two of plastic, you knew where you were, unlike being the point man in the jungles and marshes of Vietnam in the 60’s. OK the music was good but the job was wearing his nerves thinner than a sliver of bamboo from a Punji stick.

Second man in the patrol was Owen Snapcase who had been a sheep farmer in Australia, a job he hoped to live long enough to return to, he still had a couple of months before this tour of duty ran out so he didn’t dwell too much on that future.

He was the lead NCO for the team and that responsibility weighed heavily, even though the situations they usually found themselves in tended to lead to team decisions. However, he was the one who had to write the letters home.

He automatically watched the left of the path, scanning the trees high and low for any signs of movement. He maintained his distance from Specky, knowing that if the VC were good at their job they would let Specky pass, then open fire on himself and Mike Jones the next man down the line. Of course if they didn’t know their business he would see Specky cut down in a hail of bullets but that would enable the team to react in the proscribed manner. Either bringing the wrath of their God down on the enemy, or run like the Devil was after them.

Mike Jones was the Pigman, he toted an M60 GPMG on which he lavished lots of care and attention because it generally fell to him to bring down the wrath of his own special and unforgiving God on the enemy.

Conversion for them was swift and certain.

He was the counter weight to Snapcase, checking and rechecking the right hand side of the trail, especially high to the front. He knew Specky had all his senses attuned to the area down the trail, knowing that the two men behind were covering his flanks and rear.

James Green was the last man, he toted the radio and covered the back trail, his head and body in constant motion as he swiveled from side to side like some contorted dancer. Currently he was carrying his SLR casually as he reported over the radio that they were coming into the fire base and to make sure everyone was awake to that. The team didn’t want any trigger happy GI thinking they were bandits at this stage of the patrol.

The Team - Left to right

Specky Brown - Specialities Pointman and Demolition duty. Armed with an SLR assault rifle, bayonet, throwing knife, 2 frag’s, 2lb’s of plastic and 2 Claymore Mines.

James ‘Jimmy’ Green – Specialities RTO and Medic. Armed with SLR assault rifle, bayonet, 2 Frags, 2 Stun grenades and 2 Claymore Mines. Plus his Radio.

Mike Jones – Specialities Pigman and Medic. Armed with an M60 GPMG, 9mm Browning Automatic, fighting knife and 2 Claymore Mines.

Owen Snapcase – Specialities Intelligence and Point. Armed with an Owen SMG, .22 pistol with suppressor, Fighting Knife, 2 Frags and 2 Claymores.

You will realize by now these guys are part of the small Australian contingent fighting in Vietnam, how Mike Jones acquired his M60 is a long story.

The chaps are all 20mm and very old.

The Opening

SNAPCASE – the CO wants to see you now. These were the first words the team heard on entering the relative safety of the fire base. “This is not going to be good” thought Snapcase.

“OK lad”, - Snapcase hated it when the CO called him lad, “we have a bit of a problem”. “We do – do we” Snapcase responded, “Well - yes we do, we’ve gone and lost a Lieutenant Colonel, about 60 miles NW of here” “Would that be in Laos” “Yep about 10k over the border” was the laconic reply “Your team is the only good one I have right now, go and get re-supplied, the choppers will take off in 30 min and you need to be onboard.” “Once you’ve got things rolling get back here pronto because fortunately for you we have a man who’s was in that area 6 months ago so he might be able to give you some useful information” “Off you go lad, chop chop” I'm not sure what a Yorkshireman was doing in Vietnam but hell who cares.

The Briefing

One of our Electronic Counter Measures planes was on a routine flight when something hit it at 30,000 feet, we still don’t know what but it seems likely they had too many incoming SAM’s to deal with. Unfortunately one of our leading ECM experts was trialing some equipment on the plane, a Lieutenant Colonel Donald Harrington. He is one of our top men in the field and it’s vital he doesn’t fall into Charlie’s hands. 

A satellite passed over, 20 minutes after the plane went down and it’s picked up a signal from only one rescue beacon, the one that was assigned to the L.C. so we’re pretty sure he got out of the plane and was fit enough to activate the beacon on parachuting down but we have no idea what condition he is in, or what his intentions are. As we’re not picking up any other beacons it’s quite likely he’s the only survivor.

They’ve already sent a Bird Dog to have a look see, but his initial report is that the area is heavily forested and the intel is that there’s no way to get a chopper to land close to the Harrington, either to pick him up or drop you off, the obvious LZ’s are all likely to be hot. Snapcase thought about the Bird Dog, a small single engined plane flown by brave men who tried to make contact with downed pilots to direct them to pickup spots to be rescued by choppers.

"Ok let me hand you over to Captain Warez".

"Right listen up Snapcase, you are in luck because of the Soft Cushion initiative", Snapcase gave his best blank, noncommittal look, the one that was usually interpreted as “What the hell are you talking about – moron.” 

"Some clever bit of thinking at HQ decided that we could cover vast tracts of the country by having a number of chopper landing sites carved out of the jungle". "These were created roughly 30k from each other and so we can drop a chopper into one of these sites and you should be within 30k max from your target, this gives an easy landing hence the Soft Cushion". Snapcases look changed from the “What the hell are you talking about – moron” to the even stonier “Are you as mad as you sound – moron”. 

Warez continued “unfortunately the one that is closest to Lt Col Harrington wasn’t created and so we have a ring of landing sites around his position but not where he actually is, so you will have a 30K hike to get to him".

You do realize Sir that the best speed we can hope to do through thick jungle is 2k per hour and we will get killed moving at that speed. To stay alive we need to move at 1K and that’s going to take 3 days to get to the L.C. 10 hours is all any one can travel in a day even when we’re really pushing things, after all there’s only 12 hours of daylight.

Warez, continued as if he’d not heard, “Now the clearings were created 18 months ago and the project was halted so they may be a little overgrown by now". Snapcase didn’t waste his time with the 3rd level of incredulity, it would be completely wasted.

"So think of the area as a clock face, the L.C. is in the centre and there are landing places at 2, 4, 6, 8,10 and 12 o’clock, 12 is north and 8, 10 and 12 are in Laos". "We’ve no reason to think that any of them are better than any other although we believe an off shoot from the Ho Chi Min trail runs between 10 and 12 o’clock". "There are a few villages in the area but we don’t have them plotted and we believe that there will probably be trails between these villages, but nothing shows up from the air". "Oh and the only other thing is that there might be a strong VC presence in the area but we don’t know if it’s concentrated in a specific location or scattered throughout the area, it’s only a rumour you understand and we don’t really know how strong it might be".

The Game Information.

This is the map of the area. Ignore the scale on the side, that is Hexagons and 1 hex = 2k. I didn't realize at this point that hex's don't work for the level of accuracy we were going to have to deal with.

If you are on a trail you can move at 4K per hour but make some noise (not a lot) and leave some tracks, you can move at 2K and make virtually no noise and leave virtually no tracks.

Moving through virgin jungle halve the above moves with the same results.

The satellite orbits over the area twice a day 04:00 and 16:00 hours and will pick up Harrington’s transponder beacon signal and this is transmitted to your base and the Bird Dogs base immediately, however you are out of radio range of your base. The Bird Dog can transmit this information to you when he is in the air and you can communicate with him at the same time but not when he’s on the ground.

Harrington has a hand held radio its range is between 5 and 11 Kilometres, it is not constant and depends on various factors but basically a D6 each time he tries to use it. The battery has a limited life of 12 transmissions, plus or minus 3, the battery indicator will tell him near to the time when it will run out. He can talk to the Bird Dog when he is in the air and in range, and will also be able to talk to you when you are in range.

Charlie is unlikely to have sophisticated radio tracking equipment but will almost certainly be able to use his radios as a poor radio direction finder and hear your open air transmissions, if he is in range. Note your radio is more powerful than Harrington’s 8 to 16 Kilometres.

You need to select 3 of the landing places as your drop off point, numbering them as 1 to 3 in order of preference in case one or more of them are hot, these need to be in a row. Eg 12, 2, 4 so if 12 is hot you go to 2, then 4 if they are all hot you will need to assault the last one to get down. You will have a Jolly Green Giant to fly you in and a Huey riding shotgun. Due to the amount of time since these sites were cleared it’s highly unlikely you can land but you will be able to abseil down, this will be a problem if the LZ is hot.

You need to have a pre-arranged pick up point and time, you can change this if you can contact the Bird Dog and you will have a pre-arranged code to change the time. The other option will be to transmit to the satellite as it passes overhead but it will be a one way communication and you won’t get confirmation.

Before you leave you can create a number of messages for the satellite so 01 could be “changing rendezvous point to No 12”

Just create a number i.e. 1,2,3 etc and allocate your message to each number. For example - Drop food at current position, send Bird Dog immediately. That sort of thing, just remember there is no 2 way conversation and you can only use a prearranged message.

Each man can carry 7 days of food and water, but Harrington has no food or water. You each carry 4 reloads of ammunition for the M60 and you can substitute 1 reload of ammo for 1 man days of food and water.

There will be water available in the form of streams but this is likely to give you a gippy tum at best, so should be avoided although depending on how long you are getting to Harrington he will be drinking it from day 1, he might get hungry and go searching for food, but he’s not going to find much so may be weak when you get to him depending on how long you take.

I’m going to assume the Claymores are re-settable and you would normally use them to defend your position overnight then pick them up in the morning. They are detonated by either a trip wire, standing on them or remotely with an electronic signal, better than watching TV.

I’m assuming simple GPS is in operation for the US military, I don’t think it was but this should make things possible for you.
You have a GPS receiver but Harrington doesn’t, you will only know where he is when the Bird Dog identifies him. The Bird Dog also has GPS. So you should know where Harrington is when the Bird Dog tells you but you can’t direct Harrington to a GPS position. He does have a hand held compass so you could try and move him in the right general direction, just don’t expect too much accuracy from this and he is more likely to run into trouble if he’s on the move, remember he’s a boffin not a field man.

Your objective is to bring your 4 man team out alive, the US Military objective is that you bring Harrington out alive, or if that’s not possible he must not fall into the enemy’s hands, you are expendable to the military.

I’m sure I’ve probably not thought this through well enough but any questions go ahead Sergeant, because you’re leaving in 30 minutes.

Good Luck

So team Snapcase have a positive objective, I had a couple of other things in mind to add to his troubles if it was looking too easy.

Viet Cong

This was the info sent to Doug (no longer EM4)

You are Cowie Long Oi an officer in the North Vietnamese Liberation Army, you have been sent south from North Vietnam and your mission is to ensure that the local V.C. commander in the Ba Dang area is performing his duties to the highest standards. Once you are satisfied that everything is in order you will return north along the Ho Chi Min trail taking with you any Imperialist prisoners that he has in captivity. They will be displayed in Hanoi on national and international television and you will receive a commendation from your Commanding Officer and maybe a promotion as well.

You have completed a 500 kilometre trek from the north and this is the camp you’ve arrived at. You are not in a happy mood, you should be fighting the Imperialist Americans in the east instead of skulking down the Ho Chi Min trail through Laos to this back water area and even worse on your arrival the local commander was drunk, there were no men on guard duty, and food supplies were very low.

You have been here 1 week and the intelligence you have gained is not encouraging. The Ba Dang cell of the local VC takes its supplies from 3 villages, Aguioc about 22k north east of your camp, Buiong which is the largest village and only 2k to the N and Cang which is 50k ESE.

The area is sparsely inhabited they haven’t had any American activity for over a year apart from the occasional spy plane passing over head and so the local VC seem to have settled for a quiet life and are happy to extort food and other supplies mainly from Buiong and Aguioc, Cang is too far away for them to bother with although there is a local VC Organizer in place there.

There are three immediate problems that you are aware of, there are other VC cells poaching on your area, sending patrols and extorting supplies from the villages that should be supplying you exclusively, the other linked problem is no one knows where these cells are based. The 3rd and most pressing one is that there is virtually no food in the base.

They know that there are isolated families and maybe also small villages or hamlets of a few buildings scattered around the area but because the VC don’t need them to survive no one has scouted the area adequately to give you any better information on their location. The locals are quite happy not to have your ‘protection’ indeed the local VC are more gangsters than revolutionaries. 

There are tracks between the three villages and your men can move fairly quickly on these tracks, about 4k per hour, they make some noise and leave some tracks, they can travel slower at 2K per hour and are much quieter and leave very little trail. Should they decide to move through what is virtually virgin jungle these distances are halved. The VC are quite fit and will travel for 10 hours a day but that makes it a 3 day round trip to the furthest village.

The Ho Chi Min trail comes down through Laos and on to Cambodia, there is an offshoot trail to the north west of your camp, this is the way you came in and the way you will return, you saw no evidence of enemy activity on your way down but you have been told that the Americans made some small clearings in the jungle about 18 months ago, big enough to land a helicopter but that’s all. Due to the speed of jungle growth you are informed that it’s very unlikely a chopper could land now and the previous commander has no one watching them and hasn’t done for the last 9 months.

By good fortune you know of 4 of these sites - A is 26K SSW, B is 8K WNW C is 22K NE and D is 36K E of you. There are no exact locations and if you decide to send a scouting party to one or more of these sites they will have to find them as they will only know roughly where they are.

The Ho Chi Min trail runs roughly NE to SW just off the NE edge of this map, your track to it runs from your base between the discovered overgrown Landing Zones B and C.

Just a tip the VC used noise to signal enemy troop movements. They would trail the Americans and either fire a round every now and then or they would use 2 bamboo sticks knocked together, apparently the sound travels quite a long way. We’ll say 6K for an explosion, 4K for gunfire and 2K for the bamboo, that’s probably miles out but will do for the game.

The situation on prisoners is even less encouraging, there is one Imperialist pilot in captivity, he is very sick and has been badly treated, your assessment is that he would die if made to march the 500k back to N Vietnam. So after coming all this way it’s quite likely you will go back empty handed and there is always the possibility that the Americans will hear of this prisoner and send a snatch squad over the border to free him and bring down retribution on you.

You have a 12 man squad of NVA troops that are under your direct command they are well trained, disciplined and armed, there are 24 VC who are none of those things. Within an hour of your arrival you put the local commander under arrest, threatening to shoot him out of hand, this has put the fear of God (Buddha maybe) into them and they are anxious to impress you.

These are your Regular North Vietnamese Army, they are good quality troops, certainly the equal of regular US troops in the jungle. In addition to them, there is you, a medical officer and 2 specialist Radio Operator’s who are able to use the main radio in your base camp. The main radio has unlimited range but might have intermittent problems due to hills, trees etc in communicating with your local troops, it is too heavy to take out of the hut it’s located in and does have limited Radio Direction Finding capabilities, you just align the antenna until the receiving signal is strongest and that gives you a direction, it doesn’t help with distance though. The backpacked radio’s with the squads are of dubious quality with a range of 8 to 16kilometers, again depending on obstacles and could also be used to get a rough idea of where a radio signal is coming from but with much less accuracy than the main radio.

  
Note the ones with no names are for figures I don’t have and will sub someone in there.

These are your local VC and are of more dubious quality than the Regulars.

Each squad has a radio and a LMG but you can split them up however you wish. As with my previous game NCOs help getting troops to do what you want them to, in this case all NCOs will help with this because I’m guessing you might want to cover more ground and have more independent commands.

All your NCOs have a compass and a watch, all your NVLA have a watch but the VC don’t. It’s very unlikely your NVLA will desert but you can’t say the same for the VC, one or two of them might have had enough of this war and want out.

The jungle is a dangerous place with quite a lot of wild animals, most of which will avoid you but there might be some that won’t, same with people although maybe not so many of them. I read of a couple of instances where tigers carried off men, not a pleasant thought but one I wanted to incorporate into the game, it didn't happen though. :(

You have spent the last 5 days building up food supplies and have 240 man days food on hand, that only equates to 6 days worth and none for your captive. A man can carry 6 days of food, so when you send your patrols out they will only be out for a max of 6 days unless you rendezvous with more food. To maintain the status quo of food supplies you will need to allocate 3 soldiers to organize the transfer of food from the villages, they will act as guards to keep the necessary number of villagers hard at work carrying your supplies. Alternatively you could allocate 8 soldiers to do this and leave the villagers alone. The villagers are not happy working for you.

I’m not going to count rations but I just want to ensure you have men doing mundane daily tasks around the camp.

This is your camp, 3 huts and a large tent, the huts and tent can each sleep 12 men, you have 40men including you, plus the American prisoner and now the ex commandant of the base who will have to be accommodated and guarded. The 3 huts surround a small open area but there is so much growth around the place that you are very confident it can not be spotted with the normal aerial photographs and only a low flying chopper or maybe a spotter plane might see it.

It’s now the morning of the 7th day since your arrival, what would you like to do? Nothing is a perfectly valid option.

OK I'll leave it at that point and come back with how the game played out. There's a lot of detail in the post and I've left it in there because I'm hoping for some thoughts on the ideas I've either come up with or will come up with in the next post.

When I was putting this together I realized that the VC searching for the Rescue Squad was going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack and so I decided that I would have an event chart so that things would happen for both players even if they didn't meet on the map. I would then use the events and try to weave them into my story, strangely this worked remarkably well.

Initially I had lots of problems with the mechanics of the game, map movement, scale, ineptitude on my part and for the first few days I thought it was a dud and wasn't really happy with it. However once I sorted this out  and the movement and action started flowing I really enjoyed it and think I might try and do another Vietnam game in the future, hence my comment above, anyone who can suggest different ways to do things will be more than welcome.

By the way I have a new fellow signing up to follow the erratic blog, If you are the Whiteface I hope you are it's really nice to see you here, It's a while since I looked at your blog but I did search for quite a while to see if you were anywhere else in the ether. Please look at my opening post for my original thank you.

Well if you're still here, well done and thanks.

Take care 

All Things Zombie or ATZ for short.

I’d played a few 'after the apocalypse' zombie games using the free Chain reaction rule set and added in my version of zombie rules, mainly picked up from reading Bryan’s (Vampifan) blog and his game reports. In the end to support 2 Hour Wargames I bought the rules and realized I had a few things wrong but hell no one’s perfect not even Ed the guy who wrote the rules but I’ve not told him that yet.

If you read my opening post you will realize that I owe Bryan a big debt of gratitude in bringing me back to wargaming and to be honest he’s also the reason it’s been so long since my last post. Anyway I may come back to that but for now lets just say that I was extremely impressed that he played a long running ATZ campaign, spanning lot’s of games over the course of quite a few months. I can’t remember the time span but I do know that somewhere on my laptop I have every game saved, they were that interesting.

I’ve never really been a campaign man, I don’t have the long term commitment to one genre or indeed one story line, but in the end I decided I would give it a go and created my character Seaman Harris. ATZ has quite a good campaign system built into the rule set and I’d read a few stories on different blogs following this system and they all went reasonably well. Some were more successful than others and they all had a different tone but were also quite long lasting campaigns so in spite of my misgivings about my commitment to the idea as a whole I thought I should at least try. So this is the story of the opening of my campaign to survive in a zombie infested world.

Perhaps before I start I should explain that I have no interest in zombies, I’ve never seen a zombie film or read a book about them. I was persuaded that they were the ideal opponent for a solo wargamer by reading Bryan’s and others game reports. Your opponent only has one objective it seemed – to eat your brains, hot, cold, sautéed, grilled, pan fried, it didn’t seem to matter, they just had to eat them, and of course you had to stop them, which was tricky at times.

This is downtown Zombie Ville, I didn’t have a name for the place, commitment, don’t mention that word.

The Hero – You on the first day of the Campaign has to achieve a number of tasks before going home, although getting home is one of the tasks. These are all quite simple such as getting cash from the ATM, food or beer in my case from the off licence etc etc.

My hero – Me, was in the bar, don’t ask why I chose to start the game in a bar.

Not a very good picture but that’s me, Seaman Harris, I am well equipped for this sort of adventure when the world is collapsing, I has a knife and had picked up a catapult, this is England and we don’t have useful things like guns laying around and available for such an eventuality as a zombie rising.

Looking in the bar I might have been better off picking up a pool cue but regrets are for losers so they say.

I exited the bar into the street going about the tasks that had been generated and encountered a zombie, why I’m stood in the road when there’s a bus coming straight at me I’ve no idea but I was new to this sort of game setting, so best not to question too closely.

Anyway the zombie approached me and I had to do a test to see if I recognised it was a danger, bearing in mind what I said earlier about not knowing anything about zombie culture well neither did Seaman Harris and so when the Zombie attacked and tried to tear his/my throat out I/him was completely unprepared and so had not drawn the knife and had to fight bare handed.

This is not as bad as it seemed because even then the advantage was with me, however having the advantage and making the most of the advantage are two very different things and the zombie killed me and ate my brains which explains quite a lot.

So that was my entry into a zombie campaign and I haven’t tried its delights since.

I always intended to post this short game sometime, but of course there was always so much else to do, the reason I should have posted it, was because I knew it would make Bryan smile and I guess because I haven’t heard from him since his last dramatic post I don’t suppose I ever will hear from him and I won’t be able to make him smile, which makes me rather sad.

I shall miss you mate, all the best where ever you are.

Memories of an old French Sea Dog - Heart of Oak were our Ships

Well Baptiste, if you would care to throw a couple of logs on the fire maybe I could tell you about Capitaine Roubert and the Genereux, one of the finest ships in the French Navy and the most devastating broadside I had ever seen.

Yes another Brandy would be nice but could you make it the vintage of 98, I’m very partial to that year. Yes, yes my young friend, I know it’s expensive but the story I have to tell will make it seem well worth the expense, besides the rest of these fine fellows here will know you are a man of substance and good taste and that is a reputation to cultivate. Much like my own reputation as a brave French sea dog has been gained in sweat, blood and bravery over many hard years at sea and that can never be taken away.

Ahh the 98 vintage is truly a great one, it warms these old bones, just another sip and I will start my tale.

I was an Aspirant then, I think the English call the post a Midshipman which is a strange term, but then the English are a strange race. I had just been transferred to the Genereux, my father had some influence with the Navy, I was never sure what it was, as he was the Doorkeeper at Madam Fifi’s the finest Brothel in Paris but it was enough to get me onto the Genereux and that’s where I started my life at sea.

We had instructions to blockade the English in a small port, or open anchorage, it’s a long time ago and I don’t remember small details so well anymore.

We didn’t know what we would find there but Capitaine Roubert was a bold and brave fellow, Vagabond he said to me, he knew my name and I was so proud, Vagabond my lad we will beard the Englishman in his bed. How do you think we should go about this business he asked me. Me - just an Aspirant, but he valued my opinion back then did Capitaine Roubert, and this was before I won renown and favour with my famous exploits. Well Capitaine I started to say when he shouted orders to the helmsman to alter course to 270’ and gave a string of orders to the Premier Lieutenant. 

Well he said to me, we will approach the harbour, keeping the island between us and them, it will be dark soon and they will not see us. I shall land a storming party on the island and take their forts and turn the guns onto the English if they try and escape. But Sir, I started to say before he interrupted by issuing more orders to the Premier Lieutenant. Capitaine Roubert strolled off before I could explain how he should deal with any English ships we found there.

I saw land as we approached and eventually made out the island against the darkness of the backcloth of the mainland, this is harder than it might appear to you landsmen but believe me it is a thing a sailor learns fast or drowns soon.

We hove too, that is we turned the ship into the wind and it gently pushed us backwards, but by cunning use of the rudder and the sails we held our position off the island. I approached the Capitaine and asked if I could lead the landing party, he smiled gently and shook his head, no my lad, you are far more valuable on board the ship and he let the Sous Lieutenant lead the men ashore. He did a good job, maybe not as swift and gallant as I would have been but before too long they had taken both of the small forts and imprisoned the garrisons, almost without a shot being fired.

We found out from the garrison that there was only one British ship there, but the bad news was that she was the Royal George a 100 gun ship I believe and we only carried 74 guns, it was going to be a real test of courage and seamanship but our Capitaine was not in the least dismayed, we have the wind with us and that is worth 50 guns he said to me as he passed.

We knew the Royal George would beat out of the anchorage but we didn’t know which side of the Island she would pass. When daylight broke we could see she was beating out of the south west channel, it was very narrow and I don’t suppose their Captain would have tried that manoeuvre if it hadn’t been absolutely necessary.

Capitaine Roubert spoke to the Premier Lieutenant and Genereux turned to starboard and picked up speed.

This happened just as the British ship turned to larboard to avoid the headland and came straight towards us.

Tirer shouted our Capitaine and all the starboard guns fired, our ship staggered from the explosive roar of the broadside and the Royal George disappeared from view in a cloud of smoke.

As luck would have it, the western most fortification fired their guns at the same time, both of us raking the enemy ship to devastating effect.

It was a tremendous strike.

The Royal George was holed below the water line, the Main mast was shot through and toppled into the water, the crew were decimated but much worse than all of that was the fire. We must have hit a powder magazine or maybe the galley stove, whatever it was a huge gout of flame gushed up into the air and I could see men running around, some jumped overboard and started to try and get to the island, but most could not even swim. They were my enemy but it was heartbreaking to see such devastation inflicted on fellow seamen.

The damage after one broadside was frightening but the fire would cause 3 damage points each turn and would rage until it was put out, the problem was that the crew numbers had been halved, there were not enough of them to extinguish the fire before the ship burned to the water line. All was lost.

We continued to turn to starboard as we reloaded our guns, but every one of us could see the Royal George was doomed, would Capitaine Roubert order another broadside into to our stricken enemy?

The Royal George meanwhile had tried to turn to starboard and away from the island before she ran aground, a brave and maybe foolish move under the circumstances.

Her Captain must have realized that his ship could not survive and so he turned again and ran her aground, the crew leaping off into the shallows as she quickly burned to the water line.

The Royal George was killed by fire, I’ve never seen such devastation in such a short time in all my years at sea. What do you mean Baptiste, no I did not deceive you into thinking the story would last any longer than the brandy, they were both gone in a very short time.

This was the Genereux’s card, no damage and the 2 missing crew were the ones sent ashore to take and then man the forts guns.

A famous and dreadful victory, Captain Roubert was promoted and I remained behind on the Genereux to make a name for myself, but Baptiste that story will have to be told another day, it’s time I took these weary bones to my bed, storytelling and 98 Brandy always makes me weary and happy at the same time.

Adieu my friend.

I am playing through some old scenarios from the Sails of Glory site and this is the second one I've done. It was a short game as you can see if you got this far, I'm still a novice with the rules but I'm enjoying playing with the ships, they look better in the bathtub than my rubber ducks.

Bon voyage mon amies.