Vietnam War AAR

[Joshuatree]

Quote: "Hope the AAR is entertaining anyhow."

Well it certainly is, but I'm even more suprised at the capabilities of Vic's game engine. It has no trouble at creating a Vietnam scenario, or a "War of the Ring" scenario, or..., quite an achievenment really.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

US 16th turn:
We continue the push North towards Pleiku and Kontum. US has much stronger firepower and air support so we should be able to advance a bit here.
The DRNV has hordes of cheap units which can strike quickly and everywhere. The greatest danger for the US is therefore that while US advances on one front the DRNV advances on the other fronts and retakes some South Vietnamese territory. This happened a lot in the first 10 turns or so but with the buildup of US airpower this was much better controllable.

[Grymme]

ORIGINAL: Joshuatree

Quote: "Hope the AAR is entertaining anyhow."

Well it certainly is, but I'm even more suprised at the capabilities of Vic's game engine. It has no trouble at creating a Vietnam scenario, or a "War of the Ring" scenario, or..., quite an achievenment really.

I have to agree. I have played this game for 1 year and three months now, pretty much every week. Havent tired yet. Am currently working a little bit on a "space marine scenario". As far as i can se there is more or less no limit to what the engine can do.

I have to admit though that i was hoping for a little bit more encouragment from people at the forum. As Seille & George said it actually takes a lot of work to put together a descent AAR. Now this is in no way as ambitious as their AAR. But it still takes 10-30 minutes to put together a round or so. Maybe people isnt interested in the Vietnam war

[Jeffrey H.]

Awww c'mon Grymme. Don't feel bad. I've followed every post of this thread but I've stayed out of commenting because I don't feel as though I have much to add.
 
I am very impressed with the scenario so far, it really looks like one of your best efforts. I'm jsut watching to see how it develops and how the scenario changes with each round of testing.
 
Personally I find the subject of the Vietnam war a little too touchy to enjoy a scenario or game of it, but I'm sure plenty of people would.  

[SSFSX17]

I noticed that the Capitalist player has been putting a lot of emphasis into bombing North Vietnam. To this, I must ponder, "Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

[Jeffrey H.]

A guy at our game club, the club founder, is a Vietnam vet. He's a Marine gunnery sergeant. After years of gaming meetings, I guess it was the weather that got him talking to me about Khe Sahn. It was a thick foggy night and cool. He said that we was on a patrol one night outside the wire and one of the patrol memebers had stopped to take a pee. While peeing the pee-er who was the medic, noticed an NVA soldier essentially a few feet in front of him. The medic panicked and emptied an entire magazine into the NVA soldier.
 
The problem was that they were outside the wire and essentially surrounded. And the enemy now knew their position. He said that the base artillery put up a barrage around them that amounted to a 3 sided box with the open side pointing back to the base. The artillery guys kept up the protective barrage all night long until next daylight and the group of Marines slipped out on the open side of the box after daylight.
 
 
 
 

[Grymme]

Jeffrey. Srry if you thought i meant it personally against you. It was just a general complaint. Right now i am working on a monster map of afghanistan. 200*180 hexes. Maybe that would suit you better

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Grymme

Jeffrey. Srry if you thought i meant it personally against you. It was just a general complaint. Right now i am working on a monster map of afghanistan. 200*180 hexes. Maybe that would suit you better

No problem, I think the scenario you made is excellent and I'm really impressed. I haven't even made one yet, so you are like the kung-fu master of this stuff compared to me.

I just wanted to let you know that I beleive there are a fair amount of 'lurker' types out there who read and appreciate the efforts of people like you, but you just don't hear about it.

[Silicor]

I love reading the aar's and this one is so different in feel to the others.  Very interesting.  I'd also be curious about the changes you are making to the scenario resulting from the playtest.

[Grymme]

Overview - Round 17

- In the north i cut of Laos forces and starve them to death.

- My expedition towards Cambodia is turned around and they head home.

- During this round the US decides to start a second strategic offensive. 30 strategic bombers appear in Guam and are imediatly set in to bomb Pleikku and Kontum. This seems like an coordinated effort with their offensive into Pleikku province. Taking part in the US offensive seem to be the ANZAC SAS regiment, the main ANZAC mechanized brigade with attached artillery, the Thai Military assistance group, one ARVN infantry division and 2 unidentified US units (one is probably the 3rd Marine Division.

- In my round i imediatly start to apply international pressure to stop the bombing campaign. After 2 unsuccesfull atempts i stop the offensive in its track (this is what i had saved more than 50 PPs for. This cannot change the fact that my forces loose supply at a very crucial stage. Well played Lunaticus!

-Still having some 20 PPs left (and knowing there will be no more bombing offensive for some time) i decide to play a little offensive campaign myself. In Saigon, Hue and Nha Trang specially assigned FNL commando units attack and blow up supply facilities, factories and officies hurting the ARVN war efforts and causing severe infrastructural damage.

NOTE. Thanks Silicor. The scenario is more or less finished. Some aspects of the scenario was changed and added after this game. For example. Weakening of some US events, implementing the Pathet Lao Guerilla, Montagnard rebels, Thai Mercenaries, US special intelligence OPs, minor tweaking of some rules, beefing up some SFTs that was not really used in gameplay (Helicopters and PT-boats), changing some industrial capacities, removing the "road-over-sea"-places that caused a little bugging and lots of ASW losses, implementing some other victory conditions etc .

Sabotage in major cities
The DRVN player can play actioncards to try and sabotage the cities Saigon, Nha Drang and Hue. There is a 50 % chance for a 1 000 points of structural damage. Each card cost 4PP to play. Sabotage cards are reusable.

[Grymme]

Hue province - Round 17

[Grymme]

Pleikku province - Round 17

[Grymme]

Cambodian border - Round 17

What i should have done in this region. If i had played it over again would have been to load up on political officers and fortify them on the border region. Then they could have propagated through the provinces and caused uprisings. Since my political officers are cheaper (500Bps) than his Military advisors (1 000BPs) he could never had won such a military buildup. Unfortunaly i never though about this idea. and instead continued to sacrifice weak rifle units against his very strong US infantry divisions.


Military Advisors/Political officers
These SFTs represent seasoned staff (staffII) that can help pacify a province (Military advisors) or cause rebellions in the province (Political officers). Each round there is a rebellion check in each province and if there are more political officers than military advisors present in that province then there is a chance that there could be a rebellion in that province. Political officers have a high hidepoint and move like irregulars. They also have a recon value of 50. Political officers cost 500BPs. Military advisors cost 1000BPs.

Military advisors have a chance of performing intelligence operations in a province. If the US has a military advisor in a province there is a 30 % chance that the military advisor will be able to perform Intelligence operations in that province through a free actioncard. The intelligence operation have a 75 % chance of success and will then report the total number of enemy powerpoints in the province. If unsuccessfull it will report a false number.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

US Turn 17:
After the news has reached the public anyway: The US saw the need to demolish military targets of value to the enemy in the concerted "Rolling Thunder" bomber campaign. Hit were military production facilities in Kontum and Pleiku. These were military targets in occupied South Vietnamese cities, no attacks on North Vietnam were flown although we reserve the right to do so if aggression from there against US allies continue.
After their mission were accomplished the bombers were transferred out of South Vietnam again to not give the commies any more excuse of diplomatic accusations.
And all reports that the US is planning to build up a secret strategic bombing strike force in Quang Ngai are greatly exaggerated.
On the ground the 9th division continues chasing the retreating enemy North without making contact. The Thai military assistance group and the ANZAC mech regiment provide support. The 3rd Marines provide cover in the East. All of these units move very slowly due to the terrain. The Anzac Special forces is the only unit that manages to cope with the terrain. They run into some retreating North Vietnamese. Near Qui Nhon the Philippines Division (some more auxiliaries!) tries to find some better terrain to move towards Kontum.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

US Turn 17:
In the North we make the surprising realization "they are not coming over the river".
However even so US and allies feel strong enough to defend against enemy attacks, if needs be the US 7th fleet will divert its strike potential North instead of supporting the troops advancing on Pleiku.

[Silicor]

What are the victory conditions for this scenario?

[Grymme]

Overview - Round 18

Silicor. At the time i am not sure any victory conditions were finalized. The ones that are added now is that the DRVN/FNL side wins if it captures 13 VPs from the south. Hue and Saigon is worth 5VPs. All other cities 1VP. The RVN /US wins if no locations in south vietnam are in enemy hands or if 100 or less powerpoints of units exist in southern vietnam.

On the Northwest of DRVN i mop up most of the Lao units. My forces here are now more or less strong enough to deal wit any invading Lao forces.

[Grymme]

Hue & Highlands province - Round 18

[Grymme]

Pleikku province and Cambodian border - Round 18

[Grymme]

Cambodian border - Round 18