Campaign Series Vietnam - YouTube

[Jason Petho]

Day 2 of the Hill 50 series is much easier than Day 1. I'm not trying anything fancy this time and the attacks are going relatively smoothly. There are some great examples of how to assault defended positions, especially as the Marines have the advantage of firepower - as they should. I have received another ARVN parachute battalion as reinforcements, but with a low level defence, they really are paper tigers when facing NVA regulars, as we are here.

https://youtu.be/akRWTbMm8oI

[Jason Petho]

Campaign Series Vietnam: I'm back after a month holiday and was streaming live today! We returned to Tightening the Noose and wrapped that up before we started with Operation Chopper, the first large use of American helicopters in the Vietnam theatre circa 1962. It's a fun little scenario with not enough heavy weapons and a lot of hide and seek with ARVN versus Viet Cong forces. I suspect this won't go well. HA!

https://youtu.be/tdbzVeZqkd8

[Jason Petho]

That was an interesting scenario. I played through Operation Chopper to the end. Alas, I ran into a few situations where I lost significant numbers of helicopters and my Birddog. What does that mean? Well, I lost something fierce because it, even though I was well warned about it. I did find the HQ, but didn't have the forces to take it out. After that we started the Battle of U Minh Forest. An early war scenario where I have command of a handful of ARVN battalions and we are tasked with rooting out the Viet Cong U-Minh Battalion.

https://youtu.be/JzAYf_Pq-X8

[Jason Petho]

All my positive vibes in the world don't seem to be helping my ARVN troops as they attempt to push into the U Minh Forest. I have a lot of troops to assist with the assault, but alas, they are struggling to gain some ground. Surprisingly enough, I haven't lost any helicopters. My Hogs are providing some excellent fire support thus far, I just wish I had more of them. It's a slog, but a fun battle nevertheless! There are some valuable tactical lessons to be learned in the swamps.

https://youtu.be/Bjcz5QRy7SA

[Jason Petho]

We spent the session playing this to the end. Well. Wow. Just wow. There are some great lessons that were learned in this playthrough. The most important lesson is the quality of Rangers compared to ARVN regulars in this scenario. Knowing what I know now, I would definitely make sure they were the primary battalion into the forest instead of the ARVN regulars that were on the airfield at the start of the scenario. Generally it was a very difficult scenario. Impossible? No, but definitely a challenge and a half. I look forward to trying this one again in the future.

https://youtu.be/YBAnjyq5TX4

[Jason Petho]

A new scenario. The Swarm: The battle of Dong Xoai. This is a small scenario over a wide space. Helicopter management and following instructions are important. The first half of the scenario has gone better than I had hoped, so that's good. Well, it did. I have lost part of the CIDG camp, but the Viet Cong around Dong Xoai have taken a terrible toll. On the other hand, the Viet Cong battalions in the other areas are causing me some terrible grief. Losses are mounting.

https://youtu.be/LPDE2cdxR3s

[Jason Petho]

Assault after assault against the penetration of the Viet Cong in the Dong Xoai CIDG Camp. This really shows how the quality of troops makes all the difference in effective campaigning. On the bright side, things are going much better for the ARVN, especially as we have Rangers on the ground now south of Dong Xoai. They are AWESOME! Well, keeping things in perspective compared to the rest of the troops.

https://youtu.be/Sxn09rAUOKg

[Jason Petho]

We wrapped up the scenario today, it was actually really well. We rocked it! I then started another scenario, a 1964 scenario - Battle of Mo Cay, where I am playing the ARVN against a Viet Cong ambush. In between the two scenarios, we had a chat and I was showing some things that are coming and what I am working on. It's worth a look and you might find it quite interesting. The new battle is, well, a mess, but I'm having fun so far. My reinforcements are now just released - thankfully!

https://youtu.be/NwEjni39BYY

[Jason Petho]

Seems like it was a good day to play in the Mekong today. The tide turned in the ARVN favour - for once - and I was successful at holding Mo Cay. Well, realistically, I lost nearly two companies of troops to an ambush, but the news won't mention that part. After we finished that, we went to the Ia Drang and landed at LZ X-RAY as it was a fitting session due to the anniversary of the battle this week. We played through the first half, making essential decisions and finding out if they were all for naught.

https://youtu.be/E1dwgLQDXR0

[Jason Petho]

We completed the first Ia Drang scenario. Alas, I suffered some serious casualties including a few helicopters and a headquarters. That turned the tides for me suffering a defeat. We were successful in defeating the NVA assaults though, I was pleased with how that went. We started up the 2nd Ia Drang scenario, which we are holding our own thus far. We suffered an intense attack and lost a couple of platoons and leader, but the landing zone is holding. I'm forever grateful for the gunships, those are what is keeping me alive.


https://youtu.be/wRrRoQkTmEM

[Jason Petho]

Campaign Series Vietnam: It was an efficient day today! We finished off Broken Arrow, played through the ambush of LZ Albany and then started The Vice. Ia Drang was an intense fight, it is always curious to see how the NVA will attack in LZ Albany, I had some losses, but I held on pretty well. We started The Vice and I have a mixed force of US Marines and South Korean Marines. It looks like it will be a challenging and fun scenario! I'm intrigued how the South Koreans are doing, they are quite fun to play with!

https://youtu.be/gCD36b_57jM

[Jason Petho]

Campaign Series Vietnam: The Vice turned out to be a pretty fun scenario. It's not a large battle, just a couple battalions that one is operating with, but it turned out to be a lot of micro decisions that impacted the entire scenario. That was a blast! It was fascinating to see how just a hiccup or two can throw plans out the window. Small unit tactics were essential for this scenario - and one more praise for all the extra support the US and South Koreans had to help with the battle!

https://youtu.be/T4uji3BlG4U

[Jason Petho]

Bill and I started Campaign Series Vietnam scenario "The Mauling" up. I played as the Americans and he played as the NVA (PAVN). My goal was to advance through a plantation area and root out any opposing forces that I could find. Well, Bill definitely made that a chore and a half. It was touch and go all the way through and a hell of a lot of fun. I was appreciative of all the support I had, but holy, against a capable opponent, one never knows what's going to happen!

https://youtu.be/Pu-cjlpDfwI

[Jason Petho]

Started off with a brief explanation of a project I'm working on and then we got into the thick of it. We did a playtest of one of the Tet scenarios that I have been working on. It was a first go. Well, holy crap, Murphy was out in full force during today's session. If it could go wrong, it definitely did! I tried my best to survive, and was successful in a couple of places. Next session will be the revenge, that's for sure.

https://youtu.be/z3mmWksBAYY

[Jason Petho]

Alas, I misread my reinforcement schedule. I received some great reinforcements, just not enough of them. The horror, the horror. I did what I could with what I had. I did get lucky in some places of the city, so yay for small miracles. But alas, I was royally defeated. I have some tweaks to do the Event Points for this scenario, as I was trying a new idea and it definitely added up quickly! HA! Otherwise, it was an eye opening scenario on how effective the scripted AI can be. We had some great conversation today about ongoing projects!

https://youtu.be/QMmsjVrnzNw

[Jason Petho]

We playtest a new Tet scenario with some Aussies today. The first test went fairly well, although I will tweak it a bit to make things a little more challenging for the ARVN/Australians. Keep in mind that there was a lot of heavy action for most of the scenario, it just dwindled a bit too soon. I will remedy that and will try it again next weekend. This was a lot of fun though, it is always fascinating to see how the attacks pan out - there are so many options for the Viet Cong!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

https://youtu.be/brSKMHGwy-k

[Jason Petho]

A second test of the Ba Ria scenario. It was interesting to see how the attack came to fruition and the adjustments made to the ARVN had changed the dynamic of the scenario! I noticed a few more minor errors in the script, but nothing game stopping. I will do a little more tweaking and we should be ready to release. I might try this one more time next week to see how it goes. I hope you're enjoying these testing sessions! Yay for learning!

https://youtu.be/wm-qTlkXE44

[Jason Petho]

A final test of the Ba Ria scenario. There were significant changes made to the lua script, which I go over in detail at the beginning of the session. It's quite fascinating to see how HAL will respond to the changes and what it does. This session played fairly well and I only need a couple of tweaks to finalize the scenario. I also showed some of the work I've been doing on the Iranians Order of Battles for the Iran/Iraq War.

https://youtu.be/z2ArQTdPbj4

[Jason Petho]

Here's the very first raw test of this new scenario. This is a good example of why testing is so important. On the bright side, the scripting turned out fairly well. HAL attacked with the Viet Cong in a couple of different ways which made things quite interesting. I will do a couple of modifications for next weeks stream that will, hopefully, finalize this scenario. That will include a few little things like ensuring the Viet Cong don't kill themselves on stacks they just can't take.


https://youtu.be/acG--pBP4mQ

[Jason Petho]

Well then, that was eye opening. I was able to test this scenario twice during this session. I didn't poorly the first run, the second run - I don't even want to talk about it. Looks like I have one more tweak to do and it seems that the scenario is good to go. I'm on the verge of embarrassed to post this video and how HAL absolutely slaughtered me, but hey, that's how we learn!

https://youtu.be/uI2f1rQw4bg