Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Ever wanted an excuse to play with all the wonderful boats the USMC had in Vietnam? I did so I built this campaign to do just that. 9 Battles, approx company sized. Not intended to follow a specific historical unit but recreate the type of actions the brown water navy undertook. This is my first campaign so I'll appreciate any feedback I can use to improve it or for future developments.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

This should be interesting.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

I'd think so,since USMC is your passion:)

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

I have a soft spot for anything remotely having to do with the navy, so I was eager to sink my teeth into this one.

It's your 1st campaign so I'll go easy on you.

Rule #1 - background research - A main force Viet Cong regiment's AA-assets consisted of 2 X AAMG batteries of 2 HMGs each. On the company level and the battalion level you would not expect to find AA- assets apart from smallarms.

The 1st scenario quickly decended into the realm of science fiction as I counted the seemingly countless number of 12.7s and 14.5s raking my sole gunship. Six Zpu 4s (?) and Lord knows how many DShK 1938s. That kind of firepower simply did not materialise in any given single location. Unless they consentrated the entire VC-AA arsenal in the Republic of Vietnam.

The above applies for the countless rockets. Vietcong used rockets in a similar fashion as the Hajis do in Iraq and the Talis in Afghanistan. One or two rocketlaunchers fire a salvo and then clear out.I think you had a dozen or so RA -units on the map?

Similar logic applies to the number of grunts. US military doctrine follows the age old math of superior force & firepower. You would not find a USMC company attacking a superior force (in terms of men). A company attacks a platoon, a batallion attacks a company and so forth. Run into a superior force = dig in and await reinforcements and fire support.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Someone has to look after it :D

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

For someone with only very shallow military history background - where on the internet would I be able to get a realistic idea of VC force structure and especially what would be common deviation from the "norm"?

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Try these for a start:

Various NVA/VC TO&Es

For another game but good basic info
Same game as above but more info

Links to various VC related websites

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Well I finally had the time to finish the first scenario in the campaign.

That is probably some of the worst terrain I've ever had to deal with. The "hidden" shallow water hexes, the ones that show up brown rather then blue (and those could easily be interpreted as marsh) were a major pain. All-in-all pretty typical terrain for the Mekong Delta, excellent job on the map!

As mentioned the force ratio and number of AA weapons was a "bit" off.

Given the number of points allotted for purchasing your CORE force I suspect you assumed folks would have apx. a reinforced company.
Thus: 9xRifle Squads, 6xMMG, 3(or 6)xLt AT, 3xLt Mortar, plus whatever else they purchased.
Against this we had 44xSquads/Teams, 9xHv AAMG, 6xZPU-4 AAMG, 3xRR, 2xLt Mortar, 12xRocket Launcher, and 2xBoats (which were surprisingly well armed, smugglers usually don't advertize by arming their boat to the teeth).
I assume the rocket launchers (and the ammo ships) were the objective, so they can be semi-discounted in the force ratio.
Typically the military likes a 3-to-1 (or better 6-to-1) ratio when attacking. In this scenario we had apx. 1-to-3 to 1-to-5.
While it's certainly reasonable that there might be say a company of VC that intel missed in the area, a battalion is a "bit" much.

Typically in the attack a USMC Rifle Company would be supported by a pair of armed helos, no way you could afford them given the number of points allotted. Besides, given the EXTREMELY strong AA present they would have felt like ducks in a shooting gallery.
Also the USMC typically makes extensive use of it's own private air force as flying artillery (I read someplace recently the USMC dropped 70% of the close air support tonnage the USA used during WW II).

All that said it was a very interesting battle, and given that about half the VC squads were a counterattack that was hindered by the terrain as much (or more) as I was the force ratio wasn't as much a factor as it would normally be.

On to battle #2!

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Thanks Suhir. A couple of assumptions you made are not what I was trying to present: The boats aren't smugglers, they're pirates, The VC are all around and represent a regional force - the game intent is that whatever approach you use you will meet some enemy without the counter attack being too tough - It should feel like you caught them off guard and out of position. Any suggestions on wether/how I could give that effect - change the intro maybe?

Thanks for the links Kessu, I will certainly take that info into account once I've had time to read through.

Also - I understand the AA is OTT and when I'm able I will be redoing all the battles with less (especially less 14mm). I'd like to still have a campaign where choppers fear to tread as much as possible. Would it be a better representation of the way the marines operated to put the pair of gunships into some of the battles as support? The AA issue is a problem for each of the battles and will be addressed (so for those game enough to beta test the later battles you don't need to include that in feedback)

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Perhaps include in the briefing the words "There is known to be a VC battalion in the area, however you are not required to engage the whole force and our information suggests they are not battle ready and are unlikely to move against you." ?

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Also - is there a way to show in the game a MG which has had a jury-rigged AA mount put on?

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

If there was a "known battalion in the area" the smallest force they'd send into the area would be a reinforced battalion with lots of artillery, helo, and air support on-call.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Battle #2

Again, excellent map!

Without getting into details:

The VC were all dug-in, makes them MUCH harder to hit/suppress.

94 Squads (mostly 3-man scout teams, hard as hell to hit due to size 0)
3 Sniper
12 Fortifications
3 MMG Section
7 Recoiless Rifle
5 82mm Mortar Section
3 Hv AAMG
3 ZPU-4
3 57mm AA Gun

And most interestingly ... 67 mine symbols.
To quote the manual: "A 'mine' is not '1 mine' but a random small number of mines. It is a symbol for a mined area and may be 2 mines or it may be 8 mines (or 3 or 5)."
Let's assume an average of 4.5 mine per symbol ... 67 x 4.5 = 301.5 ... the average anti-tank mine weighs 30# ... so 301.5 x 30 = 9045# ... 4.11 tons of mines ... very industrious those VC.

The ONLY reason I made it to the village via the road was I ignored the scenario advice and bought a single tank, an M67A2 Zippo to be precise, as part of my CORE. Then picked up two Engineer Squads with scenario support points. Gotta love flame tanks when it comes to roadside ambushes :smirk:

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Found a great resource on the brown water navy, rich with first hand accounts of the guys on the ground and on the water. Tons of great pictures and Ops reports (!!). http://www.rivervet.com/

Army/Navy joint ops but the dynamics apply to a large extent on the riverine operations carried out by the Devil Dog.

Loving the campaign Duff. Kudos!. Some fine-tuning and you'll have yourself a classic. Half way through the 3rd scenario (hopefully). The V.C is making a lot of widows with their mortars and I'm tempted to tune down artillery effectiveness back to 100% but having laid down the law as a FO I personally know that 81-82mm mortar rounds do more than just pick up dust in RL, and that the 100m kill radius of a 155mm shell means just that.

P.S
Downloaded the Vietnam total conversion (TO&Es) which suits the campaign like a glove.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Battle #3 (LZ Ambush)

The LZ had 3 fortifications in the middle; the treeline surrounding it swarming with 6 Hv AAMGs, 12 RPG armed squads, and 3 snipers. The surrounding jungle sported another 6 ZPU-4's and 3 Hv AAMGs. All this supported by 19 ... yes 19 ... 82mm mortar sections (I wasn't aware the VC even had mortar battalions).

Obviously those AirCav guys were from the 7th Cav (Custers' outfit).

It was impossible to reach the LZ before the first wave of AirCav appeared.
Needless to say it was ugly.
Only by performing a banzai attack were some of the USMC units able to slightly clear one side of the LZ before the second wave of AirCav appeared.
Again, it was ugly.
####################

After 3 battles I have to wonder ...
Do you playtest your scenarios yourself to see how well they work and if they're balanced (assuming they're designed to be winnable ... some aren't)?
In a campaign most players sort of expect the majority of their CORE to survive to participate in the next battle.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

I did play test them all and got a DV for each - obviously knowing the opponent's layout that's not due to any gifts in my play. With the ambush I lost a boat to the 14 mil AA (which I'm happy to be getting rid of...) The torpedo boats and PBRs from my core force (and the hovercraft when I took them) "Z"ed most hexes before my troops moved in and it wasn't too bad. The barges were late to the party and the troops in them only got to take part in the plantation attack. I used smoke to make sure I only had to deal with one section of the "Ring of fire" at a time and had it mostly sorted by the time the choppers came. (I forgot about the spider holes in the middle of the LZ and gave myself an awful fright when they opened up!) I think the barge troops stopped off to deal with the morters.

If that was an odd way of dealing with that battle, please let me know. I'm not trying to design battles where most people will never "beat" because of my quirky way of thinking.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Suhir - the briefing was intended to convey "Don't go up the road!". When I re-read it without an Australian use of words I'm guessing "roll up" suggested rolling in tanks rather than just "go to". I'll reword the briefing - you're supposed to land at the dock in your boats. Thanks for the advice about the amount of mines, with luck one of those after battle reports will give an amount of mines recovered so I can keep it a bit more real.

With the fist battle - Would it be more realistic to remove the "extra" troops and add challenge by shortening time? When I playtested I found the artillery support pretty much left all the VC in the village unable to shoot and I don't want to make it a cakewalk (Whereas doctrine tries to make Decisive victory with minimal casualties the result as much a possible).

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Hello Duff,
Your campaign seems to be interesting.
The first difficulty is, for my level, the recruitment.
I'm French and Viet Nam does not evoke much for me. Also a fixed core would be a great help.
By building your various scenarios, I suppose you have a clear idea about the composition of your core force. (Would that the equilibrium scenarios). Could you give us the benefit of your experience?
Regards

Yves

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Most of my playtest run-throughs I had a marine company with 1 platoon replaced by engineers, a platoon of mortars, 3 "squadrens" of 3 PBRs with a mix of weapons, an FO and an ammo LVT. I usually had a road patrol and fire team squad, sometime replaced 1 squadren of plasties (PBRs) with PT boats. I usually had a few recoilless rifles for bunkers and to make a big bang in suppression fire. When I could afford I bought a seal recon team and helicopter (which I had fun with but it died often, (same with the hovercraft when I had them). I'm some battles would be very hard without the PBRs. I enjoy open cores myself which is the main reason I left it open. If most people would prefer a fixed core I can certainly do that.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Hello Dufff,
Thank you for the answer that helps me tremendously.
Nota Bene:
Regarding the fixed core force, players who prefer to use an open core force can easily change it with the editor. The reverse is not possible.
Regards

Yves

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

That's a fair point. I'll include a fixed core option when I do version 1.1

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

In my humble opinion,i think its best to have a fixed core and limited repair/build pts.,for an challenging campaign.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

And I appreciate the suggestion that difficulty for the campaign come from limited repair points. It seems more consistent with the way the marines went about fighting in Vietnam and embodies the theme which runs through the text that while some casualties are expected they must be kept to a minimum.

On that topic - are the briefings useful and flavorful and debriefings flavorful?

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Given the terrain it takes more then half the scenario to simply reach the objective village (assuming you don't just motor in and land at the docks).
You could cut say 10-15 turns if they player didn't have the counterattack force to deal with.


I very much agree.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Hello Duff,
When do you edit your changes due to our various observations? (fixed core force, few repair points)
It's a good campaign idea
Regards
Yves

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

I'm working on an updated version slowly. I'm getting some more specific info on people's opinions. Hope to put version 1.1 out in 2-3 weeks. Any new feedback in the meantime would be appreciated.

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Hello Duff,
Thank you for your shipment.
I understood why it was not working.
Sending in your Delta and the last new folder, files C025s000.dat to C025s008.dat were not included in your zip. I hope you do not change your basic scenarios for Epsilon
By installing your first campaign Epsilon then modifying it with new file folder, it works. The first scenario is exciting, but I did get a marginal victory ...
Fortunately my losses are not too serious but I have to start the campaign as you programmed it needed a decisive victory to advance to the next step. It is a field that I do not know, I let myself be surprised by the hexagons of water levels that transform units inflatable boat. And a boat does not support balls!
By fiddling the files in the editor, I arranged for whatever the outcome, I go directly to the following scenario. To me avoid losses if I want to go far.
thank you

Regards

Yves

Re: Marine River force in Vietnam
 

Error of post !
Sorry

Yves