Vietnam campaign
 

Has anyone got through the first scenario?
I got so far and lost so many i gave up to try again only to have the same happen.
It's wicked no wonder we lost that war!

Re: Vietnam campaign
 

Erh, says who ? The US pullout was political in nature, and it's very debatable that they suffered a military defeat in Nam.

Btw, I'm playing the LZ La Drang campaign atm, and doing surprisingly well so far : not a single casualty, and one slightly damaged helo :)

Not sure what campaign/scenarios you're playing, but use your artillery and air strikes to the fullest.
Leverage smoke screens to land/actively deploy your troops in game.
Reduce (the Y key) op-fire range to 1 or 0 for your officers and any unit that must stay hidden.
Reduce Op-Fire range across the board, to make it harder to spot you and also not waste ammo on very low hit probabilities.
Re-read the game notes in the manual, there are some very good tactical tips in there, explained in the context of the game, without being "gamey".

Leverage your helicopters for fire support, spotting, and if you can, load up some FOs on one or two to do some artillery spotting beyond the smoke curtains.
Keep some helos on low altitude, for patrols, and suppressive fire on potential enemy filled hexes.
Keep others on high altitude "patrol", moving them slowly each round so they have a decent chance of spotting enemies (assuming slow flying helos do a better job of spotting than fast flying ones, ditto with low vs high : low better chance to spot, but less visible hexes)
Overlap their patrol zones (unit view button is your friend)

As for your infantry support weapons (MGs, SAW, ATGM, etc.), also reduce their op-fire ranges, especially when LOS is short due to jungle and terrain variances, and position them as statically as possible for maximum support of their parent unit : move MGs as little as possible, and only while the rest of the platoon is not, waiting for them. The SAW team I move around : sometime in the center of the platoon triangle (1 up or 2 up), with the officer unit/squad, or with the leading element in 1 up formation, etc.

Careful movement paired with some planning ("Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.", Sun Tzu, from the aforementioned gameplay notes in the manual), using your vastly superior firepower and taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves will help you vanquish a determined, but less capable enemy.

Re: Vietnam campaign
 

Are we talking about the 5th Marines campaign? Might be worth remembering that in this campaign, you do not need to win a battle to be able to progress to the next one. Thus, there is no need to to try to grab all of those victory hexes - just take what you can take without excessive losses, and make sure you can hold it against possible enemy counter-attack. Also conserving your forces is a good idea - consider withdrawing badly damaged units to the rear, to protect them from being totally wiped out.

Various tactical hints:
- Move slowly. Moving only one hex per turn helps to keep casualties down. Be careful about getting excited and rushing after a retreating enemy - you might end up running straight into an ambush.
- Keep your platoons together. Isolated squad getting into ambush might get decimated before the other squads can show up for help.
- Consider using your auxiliary forces to move ahead of your main force, in order to draw out enemy fire.
- Spotter planes are excellent for reconnaissance, unless the enemy has AA-weapons around.
- VC fortifications (bunkers, spider holes etc.) are nasty. However, since they are static you might be able to just cover them with smoke from artillery and bypass them. Trying to destroy them with artillery bombardment will take a very long time - tanks are your best option, but tend to be limited by terrain. Making sure your infantry has LAWs gives them a chance of taking them out at close range.
- If you decide to blow up an enemy ammo dump/bunker, make sure you don't have own troops close by when it goes BOOM!
- Machine-gun units (the sort of folks with tripods for their guns) are excellent at hurting enemy at the long range, but vulnerable at close quarters.

Griefbringer