Battle for South Vietnam 1965-75

[Grymme]

June 1965 (Round 1, seasonal interface)

This is an AAR detailing the first human vs human campaign game of my not yet completely finished VGs Vietnam scenario. This scenario begins in june 1965 and can last until may 1975 if the communist side does not win before (ca 120 rounds). Each round is 1 month. Every third month (june, september, december and march) are seasonal rounds where new units are brought in etc. The Victory conditions are that the Communist side can win either by controlling Saigon or by pushing South Vietnamese controlled population below 450 points (it starts at 651). If neither of these conditions happen then the Free World side wins at the end of may 1975.

I will try to be somewhat pedagogical to explain some of the functions of the scenario since its quite different from the normal game. Hopefully we will not find any gamebreaking bugs for a while so the AAR will go on.

I am playing the Communist side against Juergen who is playing the Free World side. The Free World player goes first and then the Communist player before the round ends. Each round is one month and each SFT represent ca 10 men or vehicles.

Since this is the first round of the game and also a seasonal interface it starts with determening the allegiance of the people in vietnam. There are 35 or so provinces in South Vietnam and in each of them the population can support SVN or the guerllas at a variyng degree. At the start of any round with a seasonal interface i get a lot of these messages, se screenshot.

The screenshot shows the pacification roll for Quang Tri province (the province in the north closest to North Vietnam. Basicly the people are more aligned for SVN (12/1) than the VC so there is a small positive modifier of +2 for the south. But the SVN morale is low so there is a -5 modifier for the rebels. Since there is no guerilla or NVA units in the province there is no modifier for that. The random die roll is quite high which means that the number of people loyal to South Vietnam increases slightly from 12 to 13.

All in all the population loyal to the guerilla movement has gone down from 399 to 396 in total in all provinces. At the same time the population loyal to SVN should have gone up from 651 to 654. Not a bad start for SVN.

[Grymme]

Now for some SVN politics.

There are five different possible heads of state in South Vietnam (Bao Dai, Thieu, Ky, Minh and Than. Each leader has either a positive or negative influence on SVN Morale and Free World Morale. Every season there is a chance of political unrest or even a military coup happening.

The chances of something like that happening can be influenced by things like: SVN morale, previous unrest and wether the US tries to induce a coup or not. A military coup or political unrest can cause the SVN army to become unready and also has a negative influence on both SVN and Free world Morale.

The current SVN leader ingame is Bao Dai. He has a -3 negative influence on SVN morale each season and a +1 influence on Free World morale. He is actually one of the better SVN leader since the negative influence on SVN morale can be more or less negated by spending the extra morale gotten to bolster SVN morale by economic aid for example.

Luckily for the South Vietnamese there is no Military Coup, but there is political unrest, se screenshot.

[Grymme]

When i open the gameturn and go into the map i imediatly glance at my resources on the top of the window, se screenshot.



There is Morale, Commitment, Population, Draft and Replacements (we will leave replacements for a later topic)

Now NVA morale is quite easy to calculate. It never goes down but rises depending on several factors. North Vietnam always start the scenario with 10 in morale and i now have 28. Thats an 18 point increase that depends on the US commitment level (+3), current NVA morale (+5) and new US commitment for the round (+10). Since i automaticly get 20% of the new US commitment as an increase in NVA morale this tells me that the US must have deployed ca 50 points of commitment on the first season.

The resource that is used to build new NVA units, upgrade the trail, buy military supplies etc is commitment and you can never spend more commitment than you have morale. Since NVA starts with 0 commitment its quite easy to calculate that i can spend 28 points of commitment on units etc if i want.

Here is a small list of cost in commitment for new NVA units.

Division HQ.................1 commitment
Regiment....................3 commitment
Hvy Artillery Bn............2 commitment
2 Tank Battalions.........3 commitment
2 air defense Rgts........3 commitment

I can also use commitment to upgrade the Ho Chi Minh trail, Infiltrate recruits into the south (raising the population) and send Military Supplies to the south either via the Ho Chi Minh trail or by sea.

For the first round i buy 2 Division HQs, 4 infantry Regiments, 2 hvy Artillery Bns, and 4 air Defense regiments. for a total cost of 24 commitment. I save 4 commitment because i want to upgrade the trail but i dont have any units to defend the new base that would become available.

In the first round only i also have 1 free NVA division HQ and 3 regiments to place anywhere in NVA or Laos.

[Grymme]

So,that was Morale and Commitment and creating NVA units.

But there is also Population, Draft and Supply.

Creating VC guerilla units is not done by using morale or commitment. Instad VC units are created by spending Military Supplies and raising the draft level. Without any Military supplies you cannot create units and the Draft level can never be raised beoyond the population level (with one exception that will be discussed later).

If you glance at the screen in previous post you can see that the currently controlled population is 396, the draftlevel is 0 and i have military supplies.

Now i can build some guerilla units. They cost according to the following list

UNIT..................................Supplies..........Pop
2 VC companies/round............FREE............FREE
VC Division HQ.......................8..................6
VC Regiment.........................10.................9
VC Battalion..........................2..................3

So for the first round i build 4 VC Division HQs, and 30+ battalions. Spending all my military supplies and raising the draft to well over 100. I dont build any regiments because they are quite expensive and theire main quality is that they have some AA and the US have not heavily invested in Airsupport.

Screenshot shows the Actioncards screen where most of the important decisions are made in any seasonal interface.

[Grymme]

The US/Free World initial deployment

Now i start to think about where to deploy my units. I look over the map. There is no fog of war for the Communist side so i can see exactly where all his units. He however has fog of war so has to try and find my units.

I see that the US has invested heavily in defending Quang Tri deploying what looks like an full US division and an ARVN division there. Wisely because Quang Tri borders to North Vietnam and i would just run it over if there were not enough units there.

I place a NVA Division HQ with a regiment and the two artillery battalions just north of the DMZ. I notice that there is a single ARVN battalion that looks a little vulnerable in Can Thiem and bombard it and drive it out of the city with my NVA regiment. After that the units retreat into North Vietnam.

The US has bombed one of my two bases on the Ho Chi Minh trail Saravaneh. So i will need to send down some airdefense and engineers down there to repair it. Two of my Air Defense regiments spread out to protect cities in North Vietnam. The Other NVA division together with 3 regiments and the remaining 2 air defense regiments are sent down the trail to infiltrate into the south somewhere else and defend the bases on the trail.

Since this area is heavily defended i do not try to place any guerilla units here at the moment.

Map legend
NVA Units (dark blue)
VC Units (red)
US Units (bright green)
US Marine Units (dark green)
ARVN Units (yellow)

White names (province names with population allegiance displayed below)
White borders (provincial borders)
Cities with circles (provincial or other capitols)
Cities with ports (starting locations for raising new US/ARVN units)

[Grymme]

Screenshot shows Corps I further south.


The top 2 provinces of Corps I were heavily defended, but further south in Quang Nam and Quang Tin i find that there is less defenders.

There are US forces in Da Nang, including the Marines, but none in the mountains.

Unfortunatly there are not much cities or cultivated hexes free but i do deploy the 324th VC division together 8 battalions to try and disrupt the pacification of these provinces and drive them over to me.

Is stated before i get a free NVA division to deploy anywhere in NVN or Laos on the first round i also choose to place on of the NVA regiments in this area.

[Grymme]

It is very difficult for the Free world player to cover all ground and in the II/III Corps area (Central highlands) i find that a couple of provinces are lightly held or not held at all.

In Kontum province (slightly north of the screenshot) i capture the city Dak To with the rest of my free NVA division.

In Phu Bon province i deploy 321st VC division with 6 battalions and a company and in Phuyen Duc province i deploy 323rd VC Division together with 7 battalions and a company. In both provinces i also capture a couple of Provincial capitols (Hau Bon, Hau Nghia and Gia Nghia).

Capturing capitols are important for two reasons. First a captured capitol means a negative modifier of -10 or -5 on the pacification roll. Secondly every 3rd captured capitol means a negative deduction on Free World morale during the seasonal interface.

Hopefully it will take a while to drive my forces out of these positions.

[Grymme]

And my final post for this round.

Screenshot shows most of Corps IV area (delta) and part of Corps III.

The US has wisely kept a large reserve in the Saigon area. There seem to be an entire division in the city proper (one of the victoryconditions is if the communist side at any time controls Saigon). Our intelligence has reported US units from the 4th and 9th infantry division together with the 5th Mechanized Brigade and 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment.

The swampy and heavily populated delta area is also quite heavily defended but mainly with ARVN units, including a high proportion of mechanized and tank units.

Northwest of Saigon lies the so called "Iron triangle" (marked in red on the screenshot). It consists of the provinces Tay Ninh, Hau Nghia and Binh Duong. Its population is solidly loyal to the VC guerillas. You can see the population allegiance of any province printed in white under the white province names (for example in Tay Ninh 0 of the 24 population in the province are loyal to South Vietnam, in Binh Duong its 2 of 15).

I would like to defend this area since i would like to keep its population. But its heavily defended so for now i just place a couple of battalions there to keep a presence in the region. Hopefully the population allegiance modifier (if all people in a province are loyal to the VC there is a -10 modifier to pacification) will keep the people loyal to me for now.

Chau Doc province in the delta is not defended so i occupy it with my fourht division: 322nd VC division and six battalions. I also place a final battalion on the southern tip of Vietnam in the swamps and behind some rivers where it will be difficult to drive out.

The main Free world considerations

Mainly the US/ARVN has deployed well. The main difficulty of the US right now is that it needs to drive up the SVN morale. This can be done in a couple of different ways, depoying more free world units, bombing north vietnam or by starting economic aid programs for south vietnam. The morale will get a hefty boost next round because of all the new US troops but my guess is that it might still stay under the critical 70 level. Right now it is at 59.

Also it seem to be light on Airmobile units (the ARVN paratrooper division is deployed but no US divisions). Airmobile units can move 16 hexes in any terrain so they are quite handy when it comes to finding and killing guerilla units fast. It will be interesting to see what the reaction is. The US/Free world player need to be proactive and seek out VC units in South Vietnam. If left alone where they are they will eventually drive all the population over to their camp and then move on to other province and do the same there.

[Keunert]

Incredible work! this reads like your scenario is a game of it's own.
i'll have to get this donation stuff done damn.

[GrumpyMel]

I second that Grymme, very impressive looking scenerio. This one is definately near the top of my list to check out. Hopefully I'll get enough bandwidth for gaming time soon to be able to do that.

[Grymme]

July 1965 (2nd round of the scenario)

As i open the round and go through the history i notice that the US have bombed our base at Tchepone in Laos. Fortunatly i had moved 2 air defense regiments there last month so the base takes only minor damage and i shot down several B-52s.

In Quang Nam province in the North several US battalions including armored units and artillery have shelled and shatter a NLF infantry battalion that retreated with heavy losses (ca 270 men)The US suffers only light losses (ca 20 men).

Along the Demilitarized zone i use my 2 long range artillery (152mm howitzers with 3 range) to bombard an american cavalry squadron which is occupying Can Thien together with a fresh ARVN battalion and a battalion of 105mm Howitzers. Losses are ca 40 men for the free World.

I also send some engineers down to Tchepone to repair it faster. My second NVA Division is continuing to travel down the trail.

In Quang Nam province my units retreat inwards and into the mountains away from the armored US units.

[Grymme]

In Kontum province the 319th NVA Division with two of its regiments make a drive down the road towards the provincial capitol Kontum because its not garrisoned. At the same time 319th NLF Division is moving north towards the city of Pleiku where 1 ARVN regiment and three battalions are almost isolated. My hope is to catch them in a pincer movement between my units

In Tuyen duc province where i occupy several provincial capitols (south of the screenshot) there is very little movement. My units position themselves outside of the main highways to get out of the way of the mechanized and armored units on their way there.

Off topic: Thanks Grumpy and Keunert for your kind words. Feel free to ask any questions about the scenario here or in the other thread. Also i feel for Juergen. I designed the scenario and still have no clue to what the correct strategy would be. It must be tough to also have to learn all the game mechanics. Thankfully this is a slow grind of a scenario were one mistake will not kill but rather many small mistakes will eventually pile up.

[Grymme]

Finally in Corps IV area (north of the screenshot) i move around the two battalions i posted in the Iron triangle to keep them somewhat out of harms way. One battalion i send into Cambodia. The other one moves deeper into the jungle.

Finally In Kien Giang province i do the only real offensive ground combat of the round. As stated before the communist player gets two small VC companies for free each month that he can place anywhere he wants. This month i place my 2 free guerilla companies to make an ambush on the leading ARVN infantry battalion together with a VC Main battalion. The ambush goes well and the resulting losses are ca 580 men inthe ARVN battalion for 170 guerillas. The ARVN unit retreats and my guerillas try to get out of the way as possible after the combat, unfortunatly the main battalion doesnt have time to get of the road and might get some punishment next round.

[Keunert]

my biggest concern is my missing knowledge of the vietnam conflict. i don't know what happened when or where. is there enough info on the scenario briefing to be able to play this one properly (like vp, supply routes?) or should this scenario be the cause to read me into the topic?

what books would you suggest?

[comte]

ORIGINAL: Keunert

my biggest concern is my missing knowledge of the vietnam conflict. i don't know what happened when or where. is there enough info on the scenario briefing to be able to play this one properly (like vp, supply routes?) or should this scenario be the cause to read me into the topic?

what books would you suggest?

The Rise and Fall of an American Army by Shelby L. Stanton.

[Grymme]

ORIGINAL: Keunert

my biggest concern is my missing knowledge of the vietnam conflict. i don't know what happened when or where. is there enough info on the scenario briefing to be able to play this one properly (like vp, supply routes?) or should this scenario be the cause to read me into the topic?

what books would you suggest?

I will try and write as detailed a briefing as possible. One advantage in this regard is that since the mod is based on a boardgame i have some support in that. This being said i do think that it will help a great deal if you know at least some basic facts about the war. I do not think very many people have extensive knowledge on the operational level about the Vietnam War. Me neither. But it helps if you are familiar which countries were involved in the conflict, the Ho Chi Minh trail, the tet-offensive and things like that.

As for litterature. If you want an indepth account of the fighting i would recommend The Rise and Fall of an American Army just as Aces8 does. My copy is basicly read to pieces and its quite cheap. When it comes to a more strategic view of the conflict unfortunatly the book i have relied most upon is probably not available in english. Maybe you can find some books from the Osprey series and read.

[Grymme]

August 1965, Round 3

This was a pretty uneventfull month. The last month before a new seasonal interface.

The US had once again bombed Tchepone and once again lost some B-52s for only light damage. The only ground combat initiated by the Free World seem to have been bombardment over the border into Cambodia causing light losses to a battalion there.

In North Vietnam my artillery once again shell Can Thien. Gaining experience from previous bombardments they kill ca 50 ARVN and 30 US men. My 2nd Air defense regiment reaches the heavily damaged base of Saravaneh and will start repairing it from next month onward.

In Corps I area i just reposition my units. There is no combat since the US have wisely decided not to venture into the mountains with their armour. I also spend a replacement point giving some new NVA recruits to the Battalion that suffered heavy losses in the previous months combat.

[Grymme]

In Kontum province things are starting to heat up. I take both provincial capitols of Kontum and Pleikku. This will cause a -20 modifier on the dieroll for pacification next seasonal interface which will hopefully drive some of its inhabitants over to my side.

The ARVN battlegroup retreats east trying to avoid being cut off. Trying to hinder their retreat i setup one of my two VC companies to try and cut them of and i also move the rest of my division in to try and catch them.

[Grymme]

In the coastal province of Khan Hoa i find that the provincial capitol of Nha Trang is unoccupied. I expend the second of my two VC companies to take control of this city. I fully expect these brave men to give their life for the country but this gesture will make the population of Khan Hoa to think twice about supporting the SVN government.

I still hold several capitols in Tuyen Duc.

[Grymme]

Finally IV Corps

In the delta a massive shield of US and ARVN units are sweeping the countryside looking for guerillas. I use two mainforce battalions and a company to ambush an ARVN tank Squadron. The combat is relativly close. The guerillas loose ca 90 men for 70 kills but we disable or damage more than half of the vehicles in the squadron.

After the battle one of the battalions retreat into the swamp of the delta. The other battalion (97PPs in the screenshot) is unable to retreat far enough to get out of the way so i use an actioncard and order the battalion to disperse into small groups and run away leaving their weapons and other military supplies behind. This removes the unit but at the same time it reduces the draftlevel from 111 to 109 representing men running and getting away. Unfortunatly none of the weapons could be saved so i dont get any military supplies left. The small VC company is left in front of the enemy to try and cover the retreat.