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So I’ve taken a brief break from Omaha to build and run a game with @stvitusdancern on the Sitrep Command Team.  The game was Valor & Victory (Barry Doyle, Vietnam Expansion by @oriskany ) where we pitted a platoon of US Special Forces up against Vietnamese regulars (PAVN) near the Laotian border, Kon Tum Province, South Vietnamese Central Highlands, III Corps, mid-December 1967.

The general situation in this part of the war was dominated by a VC/NVA build-up for the Tet Offensive that would hit in January-February 1968.  During this build-up, large contingents of NVA troops and weapons for the VC would come down the the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia – with branches leading off the trail at many points, leading into South Vietnam.  American and ARVN ground forces were not allowed into Laos and Cambodia, but they could interdict these forces as they crossed into South Vietnam, hopefully stopping the buildup and perhaps using intelligence gained in these actions (prisoners / captured documents) to build a better picture about the Tet Offensive that was building up.

So here are the Special Forces units I put together in Valor & Victory to facilitate this game. We have Special Forces squads, half-squads, and medic teams. There are also leaders. They are named for American Revolutionary War Generals. The leader is Morgan, named for Daniel Morgan, leader of the 11th Virginia (the “Virginia Riflemen”) and founder of the Rangers. He is often recognized as the “father” of American Special Forces.

Vietnamese forces. These the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), often called in Western Press as the NVA (North Vietnamese Army). These are not South Vietnamese communist guerrillas like we see with the VC (National Liberation Front, or NLF). This is a hardened, trained, regular rifle company of the formal army of Hanoi.

 

The Special Forces platoon. They are carried in four UH-1 Iroquois transport helos (more typically called the “Huey”) – the “slick” configuration without significant guns. The last helo on the bottom is a full-on UH-1H Gunship, which has sacrificed half its troop carrying capacity for some small degree of armor plating and rockets and guns … LOTS of guns.

 

Here is the map I drew up for this game, live on Twitch, on Thursday. Seven objective hexes will be designated. Gianna must take at least four (the majority) to win the game by the end of Turn 6.

 

The battle begins. All NVA units begin “masked” – obscured as black counters until Gianna’s troops spot them, move adjacent to them, or they fire on Gianna’s units. During her initial movement phase (as helos entered the board), my NVA captain and a heavy machine gun crew on high ground (DShK 12.7mm) open fire on one of her birds, hitting and damaging it but JUST MISSING shooting it down. Instead it is “Pinned” (helos that are “pinned” have to withdraw from range of enemy gunfire and stay there until “rallied”.) But now that NVA gun position is revealed, and in comes Gianna’s gunship to release .50 cal, 7.62mm MG, and 2.75-inch rockets. BOOM! There goes the DShK (and my captain). However, the American commander (Captain Morgan) has landed on the ground to the east and headed north into those hooches, only to discover that those masked NVA units were “dummies” – “EMPTY JUNGLE.” Throughout the game Gianna will have to discern where my forces really are, and how they are deployed. The Vietnamese are always hidden in this war, after all.

Some more NVA units reveal themselves to the north, where I try to attack MSgt Herkimer’s Squad once it becomes a little too isolated wading across that stream. That’s three half-squads, one of them carrying an RPG-7. But those are Special Forces, and their opportunity fire more or less annihilates this force before they can mount the assault. So far we have one NVA officer and 16 men either killed, wounded, or driven off, with really no losses to the Americans other than a damaged UH-1 (and perhaps a wounded pilot or co-pilot or crew chief). But this game is just getting started!