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Great write-up, @yavasa !  😀  I have not tried this game myself, but I’ve played other Decision Games titles and am a long-time subscriber to the Strategy & Tactics magazine series in which these games are initially rolled out, reviewed, and “published.”

We discussed Khe Sanh at length in our recent Tet Offensive article series.  I realize some historians may not consider Khe Sanh strictly part of the Tet Offensive, which was mostly an NLF / Viet Cong effort rather than a PAVN / NVA offensive like Khe Sanh.  But they were taking place at the same time and I feel were both part of the overall communist effort in the opening months of ’68.

26th Marine Regiment (along with a contingent of South Vietnamese Rangers and later 1st Bn / 9th Marines) were incredibly outnumbered by perhaps 40,000 NVA troops in all (three divisions, 304, 324, and 325C).  So yes, the air power had to be extreme.  I hope it didn’t make your game feel lopsided or “wonky,” but Khe Sanh is literally the heaviest use of tactical air power in the history of warfare.  If there was EVER a time for airpower to be “OP,” it’s here. 😀

Let’s look at some numbers:  54,500 tons of napalm released by TacAir over NVA positions surrounding Khe Sanh.  TacAir was very accurate, sometimes hitting NVA “creeping entrenchments” coming to within 300 yards of forward Marine Corps positions.

Moving to the strategic bombers, the B-52s conducting “ArcLite” missions as part of operation Niagara were originally restricted to targets 3400 yards away from the nearest Marine Corps positions (2 miles, already far more accurate). These “ArcLight” strikes were released from much higher altitudes than WW2 bombers (over 30,000 feet in some cases), and were partially guided by electronic ground sensors that had been dropped into the jungle around suspected NVA avenues of approach. As the Battle of Khe Sanh grew more desperate in the last days of February 1968, these B-52 strikes were pulled in to with 1200 yards of Marine positions (3/4 of a mile).

These particular missions landed right on top of NVA positions that had been “trenching” their way toward the Marine perimeter, and included 53,000 tons of bombs. Close-in bombing by B-52s, already a staple of TacAir with “Snake & Nape”, was henceforth a norm for B-52 strikes as well.  At the height of the ArcLite bombing, three B-52s were unloading over Khe Sanh every 90 minutes for weeks on end.

In the few miles around Khe Sanh, the 77 days of the siege wound up being hit with about 111,000 tons of bombs. Even if only half of this bombing weight is actual high  explosive (accounting for bomb casings, fuses, fins, etc), we’re still talking 55 kilotons of pure explosive, or over five times the explosive power released on Hiroshima. North Vietnamese positions around Khe Sanh are on record as being hit with more aerial bomb tonnage than any other spot in the history of warfare, and a lot of it was within a quarter mile of friendlies.

So when people debate over whether we should have used tactical nuclear weapons at Khe Sanh, and yes, President L B Johnson was considering it, realize that effectively … American airpower DID “nuke” the NVA at Khe Sanh, at least according to a certain interpretation of the numbers.

I especially like how your game wound up concluding when AirCav reinforced Khe Sanh.  Historically, this was Operation Pegasus, when units of 1st AirCav Division re-opened Route 9 leading west past Khe Sanh toward the Laotian border.  It’s a source of argument to this day between the US Army and US Marine Corps, who insist they “didn’t have to be rescued” – they’d already defeated the NVA divisions trying to take Khe Sanh (well, with plenty of help from USMC, US Navy, and especially US Air Force air power, we we’ve discussed).

I was also interested to see where the NVA tried to take the Rock Pile.  In the months leading up to Tet Offensive and Khe Sanh, there is a campaign of battles here in the I Corps sector near the DMZ called “the Hill Fights” – where both sides really tried to take the high ground and set up fire bases like Camp Carrol, the Rock Pile.  Artillery is the other crusher in Vietnam games like this, because as mighty as air power can be, artillery is more reliable.  It bombards all day, all weather, all night, and is usually more accurate that airpower too.

Also, while the NVA has no real air support of their own (there was ONE fighter-bomber strike that came close to hitting Khe Sanh, I think), the NVA has PLENTY of artillery.  at think at the height of the siege, Khe Sanh was hit by something like 1300 shells a day, some 122mm and 130mm shells fired all the way from Laos.

Great game, great blog post!  This is EXACTLY the kind of wargame that needs more attention.  Great job, I hope to see more!