FNG '67 - Ambushed by a claymore to the face

[Kestrel]

Revford promised you this FNG '67 report a while back and here it is at last, sorry I've kept you waiting Rev. Hope it's been worth it

The mission was simple, unfortunately so was Sgt Clint Norris who had to lead his squad out past the perimeter and prepare a surprise for Charlie. Having advanced past the perimeter and located a suitable ambush site, Sgt Norris gave the order for the unit to split up into 2 fireteams and prepare secure positions defended with claymores to greet any unwelcome visitors.



So far, so good, but not for much longer, as the sound of two claymores going off in quick succession at opposite ends of the lines pierced the night. Unfortunately it was not because they were not set off by VC forces, but by the men setting them up. Cpl Doyle was killed outright by the explosion and Sgt Norris received a serious wound to the head incapacitating him.



Worse news was yet to come, as not only were the officers of the unit down, the radio which had been carried by Doyle was like him and lying in pieces, although unlike him it looked repairable. At this point with the officers down, the radio out and position given away Spec. Spike took charge and gave the order to withdraw with four men carrying each body.





Having given their position away so spectacularly, the VC forces in the area were quick to investigate and 3rd Unit soon found themselves being pursued and coming under occasional fire and led the VC straight back towards the rest of the platoon.



Meanwhile back at base, Sgt Killins and 2nd unit were guarding the perimeter.



Having a bad feeling about the night Killins advanced out into the cleared killing ground and prepared a claymore of his own attached to a tripwire. Suddenly from outside the perimeter came the sounds of people running through the trees with shouts punctuated by sporadic gunfire.





Panicking, Killins went to run back to the safety of cover, unfortunately for 3rd unit he hadn't finished setting up the claymore properly and in his rush to get to safety he caused it to detonate and kill the first two members of 3rd unit as they emerged from the hostile side of the killing ground. Startled by the blast before them, Pvt Stone stumbled and fell to the ground.



Unfazed by this Spec Stone ordered Pvt Felt; who was toting the Sarge's M60, to help him cover the remainder of the unit, whilst they fell back carrying the dead and wounded.Weighted down by the remains of Cpl Doyle and slowed by the sudden absence of Pvt Stone, the GIs at the back of the unit came under sustained fire from the VC and Pvt Wild fell to the ground, as an unlucky (for him anyway) bullet tore his throat out.



Lying on the ground praying silently that the advancing VC wouldn't notice him Pvt Stone laid amidst the bodies and his prayers were answered as the VC walking around him were distracted by the sight of Spec Spike lining up a shot with his M79 and cut him down in a hail of fire from their AK47s before he could launch a grenade at them.



Finally something went right for 3rd unit. The VC in their eagerness to chase when down had brought themselves within range of 2nd unit who were concealed amidst the tree line on the other side of the killing ground - Surprising them, they managed to drop one of the advancing VC, however in giving away their position the return fire caused two of 2nd unit to fall to the ground, only one of whom started screaming in pain.



Pvt Stone, unnoticed and now behind the advancing VC brought his M16 up to bear and dropped the last of the standing VC from the unit that had walked over him. As that man dropped, another of the VC rose up from amongst the bodies who whilst injured hadn't yet given up the fight and he charged at Pvt Stone, who in turn fled into the jungle in fear.

Now standing alone amongst the dead and injured with the sound of more VC approaching Pvt Felt decided he was on the wrong side of the killing ground and fell back towards 2nd unit shouting to identify himself. 2nd unit found themselves being reinforced as the platoon command and 1st unit came out to find out what was happening on the perimeter, 2nd unit having engaged the enemy and having an idea of how bad things were radioed for further support requesting a gunship for cover.

Falling back across the open ground between refuge and the VC, firing the M60 as he did so Pvt Felt managed to drive back the VC on one flank before being wounded and taken out of action.

------------

Rather amusingly the random soundtrack of music from the era happened to be playing 'The End' by The Doors, although it was only the end of the battle for 3rd Unit as the remainder of the platoon fought off the VC with a little help from a helicopter. As an addtional note it's good to know that pretty much all of 3rd unit was shot dead and not merely wounded as their bodies along with the VC wound up being the targets of rockets.

The final toll for the ten men of 3rd unit was 6 dead, 2 wounded, 1 MIA and 1 coward (or perhaps 1 sensible person). Private O'Hanlon, one of the wound was wounded so severely that he was sent back to the world, Sgt Clint Norris however was made of sterner stuff and was patched up and back on duty within a couple of days. Of the missing Spec Spike and the unit's M79 however there was no sign and they have been presumed captured by the enemy.

[Mr. Peabody]

Ow. Definitely a rough session in the jungle.
Great AAR though!
FNG '67, is that different from FNG by Two Hour Wargames?

[revford]

Nope the system is indeed FNG from THW.  We started the campaign with the Stars coming in as FNG's in January 1967 to see if anyone could complete a tour, so the campaign get's called FNG '67.

Most missions seem to go this well for the players, the lesson they learned here is not to try setting claymores while running in the dark in a jungle crawling with VC. 

It's a few weeks out of date, but there are is web page with medals awarded, time served and so on here:

http://revford.co.uk/gaming-nam-us.html

When I get a chance I'll bring the page up to date and post some pics of the Cobra, Loach and extra infantry.

[DFlynSqrl]

Very cool revford.  Looks like 3rd squad gets all the action... and the KIAs.  Ouch.

[revford]

Very cool revford.  Looks like 3rd squad gets all the action... and the KIAs.  Ouch.

It's all down to the 3rd Squad Motto:  Work Hard, Not Smart. 

[Mr. Peabody]

Most excellent. Really liked your succinct campaign page, looks like the campaign has been quite the grinder so far. 12 weeks, that's 6 turns in?

Are you using the FNG 2.0 version or the original, with both sides taking the in-sight test? Curious because I'm looking at hosting a 'Nam campaign at our local club and thought that it may be easier to gage interest in the system & introduce some of the core ideas by using Chain Reaction 3.0 and some cool Pig Iron minis & Mars terrain. That will keep them from getting too skittish after a steady diet of low protein 40K. Then if they like the game-play I'll bring in my 20mm Pegasus, Italeri, Dragon and Hasegawa for some jungle-bungle.

Anticipating Darby's Got Them Air Cav. Blues campaign book for FNG. Should be available pretty soon now.

Thomas

[revford]

So far it's been the original, but I can see now we've put in enough games that the 2.0 way gets the same result in less dice rolls.

I couldn't see it on paper but after a few weeks of the game it's all become clear.

When we come back to FNG for a second tour, for the characters who make it and pass 2 to re-up, we'll switch over to 2.0 and use the deeper Operations map-based campaign system which looks really good.

I'm actually working the other way around, getting people going with FNG so I can drag them into more 5150 later. 

[Kestrel]

Very cool revford.  Looks like 3rd squad gets all the action... and the KIAs.  Ouch.

Nah, 3rd Unit gets all the MIAs, KIAs are just too common.

The three members that survived this mission got sent out on a fighting patrol, only two bodies were found...

Sgt Norris joined Spec Spike as a guest of the VC

With the Rev taking pity on me losing my star as well as the unit he gave me control of the platoon HQ. As a result of this the Sgt of 4th Unit is languishing in military jail.

After another mission went less than well I joking blamed it on 4th Unit holding their flank, the Rev jumped on this and made me take a rep check for the Lieutenant which I passed. Jack (the player in charge of 4th unit) then got told to make a check which he promptly failed, so instead of getting 6 months on crap burning duty he got carted off to jail.  Needless to say talk of fragging soon started up, although the grenade that got the Lieutenant in the end was one of his own which he dropped in a tunnel after getting shot.

[Mr. Peabody]

Thanks for that Rev. Good to know, as I haven't been able to drum up many games. Yet. Most of our local club is nourished on a low protein diet of 40K. I managed to host a game of ChainReaction on Friday night by using Martian terrain and my Pig Iron heavy infantry; that got some interest! Good fun, too.

I'm running an FNG:Ops campaign right now. Generated a squad (Rep/Attribute/Weapon/Time in Country) from each platoon in the company and also the HQ section with the idea of playing out choice missions on the table top as they come-up. So far it has been a downhill fight just to get the FSB built: 3 VC probes in four days and shelling by an NVA mortar unit began on day 3, destroying several barracks, artillery control and my newly completed supply store!!

I recently put time into making FNG:Ops a little more user friendly. I wanted quick reference sheets for game play that I could read easily or hand around at the gaming club, so I increased font size, made format changes, applied consistent terminology as well as combined relevant material into useful reference areas. This is no professional effort, believe me, but I did ask Darby a ton of questions as I went along and incorporated his feed-back as I worked. The result is a stack of PDF's that in conjunction with FNG:Ops make it a lot easier to play. If you decide you want to run an Ops campaign and want a copies of these, PM me with your email and I'll send them to you.

Thomas

[revford]

It's good to hear that your campaign is working out as harsh as ours.  Charlie must have been overjoyed you built him that nice new target. 

One of the nice things about FNG, is the strange way you can never tell which are going to be the exciting missions.

What starts out as a simple ambush can turn into a gigantic clusterfrag when hordes of well equipped and supported, aggressive VC arrive and mortar or artillery fire starts raining in from both sides of the table and you're screaming into the radio to send more men, a huey, or anything.

Or it could be six poorly armed local Reds who just want to know where you are and are more than happy to flee as soon as you give your position away.

Yes please on the Ops sheets, you can see my email address under The Joker over there. 

<=

[DFlynSqrl]

I really enjoy playing FNG too.  I agree that with the reinforcement rules a "simple" mission can get out of hand REAL quick... and all kinds of crazy stuff can happen too.

I had a mission where we went to check out a village and ran into a couple of VC.  Fight was over real quick and we decided to close up the tunnel they popped out of... well, I made the mistake of letting a FNG drop a WP grenade in the entrance.  He ended up burning himself up and next thing we're calling in a dust off helo... just in time to meet up with a platoon of NVA.  That mission ended ugly but we got out of there.

Maybe I need to play some FNG tomorrow...

[revford]

WP you say?  good idea that, it's always nice to see the men issued with weapons as dangerous to themselves as they are to the enemy. 

After some problems with bunkers, the Platoon are now carrying a LAW in each squad, I'm waiting to see how they turn that into a self harming exercise on Tuesday.

For added fun they're into monsoon season now so dustoff isn't always available.

[Mr. Peabody]

That's one aspect of campaign gaming that OPS really brings home for the company and platoon scale: transport and supply vs terrain and weather. Really makes you look at a map and wonder, "even with artillery and engineers, can I hold this for 5 months?"

Enjoy the rain, Rev.

[Kestrel]

WP you say?  good idea that, it's always nice to see the men issued with weapons as dangerous to themselves as they are to the enemy. 

Don't you mean more dangerous to themselves than the enemy? I am sure more of my unit have fallen to claymores than VC and I know the only person to fall victim to a grenade used by me was our lieutenant.

[revford]

Wandering about in a VC tunnel network carrying a grenade with the pin pulled, was a serious tactics fail.