CapnJim's Vietnam Stuff...Nam 68 Game 9 AAR Postlude - Page 32 - 23 Sep 25)

[carlos marighela]

Indeed, interesting stuff. The review is much appreciated. Campaign stuff seems to have some interesting bits, albeit not terribly novel ones.

The individual figure activation doesn't really appeal. I suppose it makes it more RPG/ immersive but even at this scale, my personal preference would be dealing with groups or fireteams.  Bill might be a top bloke in the OR's boozer and I fancy his sister but I'm less interested in what Bill is doing at any given time as opposed whether his rifle group is moving or laying down fire.

I wasn't quite sure but are both Basic and Advanced Actions alloted to individual figures? Seems a bit odd if you can have a single figure giving aimed fire or covering fire. From experience, giving a specific order to an individual is not an easy thing to do unless you are right next to them. Typically orders are given to groups and are fairly simple to ensure compliance. 'Gun group covering fire, rifles and scouts up!' That sort of thing.

Are there modifiers to what would otherwise be random activation? I assume training levels, command experience, morale has some bearing?

Be interested to see how it plays with a whole platoon or a platoon + as it seems pretty granular.

[Lord Raglan]

Thanks for sharing your opinion Jim.

I am not totally sold on the mechanics, but I will continue to persevere for a little while at least, as I think some aspects of the gameplay are interesting, but my overall impression is that other games achieve a similar playing experience for less messing about.   

[CapnJim]

BALM and has.been:  You're welcome!

Carlos, here are some answers to your questions:

The individual figure activation doesn't really appeal. I suppose it makes it more RPG/ immersive but even at this scale, my personal preference would be dealing with groups or fireteams.  Bill might be a top bloke in the OR's boozer and I fancy his sister but I'm less interested in what Bill is doing at any given time as opposed whether his rifle group is moving or laying down fire.  Yes, individual actions do slow things down just a bit.  But it sped up some as we went on.  My preference is small unit activation, too, so I'm surprised I like these...

I wasn't quite sure but are both Basic and Advanced Actions alloted to individual figures? Seems a bit odd if you can have a single figure giving aimed fire or covering fire. From experience, giving a specific order to an individual is not an easy thing to do unless you are right next to them. Typically orders are given to groups and are fairly simple to ensure compliance. 'Gun group covering fire, rifles and scouts up!' That sort of thing.  Each figure gets one action per turn.  It can be either one of the Basic Actions or one of the Advanced Actions.  The US player decides which action when they activate the figure.  They are less orders than just what the figure in question is doing.  If you have enough actions, you can give multiple figures the same action, at a cost of one of that type of action per figure.   But, NCOs can order their men (within 10") to take the same basic action they do, at a reduced cost in actions.

Are there modifiers to what would otherwise be random activation? I assume training levels, command experience, morale has some bearing?  No, oddly enough.  But now that you mention it, that could be a house rule.

Be interested to see how it plays with a whole platoon or a platoon + as it seems pretty granular.  There is a chance for a full platoon to go out on a Mission, but the likelihood is 1 or 2 squads (and support teams).  But I too am interested in seeing how a full latoon game goes...

For Lord Raglan, you're welcome.  We'll be using these to play out the campaign.  Whether we use them for other games remains to be seen.  I want to put a few games under out belts before we decide that.

[carlos marighela]

Many thanks for the response Jim, that clears things up a bit for me.

"Each figure gets one action per turn.  It can be either one of the Basic Actions or one of the Advanced Actions.  The US player decides which action when they activate the figure.  They are less orders than just what the figure in question is doing.  If you have enough actions, you can give multiple figures the same action, at a cost of one of that type of action per figure.   But, NCOs can order their men (within 10") to take the same basic action they do, at a reduced cost in actions."

Hmm, I need to think about that. So in theory, given I had succesfully rolled the dice, I could perform actual fire and movement by at very least having say the gun group all perform a Basic Action, like suppresive fire, while I used the Advanced Actions to 'Run and gun', ie assault with the rest of the section? Or would I just get the rest of the section to ape the actions of the section commander? I suppose I'm getting caught up on what concepts like 'cautious moves' actually mean and the time and space compression.

I suppose my yardstick is 'Can I do something vaguely like real life, even if abstracted, without too many gamey mechanisms?' Need more info to decide on that one. I'll be paying attention to your campaign to see if these rules work for me.

As for the scale of it, well I guess it's designed around the US experience so it's less likely to work for my interests in the Australian side of things. Sections and less would rarely do much more than a short clearing patrol, maybe a short recce patrol but were rarely tasked with fighting patrols outside being part of a larger area type ambush (an ambush is classed as a fighting patrol in local terms). The two section fighting patrol was an occasional thing, doctrine provided for it but most operations involved company strength and so I'm primarily looking for rules that deal well with at least a platoon at the point of the spear. It's the only point where you are going to get any fire support, in the first place.

I'll try and keep an open mind as to whether these can match doctrine and practice, while producing a fun game.

Thanks again for the detailed commentary it's well appreciated.

[CapnJim]

Your example of one team (say, the squad leader and fire team A) laying down Suppressive Fire would cost 2 Basic Actions of Suppressive Fire (one for the squad leader, and another one total for the rest of the men firing within 10" of the squad leader).  Then, fire team B would Run and Gun for a cost of 4 Advanced Actions (one of each guy).  So, if you have enough of each type of action, you could indeed do that.  In fact, David (with Sgt. DeYoung's team, did some of that within his own team.

Time and scale are a bit fluffed.  With the variable length of each turn, and the possibility that you might not be able to have all your guys take an action in a turn, that's how they introduce friction into things.

Cautious moves are supposed to represent men moving slower and in a more tactical manner.  Sprinting is, well, sprinting.

We're all gonna find out together whether my continued impressions are as favorable as my initial impression.  Only time will tell.

And you're welcome!

[Lord Raglan]

I appreciate the book says the rules will handle platoon plus sized engagements Jim, but I think it would be painfully slow at this level, so I'm interest to see what you think when you play larger games mate.

[mikedemana]

Thanks for the review, Jim. I really like the campaign aspect of the rules. The battle rules seem a bit fiddly, as you say. I think it is meant to represent that your guys don't necessarily do what you'd like them to be doing. Some may just be keeping their heads down.

I'm always reminded of something I'd read somewhere long ago which pointed out the incredibly small percentage of men in a unit actually doing the "killing," so to speak. Others were often just keeping their head down or firing blindly.

Mike Demana

[CapnJim]

I appreciate the book says the rules will handle platoon plus sized engagements Jim, but I think it would be painfully slow at this level, so I'm interest to see what you think when you play larger games mate.

So am I, my good man.  So am I.

Thanks for the review, Jim. I really like the campaign aspect of the rules. The battle rules seem a bit fiddly, as you say. I think it is meant to represent that your guys don't necessarily do what you'd like them to be doing. Some may just be keeping their heads down.

I'm always reminded of something I'd read somewhere long ago which pointed out the incredibly small percentage of men in a unit actually doing the "killing," so to speak. Others were often just keeping their head down or firing blindly.

Mike Demana

Yes, I don't recall the exact number, but based on what I've read and heard, it took a huge amount of expended ammunition to actually cause a casualty.

[BeneathALeadMountain]

@Mikedemana - maybe you’re thinking of the (in)famous “ratio of fire” data in Men against fire by SLA Marshall? He stated that WW2 (& Vietnam?) as few as 15-20% (no more than one fifth) of combat soldiers fired their weapon (with intent). I think other numbers of 40-55% for the Korean War and 90-95% for Vietnam have been bandied around (attributed to Dave Grossman in his book On Killing) and that some believe there was some issue with Marshall and how he collected and collated data (even if he didn’t research correctly, for WW2, I don’t think he was probably far off the truth). Because of this study the Americans after WW2 changed their approach to training (shoot at cut outs of people) to try and rectify this but came up heavily against the fact that weirdly most people don’t want to or enjoy killing others 

Specifically for Vietnam (if you’re really into numbers) there’s Bang on target?
Infantry marksmanship and combat effectiveness in Vietnam, by Dr Bob Hall and Dr Andrew Ross that has some interesting information.

Andrew
BeneathALeadMountain

[carlos marighela]

Without rehashing the whole SLA Marshall and Grossman thing, there is general acceptance that machine gun teams tend to produce the most effective fire, in part because as they are working as a team and having someone close at hand inhibits the desire to posture. Observations on this go back to the Great War. That's leaving aside the sustained rate of fire and the potential range advantages conferred by a GPMG. The training rubric we got (and delivered) was that the gun represented 90% of the section's fire power (despite the maths not working out against theoretical rates of fire). To a large degree contact drill and section tactics relate to bringing the gun into the most effective position to suppress or kill the enemy.

Getting folk to fire is less the issue here. It's fair to say that ammo expended vs hits acheived was pretty poor return on the taxpayer's dollar. Not unexpected in fleeting contacts, often in close country.  Accurate, effective, snap shooting takes quite a bit of experience to perfect. From conversations with folk who have done it, it's even trickier when the other side is shooting back at you. Of course it all pales into insignificance against the cost and weight of fire delivered by artillery and ordnance dropped by aircraft into empty bits of jungle.

One could make sweeping generalisations about the observable differences in fire discipline among the various Free World forces or their Communist counterparts but apart from being contentious it probably serves little real purpose vis a vis gaming. A general observation, albeit one with inevitable, particular exceptions is that the general marksmanship standards of the PAVN and PLAN were not very high and so, I supect the rate of return for their taxpayers was a lot less in terms of small arms fire than their opponents.

Free World forces would, wherever possible, try to maximise their advantages in supporting fire, be that artillery or air support. Even 1 ATF, which didn't enjoy quite the largesse of its US bretheren, would use supporting fire to maximise its advantage and reduce casualty rates, particularly the latter, as in no way could the Australian army afford the casualty rates the US often sustained, either in terms of replacement or political capital. At times this extended to ceding the tactical advantage to wait for air support. There are some fairly well known examples of this, operations against the cave complexes in the Long Hai hills in 1966 being but one.

Of course the enemy would attempt to counter this by engaging at the closest possible range to deny the effective use of artillery or CAS. There's also the well known enemy practice of  battlefield recovery of casualties and equipment, meaning that actual casualties can be hard to determine. It's a complex subject over all.

Overall, with rare exceptions it shouldn't be a high casualty affair except in rare circumstances, and supporting fires will, inevitably account for the preponderance of casualties caused in larger engagements, at least by Free World forces. It seems on the basis of Jim's example to date that the rules have got that bit right. Frustrating for gamers wanting Hollywood style gore fests but arguably truer to the actual thing.

[Hoagie]

Thanks for writing the AAR and review, great read! In the process of painting up my first Vietnam project thanks to these rules, still some time away until I have enough figures and terrain finished for even a 1 squad game... Looking forward to the next aar!

[CapnJim]

Thanks, everyone.  A very interesting discussion.  As we play more games with these rules (and we use the Fire Support Request rules, which we will in Game 2), I'm sure we'll have more observations.

Speaking of Game 2, it's tentatively set for 21 February.  i should be able to post pics of a few more VC this coming week...

[Vagabond]

That was most interesting,  both the game report,  the rules synopsis and the discussion on these. 
It'll be interesting to keep up with this.
Cheers

[CapnJim]

Very good then.

I'm getting stuff ready for February's Nam '68 Tour of Duty game #2.  I needed a few local VC, so I painted some up (all 28mm, as usual for me).  Here they are.

The guy on the left is a plastic Rubicon VC figure.  Well most of him is.  His arms and scoped M1903 are from a Warlord US Rangers box.  The other three are Empress Miniatures metal figures.




I'll post the scenario information for February's Nam '68 Tour of Duty game in a couple weeks.  Until them, I'll be working on WW2 stuff, and we return to Balczakistan in next Friday's game (7 Feb).  It seems we have quite a few irons in our wargaming fire...

[carlos marighela]

Very nice. Looking forward to the next game.

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