RE: Vietnam and modern combat

I've been thinking about how to answer this one for a
couple days.  It ain't easy.  I'm sorry I brought it
up in the first place.

Beth:
> up at some point, but when the game notes given to
> the conventional side
> is "patrol to point A and back again" and then
> nothing happens
> immediately you'd be surprised how the mind can slip
> in to auto mode and
> the subsequent attack catch them wrong footed. For

Primarily because you're dealing with amateurs who do
have have the edge that adrenaline gives their RW
equivelants.  

First, let me make some distinctions:

Terrorist incidents:  Suicide bombings, single IEDs or
mines, attacks against unarmed civillians.  These are
not suitable for gaming purposes, but make up the
primary component of the fighting in Iraq, and were a
constant "background noise" in Vietnam.  I am not
making a moral judgement here, just using a convenient
label for the tactics.	Of course, if it's good Greeks
shooting up Turks, that's Heroic Freedom Fighters
(substitute those who appeal to your personal
prejudices for Greeks and Turks) but that's a label.

Conventional Forces operating with infiltration
tactics:  These are PAVN and NLF Main Force units
operating as batallion and larger elements using
terrain and ambush tactics to their advantage.	I do
not believe this is possible any longer, but it was
the major thrust of the Vietnam War.  Not really
guerillas, but convention light infantry living off
the countryside for the most part.  Suitable for
gaming and generally pretty easy to convert, although
you need good Fog of War rules and some restrictions
on the US's firepower or LOTS of minis.  Remember that
in Ia Drang 3 US batallions fought and defeated 3 PAVN
"Field Forces" which are large brigade-equivelants. 
At no time did the PAVN or NLF actually fight and win
a tactical victory.

Guerilla War:  Everything inbetween.  This is what I
mean is nearly impossible to game in a manner that is
both realistic and even remotely balanced.  However, I
find myself at a loss to explain exactally why without
going into specific TT&P from Iraq and a detailed
discussion of the ROE.	I cannot and will not do that
in public.  And anything on the Web is public.	Let's
just say that the average "ambush" the Iraqis attempt
to spring results in no casualties to the US and
numerous Iraqi casualties.

> a fight on his hands. He had superior fire power I
> had the numbers, in
> the end he lost, just. Despite the initial

Then he either had unrealistic limits on his
firepower, or the disparity was far less than it is in
Real Life (or any reasonable approximation thereof)
between professionals (or conscripts with professional
leadership) equipped by a first or second rate power
and guerillas.

> inactivity he thought it one
> of the best games he'd had, because it had tested
> him... he was also
> amazed at my patience as I'd let him walk through
> the ambush point twice
> before I acted.

I hope that's a pre-2000 scenario.  Thermal imaging
makes this sort of thing nearly impossible nowdays. 
And we are finally getting thermal imagers down at the
infantry platoon/squad level.  Let's also simply say
that aerial surveillance (manned and unmanned) dealing
with anything less than triple canopy jungle is going
to screw that plan.  Besides which, guerillas
generally don't have the discipline to do this.
 
> As an aside I think the best example of this kind of
> thing is an
> anecdote from Adrian who had some players who had
> their figs start a
> soccer match while they waited for an attack ;)

I have three words for the senior NCO and the
commander of that force:

RELIEF FOR CAUSE.

> Also don't be afraid of taking the context of the
> fight into account
> when setting up the quality of the different forces.
> When playing a
> black-hawk down-like scenario I'd actually give the
> locals fairly decent
> ratings just because of local knowledge rather than
> conventional
> training. 

Not really.  Somalis can't shoot for shit and have
very primitive tactics.  What you need is about a 50
or 100 to 1 figure ratio.  That's what it took in
Mogadishu.  Conventional training exists for a reason.
 It makes troops far better than the linearity of the
Stargrunt troop quality system represents.  Your
average Fedayeen is probably rolling a d2 for troop
quality at best.

> Lastly, if you do really think the conventional
> forces will just roll
> over the opposition then give the opposition lots of
> figs, define
> victory points based around objectives like
> "conventional force must
> take building x with minimum loss of life on either

On either side?  I can't legally or ethically get into
a detailed ROE discussion.  Sorry.

John

	
		
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