Wargaming Vietnam
by
Chris
For some reason the 'traditional' wargames approach to the Vietnamese conflict has generally been in the form of skirmish games at the level of squad or platoon with one figure representing one person. I have to admit that I have never been really happy with these sort of games. At the squad level most engagements seem to come down to the same sort of aimless patrols. Also I think that most civilian gamers underestimate just how complex the modern infantry soldier's job is, which makes it very difficult to run believable games. It is worth noting that we have consistently found the best skirmish games to be those that involve armed civilians (gunfighters, pirates or whatever) rather than trained soldiers. As a result, although I had been interested in the period for nearly 20 years and had collected some of the excellent Peter Pig figures, until recently I hadn't done much about gaming it.
The advent of Forgotten Heroes (yet another incarnation of Piquet) changed this completely. Not only was it a rules system I knew and liked, but the game was aimed at company-level operations.
Having made the decision to jump in, the next choice was which forces I needed. Anyone who knows me won't be surprised that this was easy: the Free World force obviously had to be US Marines. After consulting the rules and various other references I came up with a reinforced rifle company which comprises:
As each squad, vehicle or heavy weapon is a unit, this gives a reasonably sized force of 21 units which is historically plausible and allows for some flexibility. Fancy stuff like sniper teams, recon patrols and battalion support weapons can be added to this core later.
For the opposition, I decided on a company of NVA regulars with a little VC support:
Once again this gives 20 units of a reasonable mix to which sappers or heavier weapons can be added later.
Whilst I was very happy with the rules, I was less so with the basing conventions. For reasons of both cost and aesthetics I decided to use 2 bases per squad instead of the 4 given in the rules. I did however keep the Piquet convention of the number of figures being equal to number of 'hits'. This approach requires a little work on representing the various formations used by the rules, but works in practice and looks good.
I also needed a way of showing the amount of damage to a unit, as I no longer had enough stands to physically remove them. Forgotten Heroes distinguishes between suppressed and destroyed 'stands' as combat results. For destroyed I used casualty figures, whilst suppressions were represented by Peter Pig 'pinned markers' (Range 8, pack 293). These represent earth spurting up under the impact of bullets in the finest Hollywood manner. I painted the base edges of both types of marker in the old reliable 'traffic light' code of increasing severity (green for 1 'stand', yellow for 2, red for 3). Finally small pieces of aquarium gravel can be placed next to a unit that has fired and requires a Target Acquisition card. The picture below shows a squad with 1 'stand' destroyed, 2 suppressed and weapons unloaded; not a pleasant situation.
As I said earlier, most of my collection comes from Peter Pig. I also have some vehicles from Quality Castings, which are now easily available in UK, and some of the excellent buildings produced by Timecast. In addition to the PP figures, my USMC also include some of the excellent WW2 Marines by Old Glory; a lot of older equipment was still used by the Marines in Vietnam and WW2 figures mix in very nicely as long as the weapons are not too obvious. I have recently discovered that Old Glory now does a Vietnam range, although as yet I have not added any to the collection.
For more information on Vietnam I must recommend the excellent Grunt website. I would also suggest the following books (all of them, unsurprisingly, from a Marine perspective);
