Việt Nam Ðộc L�*p Ðồng Minh Hội Struggle for Liberty!

Palle · #1 December 21st, 2011, 05:00 AM

AKA Viet Minh and represented in the game by North Vietnam (which is fair enough as that is what they became).

Some observations on playing the first battle in a campaign as French Para commander, with a reinforced French Para Batallion. The reinforcements being two platoons of Commandos, some snipers and a battery of 155 mm off map arty.

-The Viet Minh are incredibly tough. They fight to the last man in most circumstances and you have to kill their squads to the last man. Even squads with a mere 1-3 men in them will rally and fight on. Their morale is thus higher than both the Waffen SS, the Foreign Legion and the Marines. This puzzles me somewhat, but they were tough little buggers. So it is sort of OK.

-Human wave attacks are hard for the lightly armed French Paratroops to defeat. With no arty to speak off and no heavy weapons, the battles get hard. Again this is historical. I had my snipers, bazooka teams (what are they doing in Indochina BTW? I see no reference to them in use there in any source I know, but they are useful) and scouts run out of ammo and my infantry going very low.

-Jungle hides Viet Minh well... Mon Dieu they hide well. Which again is historical.

In conclusion:
The Viet Minh seem portrayed very well (if somewhat superhuman- we shall see when I add some support weapons), bring lots of heavy weapons. Historical setup for Paras will be challenging, but MGs and Mortars can be paradropped with them as well.

The next game, for which I am currently setting up, is an advance, with no Transports available and through lots of water, swamp and rice-paddy hexes, so no paradropping here; instead I will similate one of the Groupement Mobile supporting the Paras advancing.

Suhiir · #2 December 21st, 2011, 02:15 PM

Which specific scenario were you playing?
In some scenarios the designer has increased the experience and morale of the attacking forces to, as you put it "superhuman" levels, so they will will fight on to the last man.

gila · #3 December 21st, 2011, 06:31 PM

It appears he's playing a generated campaign.

Just like the JIA in WW2, N.Vietnam and Vietcong are well suited for jungle warfare,even generated battles,maybe better.

Palle · #4 December 21st, 2011, 06:31 PM

I was probably unclear, I am playing a generated campaign from 1950 to 1954.

The second game I had to restart at the end of the first :-( I had never used the "Crabe" before so miscalced their number. So I am now instead attacking some mountain fastness, probably in Viet Bac.

Digging in and using barbed wire, mines, etc., would help my problem. But Le Paras did not carry such things with them in the Transports. I wonder how to simulate the counterattacks at Dien Bien Phu where 100 wounded and battered men from the remnants of several para batallions routed a Viet Minh regiment and 40 a batallion in those last desperate struggles over Elaine 1...

DRG · #5 December 21st, 2011, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Palle

-The Viet Minh are incredibly tough. They fight to the last man in most circumstances and you have to kill their squads to the last man. Even squads with a mere 1-3 men in them will rally and fight on. Their morale is thus higher than both the Waffen SS, the Foreign Legion and the Marines. This puzzles me somewhat, but they were tough little buggers. So it is sort of OK.

For the record, the NVA Unit Experience and Unit Morale for that time period is rated at 75. Given they had been fighting the Japanese then the French this is fair. French Exp / Mor for that time period is 65 /70 which, under the circumstances is quite fair.

"Average" Legionaires for that time period ( which co-incidentally also included former Waffen SS troops ) is +15/15 which puts then significantly higher than the NVA/Viet Minh ( maybe too high....) so when you added 70+15 you get 85 and allowing for the random factors that's still above the NVA/Viet Minh 's 75 so please explain how you arrived at the conclusion that "their morale is thus higher than both the Waffen SS, the Foreign Legion and the Marines" ..........

......when the best basic Waffen SS Morale possible would be 86 ( it could go a bit higher with when the randoms are factored in).In 1943 German Morale is rated 75 and the SS get an 11 boost=86 ) and the Foreign Legion in 1950 would rate an 70+15=85 Morale and the best the standard NVA/Viet Minh could musted is 75.

???

A Bo Doi formation would get +10 but that just puts them equal with the Legion but those are elite troops. The regulars in that time period get +5 which puts them less than the Legion but equal to French Paras for that time period so both sides should be equally "tough"

Don

Palle · #6 December 22nd, 2011, 05:28 AM

On paper that is quite true Don and I am aware of the numbers, and I even understand and agree with the reasoning behind them.

But my statement was based on the observation that every single Regional Squad in the first game would rally and fight to the last even if routed for a round. I know that none of them ran away (as has Marines, Legionnaires and SS in other games), for I paradropped a Company behind them.

Maybe it is because I had only infantry facing them? They are slightly easier to face with a few tanks, mortars and m16s added.

I do believe though that the French Paras should have slightly higher Morale, in the decade spanning late Indochina and early Algeria, the French Paras were acclaimed as the elite of all the western world who time and again displayed a morale, endurance and courage very unlike the current depiction of the French.

And Don, I was not criticising or attacking you and the other designers. I was merely relating my experience from my first game of a campaign. Which is; the NV & VC does not run away ever.

Palle · #7 December 22nd, 2011, 10:03 AM

Second game done and the trend continues. Though some Tanks, M16s and Cambions, and Medium and heavy Mortars helped.

VC Populaire's molotovs really hurt.

Palle · #8 December 22nd, 2011, 09:15 PM

Third game done, a defence against NV Assault in dense jungle.

I dunno if they got slowed by arty in the jungle, for I could only see them when they got within 4 hexes of my front screen of snipers and Target hexes. As it was it was an easy Decisive for only the first wave of the likely Human Wave assault ever got within 4 of my main line of defence consisting of dug in strongpoints of company size able to a small extent (jungle blocks LoS) to support each other and with kill zones in between.

Few of the units in the Main Defence ever got to fire a shot, for the snipers (until pulling back) and arty kept the VM at bay and the endless waves of infantry never materialised, only an estimated one. And the reserve company of Chaffees never even deployed from their initial positions.

Probably slugging through the jungle slows even the VM... and my 155s taking out the two bridges across the stream as the snipers spotted the first units crossing probably slowed them further. It seems they still did not rout or retreat for more than one round before rallying, at least those in sight did not. What those who went out of sight did, I cannot say.

Lessons learned; none really as the battle never happened before the scenario ended. But it confirmed that arty/hv. mortars is a great help against an all-infantry force.

This was a somewhat Dien Bien Phu- like scenario, though I used no barbed wire and mines, and those few VM that reached the French line suffered the same fate as many of the Human Wave attacks against DBP did. Further Assaults will be interesting, to see whether they followm the trend.

Suhiir · #9 December 23rd, 2011, 02:51 AM

The rifled musket made human wave attacks very dangerous.

The cartridge made them very costly.

The bolt-action rifle made them nearly suicidal.

The machine gun drove the final nail into the coffin

*****
I think the game under rates the lethality of machineguns in the defense, but it would be very VERY difficult to balance it so they didn't become THE defense vs infantry.

Palle · #10 December 23rd, 2011, 04:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suhiir

The rifled musket made human wave attacks very dangerous.

The cartridge made them very costly.

The bolt-action rifle made them nearly suicidal.

The machine gun drove the final nail into the coffin

*****
I think the game under rates the lethality of machineguns in the defense, but it would be very VERY difficult to balance it so they didn't become THE defense vs infantry.

I very much agree; especially after years of use of the MG3, ye gods it can saw anything to pieces and our boys in Helmand still prefer it to the various modern and low-caliber SAWs they have been issued.

Next game is a Meeting Engagement, I might reload that, for there were few meeting engagements in French Indochina. Usually the French were trying to pin down the Viets and the latter either evaded or accepted combat if Giap considered the odds heavily in his favour. So must battles in my campaign should be either advances, assaults, delays or defends.