CMBN: Dien Bien Phu!

[LongLeftFlank]

On an operational scale, artillery fire is brutally effective. But not because individual shells cause multiple casualties as a rule, nor due to great responsiveness or precision of fire. Instead it takes industrial quantities of ammunition delivered over extended periods of time, to bleed its targets white.

I want to illustrate this with some facts about a later fight that is famous for having been largely decided by artillery, and by an unexpected artillery edge for the winning side. It still featured large scale and intense infantry fighting, which caused a significant portion of the casualties on both sides (more to the attackers than the defenders). The fight I am thinking of is the seige of Dien Bien Phu in the French Indochina war.

The attrition phase of that fighting lasted about 7 weeks, from mid March to early May 1954. In that period the French defenders (with their local allies) suffered 7200 casualties - some to infantry fighting certainly, but to get a high estimate of artillery effectiveness we can ascribe all of them to the beseigers' artillery. (The true portion may run as low as 5000 of them, but it was the leading cause of infantry losses for those defenders, as in the world wars).

What artillery was available over that period and how much did it fire? Answer, about 200 tubes, about 50 each of 120mm mortars, 105mm howitzers, 82mm mortars, and 75mm pack howitzers. Before the battle began the Viet Minh had at least 44,000 rounds for those weapons on hand, and more arrived over its course. The best estimates available (necessarily rough) put the 105mm expenditure alone at 30,000 rounds, and all other calibers at somewhat more than 100,000. Call it 130,000 rounds total, of field artillery calibers.

This means it took on average about 20-25 rounds fired to cause each defender casualty. (It would be 18 if all were caused by artillery fire). The average rate of fire was only 12 rounds per tube per day. Supply of shells was the overall regulator, and to adapt to its limitations fire was concentrated into the time windows immediately before infantry attacks, during them, and when movement could be seen by the defenders - with a portion of the shells delivered at all other times, to be sure.

This was a well located target, half a mile on a side at the start of the fight and shrinking during its course - unable to move, and under continuous observation from higher ground from every point on the compass. The defenders were dug in, but lacked full overhead cover for most of the fighting positions (more on that if anyone is interested). The rate of loss achieved against that dug-in target - 20-25 shells per man down - was still sufficient to bleed a defending force of over division strength into combat ineffectiveness in the space of 2 months.

I repeat that this counts as a highly successful use of artillery on the operational scale. It does not require and does not typically achieve significantly higher ratios of losses inflicted to shells fire, than this.

Notice, 200 tubes firing thousands of shells at a target of that size did not simply wipe out the defenders in CM paced, tactical time scales. Instead it took shell expenditures in the 5 figures over nearly 2 months, to kill or wound about half the total garrison (counting arriving reinforcements).

I will pause for comment at this point...

JasonC posted this in the CMFI artillery thread and it got me thinking, so I brought it over here to kick around some more. Just wool-gathering at this point, but doing PTO Makin persuaded me that a great deal is possible with this game.

I was thinking that it would not be impossible to build a reasonable simulacrum of the airstrip perimeter and bastions using tools available in CMBN. We don't have M24 tanks (yet), sure, or napalm, but the other tools are pretty much all there. British airborne make reasonable Viet Minh regulars -- mod faces and helmets, Stens to PPSh41, etc.

In addition to being an interesting series of scenarios, perhaps we'd be able to test Jason's model above and see how quickly the historically available VM artillery would cut the French defenders to ribbons. Then calibrate how much it needs to be nerfed to obtain results more in line with reality.

Right, now off to the library to reread Bernard Fall's book: the Wikipedia entry seemed pretty decent but need to confirm.

A certain amount of OCD is also necessary in science.

[Pete Wenman]

This might help

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/indochina_and_thailand/txu-oclc-6535632-nf48-9.jpg

P

[LongLeftFlank]

Merci bien! Of course I've spent enough time in the monsoon belt of Southeast Asia to know that those contour lines are just a start, pinning out the elevations. That entire valley will be intensely cut by rivulets and gullies, filled with brush and trees except where fields of fire have been cleared.

[JasonC]

Fall is the best source on it and an excellent history.

The biggest issues I can see are scale - it is too big to do literally - and engineering changes.

Understand, the Viet Minh dug approach trenches and parallels at night until they ringed each of the strongpoints, pushing them in some cases down to 80 yards away, by the end. (300 yards earlier in the fight). They attacked "over the top" after a barrage only from that far away, and continually sniped at anything exposed from these approach trenches. The French counterattacked vigorously, sometimes to wreck one of these sets of works, sometimes to clear out Viet Minh AA pushed in too close, and frequently to retake lost portions of their own works.

As a series of scenarios you could try it. But you can't change the landscape with field works within the confines of a CM scenario, to anything like the extent it happened here. It is an "Art of Seige" scenario (old SPI monster game if that isn't clear).

[LongLeftFlank]

One initial thought: most of the effects of the prolonged bombardment on the defenders' bayonet strength (noncombatants aren't generally represented in CM of course) won't be gamed out. It will instead be predetermined -- reflected in the condition of the troops at the start of the scenario(s):

- Reduced squad headcounts

- Weakened/Unfit state

- Lowered morale (or later, desperate fanaticism)

- Disrupted C3

- Damaged fortifications

Some of these factors also afflicted the VM forces over the course of the battle, for different reasons.

One might argue that if this battle was largely an artillery slugfest, it is inappropriate to the CM scale since you have VM assaulting positions that have already been attrited by artillery pregame. Still potentially an interesting fight of course, since even the doomed defenders fought like tigers, but predetermined.

Perhaps the right course of action would be to compare this effort with the prior battle of Na San, where the VM didn't bring in enough artillery and the French airhead was able to beat them off with heavy losses.

[LongLeftFlank]

Fall is the best source on it and an excellent history.

The biggest issues I can see are scale - it is too big to do literally - and engineering changes.

Understand, the Viet Minh dug approach trenches and parallels at night until they ringed each of the strongpoints, pushing them in some cases down to 80 yards away, by the end. (300 yards earlier in the fight). They attacked "over the top" after a barrage only from that far away, and continually sniped at anything exposed from these approach trenches. The French counterattacked vigorously, sometimes to wreck one of these sets of works, sometimes to clear out Viet Minh AA pushed in too close, and frequently to retake lost portions of their own works.

As a series of scenarios you could try it. But you can't change the landscape with field works within the confines of a CM scenario, to anything like the extent it happened here. It is an "Art of Siege" scenario (old SPI monster game if that isn't clear).

WRT scale, I wouldn't bother with the outlying positions (Isabelle, Gabrielle, etc.), just focus on the airstrip perimeter. CMBN can handle map sizes up to about 2x2 km in practice which would be the "master map" -- each scenario would then be played out on a series of carve-out submaps.

WRT sapping, the "digging" phase wouldn't be represented at CM scale of course. Not a very interesting game. What the scenario designer (not necessarily me -- maps are my sweet spot IMHO!) would do is modify the submap to add the trench lines for the appropriate scenario. Plus whatever fortifications have changed (built, destroyed) in the meantime.

If what you're thinking of is for the VM player to stand in the shoes of General Giap, or a division commander and determine the sequence of the entire battle -- which positions to assault next and where the mineworks go, well, that's probably well beyond the pale for CM. For a campaign, the scenario "tree" just gets too complex.

Broadsword56 has been trying something very interesting in that vein, playing out a VASSAL version of Balkoski's ST LO boardgame and then gaming out selected "fair fights" (i.e. could go either way) for key hexes using CMBN maps. His objective is less to "win the tournament" than to play out and understand at a granular level the foxhole level dynamics that drove the larger outcomes. "For want of a nail", all that.

But I certainly don't have the free time to do that.... not even sure I have time to do this!

[Erwin]

If you can do Dien Bien Phu, it would be a short step to Korea and Vietnam. Not particularly my cup of tea, but after seeing your amazing work on Makin...

[LongLeftFlank]

Oh I'm just at the talking stage here. At some point I will be gainfully reemployed, at which time projects like this will go on the shelf and my forum post count will fall off, probably to the relief of some folks here. My focus to date has been on finishing the stuff I've already started but this idea intrigued me.

I am also hoping some French grognard will float in here and run with the ball -- I can happily do the map but I have a lot less enthusiasm for the historical research that's needed to do a truly faithful historical scenario series. Ramadi and Makin were a LOT of freekin' work although I'm really glad I did them.

[mjkerner]

If you do one, LLF, you should do all of the strongpoints. Just sayin'...

Also, and I suppose you already know this, but Fall's Street Without Joy provides all kinds of fodder for Mobile Group massacres, er...engagements.

But I think Martin Windrow's book The Last Valley is at least as good as Hell in a Very Small Place.

I would love to see CM eventually do Korea and the French and US Vietnam Wars.

[LongLeftFlank]

Here are some examples of traditional wargames where, in contrast to CM, the scale is too *high* to provide any meaningful insights into what went down at DBP, other than "he had more guys (counters and combat factors) than you, and eventually you lost". True, at bottom, but not insightful to my mind.

[LongLeftFlank]

On the modding front, not that much new needed. About 5 of CoonDog's Japanese faces could also pass for Vietnamese kids. The British clamshell helmet with a large mesh works pretty well.

Need someone to turn the StG44 into a PPSh41 with box clip.... cut the barrel length and add that barrel protector? (this is a visual only -- in game terms it will still behave like a Sten). The Chinese Bren/Nambu is good enuff even with the curved magazine.

The IJA tan tunics will work (the Chinese-equipped 308th and dac cong shown here) -- maybe do a ragtag mix with some black pajamas for the less elite assault formations that Giap scraped together later in the battle from supply cadres. The other challenge will be to get those chest ammo pouches to show up....

[LongLeftFlank]

Whose freekin' anthill mod are we using? Seriously, this thing looks more like Starship Troopers!

[Michael Emrys]

Back almost 40 years ago GDW brought out a boardgame called—wait for it—Dien Bien Phu. I never got or played it, and can't recall what the scale of it was or whether it was any good from a historical point of view...although GDW games were normally exceedingly well researched. But there must be a fairly detailed review of it floating around on the web somewhere.

Michael

[mjkerner]

Multi-Man Publishing's ATS (Advanced Tobruk System) which is essentially "ASL-lite" has an excellent module for DBP, and with a lot of good background information and maps. Of course, I sold off all my ASL and ATS stuff (I had almost every game and module for both systems) right after CMBN came out, 'cause there was no way I was going to push counters around after that.

[JasonC]

"CMBN can handle map sizes..."

Not the issue. The garrison was *10,000 men* at the start of the fight. 4000 more parachuted in over the course of the battle. 7000 were killed or wounded before the final fall of the position.

And the Viet Minh forces outside were even larger. They took something like 20000 casualties over the course of the whole seige.

There is simply no way you can play that out in a human lifetime with 4-6 man counters and 1 to 1 representation for losses and giving orders to every team every minute. It is just impossible.

[JasonC]

"this thing looks more like Starship Troopers!"

Since Heinlein based Starship Troopers on USMC vs Japanese fighting in the Pacific in WW II, that isn't entirely surprising...

[JonS]

Mobile Group massacres

G.M. 100 being a personal, er, favourite.

[LongLeftFlank]

"CMBN can handle map sizes..."

Not the issue. The garrison was *10,000 men* at the start of the fight. 4000 more parachuted in over the course of the battle. 7000 were killed or wounded before the final fall of the position.

And the Viet Minh forces outside were even larger. They took something like 20000 casualties over the course of the whole seige.

There is simply no way you can play that out in a human lifetime with 4-6 man counters and 1 to 1 representation for losses and giving orders to every team every minute. It is just impossible.

Agreed, but I think you misunderstand me. If one wanted to (I don't, personally), one could play one of the Dien Bien Phu hex wargames folks have alluded to above, much like Broadsword56 did with the Balkoski ST LO game. Then use that to figure out which specific actions you want to play through at CM scale. You'll indeed be playing for the rest of your days if you try to play through each and every action.

The idea is that you create a single master CMBN map containing the basic topography and the outline of the various terrain features (sketched in clover or red dirt or whatever). Its only use is as a base template for smaller carve-out submaps. As you decide which of the most important, interesting or closely matched individual battalion level actions (60-150 minutes) you're interested in playing through, you flesh out the detailed terrain and fortifications on that submap and then build and play your CMBN scenario. Unfortunately, you're going to know the enemy's forces and plans unless you do it on a QB basis against a trusted opponent (with ground rules).

That's what Broadsword56 does in Normandy using the ST LO boardgame; SBurke is his general opponent of choice, although I considered participating too until I got too swamped in other projects. Me, I'm not that ambitious; I don't even want to do a formal Campaign. I've now built two huge master maps -- downtown Ramadi (Iraq) and the Le Meauffe-Le Carillon area, with one submap scenario for each published to date. My intent is to do a series of closely researched historical scenarios that are effectively vignettes, illustrating how tactics evolved for both sides over time. That's why I'm not just cranking out glorified QBs. But I keep getting distracted by new things like Makin Atoll and now, DBP. Ah whatever, it's the journey not the destination.

Understand, there's no way of automating this process at present. BFC is not going back down the CMC rabbit hole, at least not before true Co-Play materializes in some fashion. Even then it isn't likely IMHO.

[LongLeftFlank]

After some messing around, the British para tunics make the best base for Vietminh regulars; I also worked up alternative black pajamas and Ho Chi Minh sandals. As these are British troops, the StG44 is actualy a Sten, unmodded. It can be turned into a reasonable PPSh / Type 50 (box not drum mag) by rendering the front sight invisible.

[Erwin]

That's amazing work LLF. Especially the "Cobra/Spider-like" motif on the front of their helmets. Makes em look superhero evil.

[LongLeftFlank]

Thanks, although it's CoonDog who did most of the heavy lifting on his IJA mods, including the helmet cover. I tweaked some of the Japanese faces to make them look more Vietnamese and stole Syrian SF fabric to create the black panamas. I tried to add the enameled DRV star on the front of the helmet but gave up.... the sandaled feet need more work as well. Unfortunately, it seems you can only use one kind of footwear at a time for each unit -- I'd have preferred to mix boots and sandals.

Modding isn't really my sweet spot though; all I want is a force that looks reasonably fit for use if you don't look too close. I might tweak the webgear and pouches tolook a tad less British, but otherwise this seems good enuff for now.... I can't even begin to do voice mods so they'll have to speak Japanese... I'll remove all the Banzais so it ain't as glaring.

Next step: French and colonial forces. US forces are the base of course, but boonie hats are one distinct challenge. The MAT49 is another

In light of the discussions in the Makin thread and elsewhere, I may actually eschew the full-scale battalion assaults and counterassaults that dominated DBP, and stick to company scale probes playable in a single sitting. I don't want to spend another 6 months struggling with this powerful but often frustrating engine, building out a lavishly detailed and researched historical scenario that almost nobody ever plays, or even looks at.

Kind of a pity, that, since what started this whole idea was Jason's post (OP) on DBP being a perfect case study of a large battle being won on almost purely macro attrition terms: the remorseless erosive power of artillery over time. With no amount of tactical skill, fortification or élan in any specific action making a damn bit of difference to the larger outcome once the chessboard is set. Almost the exact converse of the "for want of a nail" paradigm we tactical gamers (and so many military devotees of the "decisive battle") are so fond of.

[Erwin]

You need to do what YOU enjoy LLF. If you're too concerned about the numbers who will play it, you may as well do first person shooters. The whole thing about CM is that it's a tiny genre within a tiny genre.

[LongLeftFlank]

Uses Canadian Airborne as a base mod, with some "ragtagging" of uniforms. Bare forearms are key and it doesn't actually look too bad. The Vietnamese auxiliary troops are placeholders -- they keep looking like they're wearing boiler suits.

[LongLeftFlank]

It is a really good read. I think the US involvement in Vietnam was a huge mistake, but for slightly different reasons than you may usually hear. Anytime you see the world in black and white (or red and blue as the case may be) you miss the subtleties. I think the United States let it's paranoia and French stupidity allow it to miss probably our biggest opportunity to have altered the whole course of history in the cold war. The Vietnamese saw the US as natural allies during the war against Japan and if we had actually backed them in the negotiations in the 1950's to end the war we'd likely have ended up with a staunch ally against China. China invaded Vietnam pretty darn quickly after we were gone and is in current conflict with them over natural resources and Pacific territory (along with every other neighbor they have). And guess who is now their best buddy....us. 50 years of opportunity flushed down the toilet. Yeah it is all hindsight and maybe it wouldn't have worked or couldn't have worked considering the mindset, but we picked far worse and less reliable allies.

http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-War-The-History-1946-1975/dp/0195067924/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351312307&sr=8-2&keywords=Philip+B.+Davidson

Weaving together the histories of three distinct conflicts, Phillip B. Davidson follows the entire course of the Vietnam War, from the initial French skirmishes in 1946 to the dramatic fall of Saigon nearly thirty years later. His connecting thread is North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap, a remarkable figure who, with no formal military training, fashioned a rag-tag militia into one of the world's largest and most formidable armies. By focusing on Giap's role throughout the war, and by making available for the first time a wealth of recently declassified North Vietnamese documents, Davidson offers unprecedented insight into Hanoi's military strategies, an insight surpassed only by his inside knowledge of American operations and planning.

Eminently qualified to write this history, Davidson--who served as chief intelligence officer under Generals Westmoreland and Abrams--tells firsthand the story of our tragic ordeal in Indochina and brings his unique understanding to bear on topics of continuing controversy, offering a chilling account, for example, of when and where the U.S. considered using nuclear weapons. The most comprehensive and authoritative history of the conflict to date, Vietnam at War sparkles with a rare immediacy, and brings to life in compelling fashion the war that tore America apart. We witness the chaos in Saigon when fireworks celebrating the Tet holiday are suddenly transformed into deadly rocket and machine-gun fire. We sit in on high-level meetings where General Westmoreland plans operations, or simply engages in some tough "headknocking" with subordinates. And in the end we learn that even the seemingly limitless resources of the U.S. military could not match the revolutionary "grand strategy" of the North Vietnamese.

With its easy movement from intimate memoir to trenchant military analysis, from the conference rooms of generals to the battle-scarred streets of Hue, this is military history at its most gripping. A monumental, engrossing, and unforgettable chronicle, Vietnam at War is indispensable for anyone hoping to understand a conflict that still rages in the American psyche.

Roy is a great writer, though a bit of a pinko in that French Catholic intellectual way. I am now plunging into Windrow and from a CMBN design perspective, his book is a dream... tremendous technical detail. I've actually had trouble getting hold of Fall's books.

I personally doubt the thesis that, to paraphrase Kubrick: "Inside every Commie is a Nationalist, waiting to get out!" In other words, while the Viets and the Chinese were almost certain to lock horns eventually, Ho and the rest of the Politburo weren't about to share power with bourgeois Catholics and any government of national unity would have been farcical and cosmetic. It would basically have been Cuba. Unlike India or Indonesia, there weren't sufficient sectarian divisions in Vietnam to forestall the emergence of a 100% Communist regime. Catholics, Caoidaists, et al were all essentially "foreign" (French) transplants with no real mass credibility. And the immediate adjacency of a militant and confident Red China sealed it.

America washing its hands, or even backing anti-colonial movements of all stripes, would not IMHO have allowed it to alter any of the above. And any goodwill or admiration from WWII didn't last long; hell, the Vietminh were taking Japanese artillerists into their ranks almost immediately! No, Capitalist America was the prime enemy: full stop. Ho would have fully accepted that Internationalist line, whatever sentimentality he may have felt for that enemy. He was an orthodox lifelong Communist.

[LongLeftFlank]

It is interesting though to speculate what would have happened had Vietnam been united in 1954 and then fallen under Communist rule. My guess is that America would still have been drawn into a major war, but it would have taken place instead in Laos and the dry plains of northeast Thailand. And there, as in Korea, you would have had a true Communist War of aggression with the monarchist-nationalist Thai and Laotian (ethnically Thai) armies and their CIA-backed hilltribe mercenaries fighting a lot more vigorously against despised Viet (and Chinese) "dog-eaters" than the ARVN did. Unlike Bao Dai, the Thai monarchy was an ancient (though corrupt) institution commanding wide veneration and one that even the Communists hesitated to criticize directly.

SEATO might have been able to keep its ground force commitment to a division or two plus air power. All speculation of course; but some dominos fall more easily than others.