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.

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.

Oof, I cracked the door and we're way OT. Short answer: no, I hadn't. I'll respond over at the DBP thread.

Ah, yes, that I agree with wholeheartedly. But the premise of having the FSA having more "armour" on hand in a tactical engagement than a defected BMP or two seems to me implausible -- as you likely know, there's a lot of complex logistics involved in keeping a mechanized formation in the field. Were a large chunk of the Syrian army command to defect, "liberating" a large segment of the country a la Libya, well that's something else entirely. But I'm not personally inclined to model what-ifs like that right now. The specific topic of interest to me was: why the hell did it take the Syrian Army so long to "retake" Baba Amr with all those tanks, against an enemy armed with only a few RPGs. And by the way, there's still plenty of rebel activity in Homs, 8 months later. Most of the city is still not under government control, although the FSA hasn't formally declared itself in control either for fear of inviting another savage artillery bombardment. SB, you know what, I'm gonna take a raincheck on Baba Amr until you get back. Want to do a touch more modding for Dienbienphu, which is sucking me in deeper the more I read. Fascinating battle, for both sides!

No, no, the ritual Invocation must begin with you asserting some Fact lifted from the Bargain Books section of B&N that *seems* plausible on its face. Bonus points for citing known Nazi apologists. To which, Ozymamdias-like, JC will then boom using the time-honoured Response: "Hopelessly wrong on all counts." And then proceed to Educate you. (Don't get me wrong, I just sit slack-jawed like the rest of us)

Thanks for the interest. There's this little game called CMSF and it has, oh, 3 modules with HUNDREDS of scenarios, mainly set in all kinds of open terrain. So that market seems fairly saturated.... RED v RED campaigns included. Problem is, in my experience BLUE annihilates RED 73 Easting-style with long range weapons approximately 100% of the time, barring some kind of designer-engineered and highly implausible (and where was that airpower again?) "RED hordes" advantage and/or an unavoidable Turn 1 ambush. Which is all basically what should happen (realistic) barring a total command SNAFU. Which is why the modus operandi for RED forces since 2002 (and earlier) is not to even bother engaging BLUE in open terrain (nighttime hit and run raids on isolated outposts possibly excepted), but to withdraw into populated areas and hide amid the civilians, trusting in stone walls and ROE to, if not deter attack altogether, neutralize the ranged weapons advantage. And that's what I'm interested in -- standing in the boots of real world combat commanders facing (somewhat) realistic tactical situations and combat environments. Otherwise, there's plenty of much prettier games out there to choose from. EDIT: SBurke, I will try to send you a turn tonight. Job search took first priority this week, although I also plowed through Jules Roy's Dienbienphu book.

LOL! An immortal quote from fellow Nova Scotian, Donald "Oddball" Sutherland, baby! Don't mix up those paint rounds though.

Just read this thread for the first time (never got into Wittmania myself). Great project. You still set the standard for historical scenarios. So if I read you right, you need to *force* the Tigers to hold fire in order to achieve the historical result? Or else, what? left to their own devices, they promptly spot and wipe out their ambushers? Or do results vary more widely? Just curious.

Mr. E.W. Lambert of Homeleigh, The Burrows, Oswestly, has presented us with a poser. We do not know which Shed he is behind, but we can soon find out... ....it was the Middle one.

Yeah, come on. A chessboard is "balanced." Every other map is going to be "unbalanced" to some degree unless, say, you simply made each player's "half" a mirror image of the other's. If that's what you want -- a gladiatorial arena for a glorified game of digital team paintball -- go abead and build your own. Or just play World of Tanks and have done. Me, I am at the very opposite end of the spectrum; I like nothing better than to play games with mismatched forces but the stronger force having to struggle through god-awful terrain and the weaker force having to make best possible use of thatterrain.Like, oh, nearly all real WWII battlefields.

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.

I suspect Kuderian is doing a little paraphrasing here. I remember I once had a polite argument with some leftists in a dormitory lounge long ago over the "Nuclear Freeze" stuff, and the fifth hand account that got back to me weeks later was that I began screaming "We must have More Bombs! More Bombs!" with spittle flowing from my mouth. Ideologues of all stripes hear only what they want to hear.

In a Makin playtest, I had a "Panicked" US squad (7 surviving) actually conduct a Banzai charge on one of the 3 surrounding Japanese positions that had it under fire. They entered the entrenchment at a run, under continuous fire, and actually killed two defenders. At that point the two surviving GIs surrendered.

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.

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.

OK, in one week my Tiny bocage recon scenario has gotten more downloads than Makin has in a month. Makin downloads seem to average 5-6 a week; no idea how long that'll last. Not fretting about this; I'm genuinely curious to what extent that's a reflection of strong demand for single-sitting "grab 'n go" scenarios. Or whether it's really limited community interest in gaming PTO.... Makin is distinctly lagging (40-50%)other large CW scens released about the same time. Or maybe a lot of people know how to use the Repo but are daunted by or can't be bothered with the whole modding "Z" file thing.

Regrettably, the effects of model swapping are solely visual; the game continues to "see" unarmoured troops even if they appear to be wearing flak vests. It wouldn't matter so much if it wasn't so impactful on survival. If you don't give them armour the NATO infantry will chew them and spit them out in any remotely even fight. Which doesn't at all reflect likely modern reality. Nor does that unsplittable squad nonsense, frankly. If I was a Russian player I'd feel pretty ticked off. Use the modded SF squads and model swap in the mech guys so you don't have to redo your mods -- you won't regret it. Oh, and one of the stock Syrian faces -- mustached -- looks pretty Russian. The Rooskies like their 'staches.

Who will bell the cat? I myself volunteer for the important role of sitting back and ridiculing the methodology of whoever does volunteer . As do many others here, I'll warrant. "Of all life's little pleasures I enjoy nitpicking the most!" -- Scott Adams

It doesn't matter. John feels a Deep Need to be in possession of Mind Blowing Secret "Blue Pill*" Knowledge That Proves Everything You Ever Thought You Knew Is Maskirovka, and then to shout it from the rooftops. He and Suvorov were born for each other. But unlike Aleisteir Crowley, the Baghwan or L Ron Hubbard, I assume it doesn't get him laid. And if it does, I'd prefer not to know anything. Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter! * or was it red pill? i forget.

Again, keep in mind that in game terms only Syrian SF actually have body armour (don't know about Syrian Airborne) This makes a HUGE difference in the survivability of infantry in game. In Baba Amr, SBurke's regime infantry are able to run through fusillades that annihilate my (unarmoured) uncons.

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.

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

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....

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.

I suspect he meant this way cool early German uberpanzer was used here about as intensively as anyplace short of the north pincer of Zitadelle. Face it, a lot of CMers, of all ages and grognard levels like to play around with the cool ubertanks now and then..... Nothing wrong with that.