CM Vietnam

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by gautrek:

As we never see a Falklands war being asked for here.This is due to the relatively small number of Brits here.

Right, well I'd love to see a Falklands CM, and I think I've even asked for it on this very forum. But as usual its only because I'd been reading a few books on the subject: Adkins' Goose Green, No Picnic, Green Eyed Boys, and a couple more I forget the titles of.

I've also asked for Korea, Malayan Emergency, Aden, ... what the hell, I'd even like a CM of the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland if it were at the right scale which it's not.

I'm interested in the goddam Boer War fer chrissakes, which has got to rank lower on the all around popularity scale among grogs than Vietnam (they call it the Bore war). So... speaking of high horses, you've got one to get off yerself. :mad: :mad:

[edit to add: don't take those madface smileys too seriously]

[ December 21, 2003, 10:54 AM: Message edited by: CMplayer ]

[Michael Dorosh]

JasonC did a Ia Drang Valley scenario for CMBO IIRC....

[Le Tondu]

Oh yes, please do. Make sure it is completely realistic.

We'll have to have the "Frag" command where a squad can turn on it's own HQ or prisoners and civillians. More points if it is a higher HQ than just a platoon HQ.

Then (a real must) is the "mutiny" command. With this command, a HQ unit loses its ability to command anyone.

Next would have to be the "light up" or "get high" command where a squad takes drugs and is unable to fight for a set amount of time. Maybe this command will make a squad go into a frenzy and start shooting at everyone erratically.

Then the dropping of Napalm, B-52 carpet-bombing, and 16 inch naval guns from the New Jersey are more must haves.

Civillians can't be left out. It wouldn't be realistic if they did. After all, who are you gonna use all that Napalm on? Will prostitutes have their own .bmps? I can't wait to hear the sound mods that will come out.

Then again there is Agent Orange. I wonder how it will look as it is sprayed and settles to the ground. Modders will have a real treat making mods for dying vegetation.

Burning hooches? You bet. Big flames there.

Troops that go native. Those mods gotta have the ears on strings or it won't be realistic.

How they gonna do the "tunnel rats?"

Oh yes, "Vietnam" the game. I bet it will be a BIG sell.

[gautrek]

what the hell, I'd even like a CM of the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland if it were at the right scale which it's not.

How would that work then.

If you play as the IRA then you can do what you want.IE leave bombs all over the place.

And if you play as the Brits you not allowed to shoot back.And if you do manage to kill a terrorist then the rest of the world starts winging and moaning about it.

So that wouldn't work would it.

[CMplayer]

LeTondu, most of what you mention wouldn't be within the scope of the game. Napalm and WP would be in, of course, as well as burning hooches.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by CMplayer:

LeTondu, most of what you mention wouldn't be within the scope of the game. Napalm and WP would be in, of course, as well as burning hooches.

Just as most people have no idea what tactical combat in World War One was like but feel the need to spout off in an uninformed manner about it anyway, so too, sadly, is the case with Vietnam.

I don't think you will find any of those factors Le Tondu mentioned in Hal Moore's book WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE, AND YOUNG, and if you look at Tony Herbert's book SOLDIER (Herbert was the most decorated US soldier of the Korean War, and a battalion commander in an Airborne Brigade in Vietnam), while you will notice references to drug problems and atrocities, it IS possible to sort out the relevant from the irrelevant if you were to produce a game focussing on the tactical side of things.

CM covers WW II, despite not mentioning US racism, German atrocities against soldiers and civilians alike, Russian alcoholism among senior commanders, linguistic problems between Francophone Canadian battalions and their anglophone brigade commanders, etc. etc. A good game designer sorts the wheat from the chaff, CM does this nicely.

Le Tondu's response was, I hate to say it, a little embarrassing to read.

Now, if the thought is that like the Pacific, Vietnam wouldn't produce very many interesting tactical challenges (dug in defenders, rare use of tanks), that is another point to be made. I've certainly said as much about the Pacific.

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by gautrek:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> what the hell, I'd even like a CM of the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland if it were at the right scale which it's not.

How would that work then.

If you play as the IRA then you can do what you want.IE leave bombs all over the place.

And if you play as the Brits you not allowed to shoot back.And if you do manage to kill a terrorist then the rest of the world starts winging and moaning about it.

So that wouldn't work would it. </font>

[V]

Originally posted by Kitty:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by CMplayer:

I'll add my voice to the chorus. BFC! Use the next engine to cover Vietnam!

So it's settled. I look forward to "CM: First Indochina War" coming soon! I can hardly wait!! =D

Kitty </font>

[V]

Originally posted by CMplayer:

Frankly, WWII is getting a bit boring.

I sentence you to stick your nose in Mad Matt's pits for that piece of heresy.

[V]

Originally posted by Sergei:

If I had to point out some of the most uninteresting conflicts of 20th century for a squad level game, that would be one. If BFC decides to go post-WW2, then I'd expect them to pick something interesting, like the Ethiopia-Eritrean conflict, Arab-Israeli wars, Korean war, Iraq-Iran war and of course the Indian-Pakistani wars. Even the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan would be tactically more interesting and varying, there you'd at least have heavily armed but poorly trained soldiers against lightly armed but experienced guerrillas.

The early Arab Israeli wars could be modeled in CMBB, I think. Maybe not as accurate as one would like, but it could be done. I'm actually kind of surprised that the first Arab-Israeli war has not been modeled in CMBB. Maybe it will in CMAK....

The Iraq-Iran war was not very interesting at the tactical level as well, unless you consider defending against the Persian human child-wave attacks to be interesting.

[Kitty]

Originally posted by CMplayer:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sergei:

If I had to point out some of the most uninteresting conflicts of 20th century for a squad level game, that would be one.

Have you actually studied the subject? Vietnam (both the French Indochina war and the American involvment) is full of interesting tactical situations, which would work well at the scale of CM. </font>

[Kitty]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by CMplayer:

LeTondu, most of what you mention wouldn't be within the scope of the game. Napalm and WP would be in, of course, as well as burning hooches.

Just as most people have no idea what tactical combat in World War One was like but feel the need to spout off in an uninformed manner about it anyway, so too, sadly, is the case with Vietnam.

I don't think you will find any of those factors Le Tondu mentioned in Hal Moore's book WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE, AND YOUNG, and if you look at Tony Herbert's book SOLDIER (Herbert was the most decorated US soldier of the Korean War, and a battalion commander in an Airborne Brigade in Vietnam), while you will notice references to drug problems and atrocities, it IS possible to sort out the relevant from the irrelevant if you were to produce a game focussing on the tactical side of things.

CM covers WW II, despite not mentioning US racism, German atrocities against soldiers and civilians alike, Russian alcoholism among senior commanders, linguistic problems between Francophone Canadian battalions and their anglophone brigade commanders, etc. etc. A good game designer sorts the wheat from the chaff, CM does this nicely.

Le Tondu's response was, I hate to say it, a little embarrassing to read.

</font>

[Kitty]

Originally posted by stikkypixie:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> "We Were Soldiers"

????

Don't expect that it will be like in that "really historical" film, though... </font>

[CMplayer]

What bugged me about that Mel Gibson flick is that in real life Moore was skinny and Galloway was fat, but in the movie Galloway was skinny and Moore was definitely a bit on the pudgy side.

[Mace]

Originally posted by Airborne:

I recall an old game by Electronic Arts (I think) called Seal Team. I had loads of fun with it in its Vietnam setting.

Yeh it was, even if it used 1 tree per 100 sq metres to represent thick jungle.

Mace

[JasonC]

Kitty - actually, I made the LZ X-Ray scenario and it didn't use SS or partisans. It used US airborne for the air cav, and plain German rifle 44 infantry for the NVA. (And crack 81mm FOs to represent helo strikes with 1 minute response times, aka ARA). I did it back in the days of CMBO. It played surprisingly well, though time compression was an issue.

[Kitty]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Kitty - actually, I made the LZ X-Ray scenario and it didn't use SS or partisans. It used US airborne for the air cav, and plain German rifle 44 infantry for the NVA. (And crack 81mm FOs to represent helo strikes with 1 minute response times, aka ARA). I did it back in the days of CMBO. It played surprisingly well, though time compression was an issue.

Jason, actually Berli made the one I was referring to. It's for CMBB.

Where can I get yours though?

Kitty

[stikkypixie]

Having read Moores' "We Were Soldiers Once, And Young" twice I'm well aware of what the movie does and does not portray accurately, so please don't think I'm just some idiot who saw a war flick and wants a game like the movie. I will say this for the movie however: I became interested in the real story of the battle after seeing the film. If it had not been made I probably would not have taken the time to read the book to find out the truth about it.

It also started an interest for me in the First Indochina war, which was later increased by some conversations with Berli and now because of that I'm reading Bernard Falls' "street Without Joy."

So the way I see it if a movie causes even a few people to read and increase their knowledge of historical subjects then it can't be all bad, now can it?

I'm not just some Mel Gibson crazy bimbo. Although he is nice to look at.

Kitty

Look i was just making a small joke, but you guys and gals don't seem to share my (bad) sense of humour, and btw that thing about drunk soviet commanders, it can be simulated easily enough if you know what i mean.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Le Tondu's response was, I hate to say it, a little embarrassing to read.

[/QB]

!WARNING!

Irony: Not a description of some kind of iron. Grow a sense of humour people.

The only embarrasing thing Tondu did was aiming an ironic post at Americans.

[Speedy]

Originally posted by gautrek:

As is the same if a American civil war game came out.

I would much rather have a Napolonic version of the game.This interests me more.As britain was involved.

Napoleonic interests me more because there are a lot more sides involved, means you have interesting strategic as well as operational/tactical side to it.

[JasonC]

Aha, didn't know Berli also made one. As for mine, on the way.

[Kitty]

Originally posted by Elmar Bijlsma:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Le Tondu's response was, I hate to say it, a little embarrassing to read.

!WARNING!

Irony: Not a description of some kind of iron. Grow a sense of humour people.

The only embarrasing thing Tondu did was aiming an ironic post at Americans. [/QB]</font>

[Kitty]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Aha, didn't know Berli also made one. As for mine, on the way.

Woohoo! Thanks! =)

Kitty

[-E]

Originally posted by CMplayer:

Frankly, WWII is getting a bit boring.

You are an unkempt heathen who should be stripped of their Forum name! *grin*

[Zarquon]

I don't exactly know why, but I find Vietnam extremely interesting. I've read some books about it and even tried to design my own small infantry unit board game about jungle warfare (not that I know much about it, being mostly a caouch/office creature. Perhaps that's why...).

"Comanche 6 - Company Commander in Vietnam" (James Estep) was nice reading. Based on this, I think the typical VN scenario could look like this:

You command a US infantry company. Patrol the area for a couple of days.

You have your platoons spread about the valley, marching through the underbrush. Distance between them is varying, but it could be a couple of miles.

If you're lucky, you encounter a couple of VC/NVA troops, marching in pairs, carrying rice or other supplies, and blast away at them.

If you're unlucky, you run into boobytraps on the path without ever seeing one enemy soldier.

That doesn't mean that a VN setting couldn't be interesting. Hot landing zones, bunker clearing, 'bomb damage assessing' (running from crater to crater) or Hue-style house fighting could make for fine scenarios.

But the problem is IMHO that all this calls for a slightly different game engine. The CM scale just isn't right.

In CM, you have infantry squads and HQs as your game pieces. You can stage a bataillon fight if you want to. But a 'typical' VN scenario isn't about a set-piece battle, it's about ambushes. It includes smaller forces, with perhaps not even a company on each side. It would be more about individual soldiers than platoon-sized units. Half-squads should be the biggest maneuver units IMO. The engine must support realistic helicopter operations and that is quite different from ground vehicles ops. Command & Control issues should be more complex than they are in CM, if only the get that 'movie feeling' I guess most participants in this thread are thinking about (OK, this includes me).

And the 'I'm here' feeling is what such a game is all about, isn't it?

I'm not asking for Jesus Christ-death poses, slaughter of civilians (by both sides) or anything Hollywood. Only the scale should be focused much more on the individual than what is possible with CM.