Wednesday 12 April 2017

Venturing into Vietnam with the Men of Company B

A return, for me, after a couple of decades, to 15mm Vietnam, courtesy of Peter Pig's latest version of their MoCB rules.
I had a go with Martin and Stewart at Alumwell Wargames show in March and succumbed, not too unwillingly, to the lure of another - intended to be small - project.

So with new terrain: jungle, dense jungle/bamboo, villages (with customary wooden hooches), paddy fields and some adjusted basing of my very old Nam figures, it was off to the boonies!

Some pictures follow of my first working through the rules...


The village of "Nha Lam Bang Go": a string of Hamlets along the valley, either side of the road.

The game pits five units of Vietnam Cong Guerrillas: each of up to 6 bases, against three squads of Americans and a platoon commander in a search and destroy mission

The village of "Nha Lam Bang Go": a string of Hamlets along the valley, either side of a small road.. A light, observation-and-command helicopter (LOACH) flies an Artillery liaison officer over the intended area of operations. Also in the air is a HUEY having just inserted the platoon.

The platoon prepare to leave the L.Z. and move off into the jungle.
Having picked their way across country, the Commander (on the road, sends his first two squads right and left into the nearest hamlets. The small stone - as yet unturned - shows that this village has not yet been searched for caches of supplies or weapons.


V.C. gather reinforcements from the villagers and head along the jungle trails to intercept.
Others occupy a hamlet and round up the villagers as potential recruits.





First squad, having found a strategically important cache of radio equipment, moves off through the jungle toward the next hamlet.

The platoon commander searches and finds a cache of weapons, and ponders whether to destroy these in place or carry them out to the pick up L.Z.


Second squad moves cautiously into the village, their search yields supplies of rice, that are destroyed in place. This takes longer than planned and the squad takes no further action.
The V.C. Converge on the hamlets further up the valley.

And wait to confront the advancing Americans.
The LOACH spots this target- rich environment but fails to heed the civilian peasants among  the hooches. Artillery lands as directed, and hammers the Vietnamese. The Americans, already notching up the victory points for caches, relish the V.C. casualties but are then struck by the horror of so many civilian bodies.

Second squad advancing through the jungle opens a firefight with V.C. in the hamlet.
The V.C. unit, now reduced to just two bases, disappears into the surrounding boonies, its casualties disappearing with it, but another, incoming unit comes to the hamlet ready to stand in the Americans' way.
As the Americans direct their attention to the contact to their front, another unit of V.C. emerge from the village to their rear and second squad is now in the midst of the firefight!

A seemingly simple search and destroy has now escalated to fierce fighting.... part two to follow!


1 comment:

  1. Could you give info on how MOCB are based , I do see them in Two's but is this by choice or by rules ?, love the layout by the way I have hundreds of Peter Pig figures in various era's but the Vietnam conflict will be a new project

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