We’re edging towards the end of February, one snowfall warning after another…although the last one did not come to fruition, there was a pretty good snowfall this past weekend. Really nice snow too, temps were -10 to -15 so the snow was nice and powdery.
Best part of the weekend, I finally get to tally a battle report for this year in a setting that was as unsnowlike as possible, welcome to the Nam. For this installment, we have the black berets of the Riverine force and the grunts of the 9th Infantry. Duncan was keen to get his boats on the table and it gave us a chance to literally throw some random figures on the table.
As always, Chairman Mike has gotten ahead of the media curve and is already spreading his propaganda.
Forces wise: Duncan and I had 2 x infantry platoons; 1 x monitor; 1 x transport carrier; and a special forces platoon. Mike had a mix of NVA and Main Force troops with 2-ish x infantry companies; ironclad company of 5 x pt76 tanks; air defense company of 3 x AAA HMG’s; combat support platoon with 3 x recoilless rifles; and a couple of HMG companies with 3 x hmg bunkers each.
Big thing up front…the riverine forces give an interesting array of weapons (the monitor had a 40mm gun, a few 20mm’s - 3 I think, and a short range mortar), and tanks are still an interesting foe and can be surprisingly susceptible to M72 fire.
So here we go…
The battlefield…the great plains of the Nam, lol…we’ll need more scatter next time. The Up River mission has, well a river…a couple of sections, and is a search and evacuate mission with 5 objectives for each side to get to and search (free world) or evacuate (communist).
The initial deployment has the riverine forces moving up the narrow river towards mid table. The special forces insert near a small ridge via helo insertion and Mike has his tanks on field as well as a small infantry company. He has to roll for the rest of his forces from reserve.
The tiger stripe lad green faced men move quickly to get into contact with an objective.
Duncan takes a couple of hits on the monitor from Mike’s tanks…and then replies in kind knocking a few into oblivion…around this time, both boats offload their infantry and start the move towards securing objectives.
Mike rolls really well for his reserves, not to mention where they can deploy. He sends his recoilless rifles to the backside of the hill to harass the closest infantry platoon.
I try to make my roll for the objective, 6 to successfully search…only to have Mike successfully deploy his first HMG bunker company. They throw out an impressive amount of dice and there’s a lot of space between my SOF and them…and I need to clear the objective before I can move.
SOF taking some hard hits from the bunker…another roll, still lacking 6’s…
The tanks are dealt with for the most part - 2 left chilling behind an objective…Duncan’s platoon is moving towards the objective trying to search it as well…the red dice show that some of our stands are wounded. Near the bottom, I successfully search my objective and start to move towards the recoilless rifles.
The infantry start to edge towards the 76’s to get some LAW shots…and Mike gets his second set of bunkers at the top edge. Losing a couple of stands due to incoming fire…and I’m moving closer to the rifles in the south.
You an see Mike start to move his other infantry company towards my SOF…they’ve gone to ground so have been a little harder to hit, in the end it just delayed the inevitable. You can see the wounds start to happen…
Near the north part of the table, the US infantry have run off the PT-76’s and have an infantry company of their own to contend with. And still the objective is elusive.
The VC Main Force are able to charge into contact, I think they lose a stand on defensive fire…when you’re pinned, the M79 buckshot is sure a nice bonus!! Ultimately they are overrun - ironically Mike is unable to roll 6’s for the objective as well…lol
Duncan has his own assault step and counter to go through…if I recall correctly, he chews up the NVA infantry pretty well, taking a few wounds in the process, and falls back towards the troop carrier. With a few wounds in the south, I turn thought to finishing off the recoilless rifles.
Keeping the wounded to establish a base of fire, the remainder of the platoon charges into contact, swims past the defensive fire, and scores a victory for the good guys…5 rolls for assault, 5 hits!!
The game ends at this point…with 1 objective each for Free Forces and Communist, we land at a political victory for both forces. Stars and Stripes will tell wild tales of VC blood trails, special forces heroics, and a valiant assault. Hanoi Hannah will tell of brave Vietnamese standing up to Uncle Sam as they run away leaving behind their own men…definitely sounds victorious!!
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