Vietnam 1965-1975

Started by rstites25, June 23, 2017, 10:05:31 PM

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rstites25

On to the seasonal interphase.

For strategic bombing, I had 21 points available and use 20 of those points. I allocated 10 to the trail and 10 to unrestrained bombing in the North.

Results: 

North:  1 hit; 1 Air Point lost; SVN Morale +4 (to 69); US -2 (to 518)

***PLAY NOTE***
Bombing the north impacts the amount of supplies that will come down the trail to the South. The US has the option of "restrained" or "unrestrained bombing." Unrestrained is obviously more effective. But it increases the magnitude of the impact on morale. For the US, it adversely impacts morale (-1 restrained;  -(1 + die roll/2) unrestrained). For the SVN, it increases morale (+2 restrained; +4 unrestrained). There's an adverse column shift for the US/SVN during pacification if SVN morale is less than 70. I chose unrestrained bombing here in an effort to get their morale above 70 ASAP to help with the pacification effort.

Trail:  1 hit (trail effectiveness from level 4 to level 3); 2 air points lost

Blockade Segment:

Now I need to know the NVN commitment of Sea Supply to calculate how much supply comes through the sea. So I'll stop here until Dan can get me that number.

drep

The sea supply for this season is 2.

rstites25

Blockade Results: Sea supply allocated is 2. And the US had 1 Naval Point. Based on the roll, the VC got 10 supply through by sea.

SVN Officer Replacement Phase

2-Star leaders:

I Corps: (Must check):  Replaced with "B" +3 leader, initial loyalty of 9
II Corps:  (Must check):  Replacement fails, Any units subordinate to II Corps leader (2nd Division) as well as independent units are now ineffective. II Corps is also "Pro Coup"
Air Force:  (May check): Decline to make the check

1-Star Leaders:

2nd Division (May Check) Decline to make the check
3rd Division (Must check):   Replaced with "A" -3 leader, initial loyalty of 11
5th Division (Must Check):  Replacement fails, subordinates ineffective.

Coup Determination Segment:

US decided not to increase the odds of a Coup. The roll was low, so nobody else went Pro-Coup. The coup failed and SVN stays stable.

SVN Morale adjustment:

-1 (Population Controlled between 191 and 220 [217])
-2 (3-Star leader's [Ky's] morale rating)

Drops SVN morale to 66.

US Morale Adjustment:


None (Remains 518)

NVN Morale Adjustment

NVN will get some boost based on their current morale, not sure what that is off the top of my head, though I could probably track this.


Up next is my reinforcement phase, but that's going to take some thought, so I'll stop for now and think about what I want to bring in.



JasonPratt

Went looking for the rules out of curiosity (so I could follow along at home a little better, though RST is doing a great job so far, no complaints  O0 ). Found this rather recent comparison at BGG between Vietnam 1965-1975 and Fire in the Lake (which resembles the former game somewhat in design and concept, though certainly not in execution.)

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1796569/comparative-review

Enjoyed it, despite noting a few small errors in the description of FitL, and wanted to share.  :smitten:
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Nefaro

VG's Vietnam 65-75 was the first big 'monster' wargame I setup and learned, as a ~12 yr old kid.

I remember having to read the manual a couple times before getting things moving.  With a little time in between reads, everything clicked on the second go. 

Was the heaviest rules I'd read up to, and for awhile after, that point.  :nerd:  Think I got into GDW's Harpoon very shortly afterward, though, and never got back to it.

rstites25

Quote from: JasonPratt on July 01, 2017, 10:39:25 PM
Went looking for the rules out of curiosity (so I could follow along at home a little better, though RST is doing a great job so far, no complaints  O0 ). Found this rather recent comparison at BGG between Vietnam 1965-1975 and Fire in the Lake (which resembles the former game somewhat in design and concept, though certainly not in execution.)

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1796569/comparative-review

Enjoyed it, despite noting a few small errors in the description of FitL, and wanted to share.  :smitten:

Yeah, unfortunately the rules don't seem to be available anywhere online. I may scan my rules at some point if I find that I'm wanting to reference the rules away from to respond to posts. If I do, I'll see about posting them on BGG.

rstites25

So...I don't have a real good feel about the appropriate force levels necessary and how quickly I should ramp up. Rather than risking committing too little early on, I decided to err on the other side, and go with a very, very heavy commitment. This will have very adverse consequences for US morale going forward, so if I'm not able to take advantage of the military commitment and get some immediate gains in pacification early on, it will probably spiral out of control rather quickly. But this is kind of a learning game anyway, so we'll see what happens.

Ultimately, the new US commitment is 143[!!!]. I brought in 105 Air points, 10 Air Mobile points, 4 Riverine points, and bumped my naval points from 1 to 3. I also brought in 45 replacement points. (I really don't know how quickly these will get burned through. Hopefully after the first season, I'll have a better feel for what level I need to maintain this at at the beginning of each season.) I also brought in 112 SVN supply. (SVN reinforcements require 2 things:  "Population" [you track population used throughout the game, and the number can never exceed the SVN Population Controlled number] and "Supplies" [these supply points are 'bought' by the US for commitment, so if a player focuses on Vietnamization, it will still cost US commitment]. Finally, the US spent 3 commitment on Economic Aid programs. These programs increase SVN morale. Doing so allowed me to bump the SVN to the magic 70-mark.

The SVN used 63 population and 145 supply used (I had 33 supply left over from the initial build and the US gave 112 this turn).

US Reinforcements:
1st Infantry Division
101st Airborne
1st Marines
2 independent brigades (173rd and 199th)
6 x 105 mm Artillery units
4 x 155 mm Art.
2 x 175 mm Art.

SVN Reinforcements:

7th, 9th, 8th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 25th Divisions.

Each of these is under the Corps command of the particular region they  occupy.

I also brought in the SVN Marine and Parachute divisions. These units are under the "Chief of Staff" regardless of location on the map.

In addition, the SVN brought in their remaining 5 independent armor battalions, 2 ranger units, and 68 replacement points. 


Units have to be brought into port cities on the map (even SVN units). The map below will give some idea of deployment.


Dan, in the dropbox folder:

First logfile is me bringing in reinforcements.
Second .vsav is just a save so you don't have to walk through everything.
Third .vlog is me adjusting the SVN replacement marker because I forgot to in the first file
Fourth .vlog is a final correction to SVN replacements. I initially purchased 60 replacements, and that's what I set the number to. Then I remembered I bought 8 more to use the remainder of my supply.

drep

/after furiously looking through errata for the amount of NLF commitment needed to induce the USSR to invade West Germany to keep the US Army busy elsewhere

Looks like NVA morale goes to 15 after a +5 for NVA morale 40 or less bumps it up. I think I'm going to publically update the NLF record sheet for the first turn or two while we both figure things out.  I don't have a good sense of what happens with all the different levers.

I'll need a moment here to figure out what I want to do this recruitment segment.

drep

If I'm understanding the order of play, the morale changes for new commitment and economic aid don't go into effect until the next adjustment segment. I think you were right to adjust the morale of the US immediately with the strategic bombing losses, but for the other stuff there is a delay.

rstites25

I believe you're correct, but I don't think I adjusted any morale for new commitment, etc. (other than the adjustments made before commitment based on population during the actual political phase). The only other morale adjustment came from economic aid programs, and it's listed under the SVN "Applied immediately column." 

I believe the only adjustments to SVN morale were +4 (unrestrained bombing); -3[?] 3* leader rating; +4[?] for 3 economic aid programs (I screwed up and should have declared how many aid programs I was undertaking before seeing the die rolls for the 1st 2.)

If other morale adjustments were made, I should be able to pretty easily figure out what it currently should be. I can double check the next time I act.

drep

Ah, that makes sense now. I didn't see the apply immediately header on the morale chart -- that's a lot more clear. I was cribbing between an extended sequence of play posted here and flipping between all the rules.

drep

My Placement segment is up. VC replacements were increased to 60, which I'm now reading on BGG is probably way too high.

No Offensive to declare.

BanzaiCat

Fascinating game - I love grand strategy Vietnam campaign games.  O0

rstites25

I didn't change any deployments. And effectiveness didn't go so well...

Do you want to break down any VC regiments?


JasonPratt

Someone made a scan of the rules some years ago for Boardgamegeek, but for some reason the pdf isn't linked at or saved to BGG. It's at a mediafire link, and unnamed (or numbernamed rather) to avoid copyright strikes I guess. I've scanned it with a recently (today) upgraded Avast without seeing problems, and BGG members have been using it for years without reporting problems. Last accessed that I know of, before me this afternoon, earlier this year.

The scan looks complete to me -- some rulebooks got printed with part of the final pages unprinted near the bottom -- so I could attach it here I suppose, if that seems right?
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!