The Killing Fields

 Another week, another cheery episode in late twentieth post colonial history, this time Pol Pots reign of terror in Cambodia. This was one of John Bs periodic polmil committee games, and we'd actually covered the period from the winding down of the Vietnam War to Pol Pots rise (1970 to 75) in a previous game. This stuff is all pretty grim, but we are all (mostly) old enough to remember it well. It all shaped the world we live in now, so worth revisiting.

Always nice to have some period maps, these are the Cambodian Miltary Districts in 1970. We used this map a lot in the previous game as it was very much focussed on the war inside Cambodia. This time Pol Pot in his bizarre alliance with Prince Sihanouk had just taken Phnom Penh in 1975 as Saigon fell around the same time.

Six players represented the main factions - Sihanouk, Pol Pot, Thailand, Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union, while two others took on rolling parts as eg The Gang of Four, Chairman Mao, Kurt Waldheim etc. Unlike last time, the US was completely out of the picture as this was very much the first major foreign policy challenge for the new Vietnamese government. 

I was cast as Yuri Andropov, short lived Soviet premier, but at the time head of the KGB, so my role was very similar to my role as regional CIA chief last time - run interference, promote Soviet interests etc. with special forces and covert support. Specifically I had to topple Pol Pot, support Vietnam and damage Chinese interests in the region while promoting those of the USSR.

Given a lot of the action more concerned the surrounding countries, this map was rather more useful, particular for tracking the regions free of Pots malign influence, location of refugees/insurgents etc.

The action opened with both Russia and China shipping in supplies to their clients, Vietnam in my case and Cambodia for the Chinese. Pol Pot set about his agrarian revolution with steely eyed determination and made no particular bones about its brutality.

A decent turnout with eight players and an umpire. The chat feature in Zoom was very helpful for negotiations between rounds, each of which represented a year. We broke for the evening just as Sihanouk had been rescued by Vietnamese commandos (!), and Chinas 'exercise' along the Vietnam border had fallen into chaos while the world looked on appalled at Pol Pots Maoist fundamentalism.

In 1979 the Vietnamese launched their liberation effort and managed to install Prince Sihanouk in Phnom Penh, but failed to decisively defeat the Khmer Rouge in the region northwest of the capital. China ineffectively tried to ship in ground forces through the ports on the south, and the Vietnamese rather ineffectively tried to stop them with their newly captured navy (over 1,300 ships were captured from the RVN). 1980 ended in something of a stalemate with Pol Pot still active in the countryside but increasingly hemmed in on all sides, the Russians increasingly distracted by Afghanistan and the bellicose attitude of President-elect Reagan while the Vietnamese were stuck with their very own 'Vietnam' in Cambodia. Thailand had never been seriously threatened by communist subversion and was doing rather nicely.

And this ended with a rather worse result than historically as irl the Khmer Rouge were comprehensively smashed by the Vietnamese, and reduced to a long drawn out guerilla war which dragged on until the 90s. China had at least been revealed to be a paper tiger and a considerable portion of the Cambodian population saved from Maoist genocide. I know this stuff isn't for everyone, but it is very unusual to play a game where the KGB are the good guys! Many thanks to John for organiseing such an interesting and informative game.

A Walk in the Sun

 Our latest Fistful of Lead trip was to sunny Vietnam, inspired by our various playings of Decision Games 'Khe San'. This particular scenario is set during Operation Apache Snow in May 1969.

The usual gang of reprobates assembled, the heroic NVA defending their homeland from the colonialist invaders were myself, Jerry, Simon and Mark with Pete in command. The US Imperialists were John, Micheal (both resplendant in their tin hats with covers), Jim and Russell. At least it was an excuse to wear my VC boonie and fighters scarf, some of the surviving bits of my old re-enactment gear.

We were the 29th NVA Regiment and the Americans were B Company, 3/187th Regiment.

As ever, this was a 54mm skirmish game with individual figures, using the modern variant of Fistful of Lead.

The action opened with the NVA out of sight and dug in, with the US point team cautiously marching up the track. We had a fireteam (me with four NVA troopers), two RPG teams (Simon and Mark) and a sniper (Jerry) with an SKS. Our job was to stop the US getting three or more troops off the far edge and controlling both the road junctions.  

Our guys were all dug into spider holes, apart from Jerry who was up a tree. We also had a Claymore covering the far road junction. My team was dug in across the track at the first junction, the RPG teams were echeloned further back and Jerry was covering the left track.

The US were virtually on top of our positions and I couldn't take the chance they would spot us first so two of my guys popped up and gunned down the US point men. Personally I would have put my team to the side of the track, not across it, and waited until the US were fully committed, but orders are orders.

Undeterred by the fate of their pals (they are both down wounded), more US troops appeared. In FFoL, figures activate individually, based on playing cards by the owning player. The black blob on one of my guys shows he is out of ammo, having emptied a whole magazine into the US point.

More Americans appeared, so the rest of my team popped up and shot at them. Less effective this time the yellow blobs show their targets are shocked, but not hit.

Even more Americans roll up and return fire, nearly all my guys are shocked. At least their foxholes are giving them some cover. I am now fighting all the Americans on my own, which strikes me as a really silly idea.

My guys bug out and leg it into the jungle back down the track. The US mill around sorting themselves out, their medic deals with the wounded and they  put an M60 team around the left flank. Visibility in the jungle is short, so my guys have a chance to sort themselves out too, they remove the shock markers.

Some of the US push forward aggressively, leaving a bunch of wounded and shocked troops behind. My team are still all bunched up around the junction, and one of the RPG gunners pops up and fires ineffectively at the US column. It is becoming increasing hard to see what is going on with all the trees in the way, all very atmospheric!

Just how many Americans are there! I'm glad my guys disengaged. I've just got one lightly wounded man now and we are starting to spread out across both tracks.

To cover our redeployment, one of my chaps throws two grenades into the middle of the great mass of US troops on the road. Ouch! Jerry also manages to shoot the M60 gunner, but a US blooper guy bags one of our RPG gunners.

Even more Americans arrive! Another fireteam deploys on the right flank, but at least Jerry has stopped the M60 team on the left. The US fire M79 grenades to try and dislodge him but miss. My chaps have melted back into the trees and are taking cover, so are now invisible again.

We broke for the night at that point.

The US on the main track are still all pretty shook up, and the latest fireteam to arrive moves across to the left flank (you can see them in the foreground of the picture). Jerry is still taking potshots from his tree and apparently leading a charmed life.

As the left flanking US team sweeps forward, the central column gets going again. Nicely bunched up, they get a shower of grenades from my guys concealed among the trees.

The US point man finds where we have deployed the Claymore. Yes, that is a Party Popper. He is blown to pieces in the blast.

My guys now keep up a steady fire on the US and they return the complement, both sides mainly suffering shock results so the sea of yellow counters extends. The US occupy both the junctions and there isn't any way to shift them, but as time runs out, they haven't a hope of getting anyone off our base edge either, so it is an honourable draw.

Despite the large volume of small arms fire and all the pyrotechnics, when the smoke cleared, the total losses for all sides were just 2 KIA, 4 WIA and the rest just shocked/suppressed, which seems pretty realistic really.

The was good fun and very atmospheric, beautiful toys too. Hopefully we will be going back 'up country' at some point.

Back to Khe San

 Our scheduled game was postponed due to illness, so Tim put Khe San on again, as it works well as a team game.  We played this a few weeks ago, so we're a bit more familiar with what works and what doesn't from a tactical pov.

As before, the VC setup is pre-determined, although the units are allocated randomly. A couple of stacks in trenches next to Khe San, big stacks in Laos and the DMZ, and a couple of units along Route 9. We had half a dozen units to start with, most of which weren't great, although in the last game we found the USMC Tank Company very useful as it was quite mobile. 

We had to put the SF unit at Long Bai near Laos, otherwise we put two units in Khe San and the Rock Quarry, with an outpost on one of the nearby hills (the triangle). As we found in the previous game, the US have to attack to win, they can't just hide in their Firebases, and it is important to clear the VC trenches next to Khe San. Losing Khe San is an automatic loss.

Unlike the previous game, we were allowed to choose the US action cards this time, so we plumped for a Reinforcement card - which we used to pick more Marines, some AirCav (who apparently have integral choppers now) and some helicopter gunships.

We stonked one VC stack with B52s, while we assaulted the trenches with our other units, supported by the Skyraiders.

Well, that went well! The VC are pushed back away from the Firebase.

The VC responded with a Major Attack action card, and those big stacks rolled forwards.

One of our positions was completely overrun!

And we were driven out in confusion from another. Well, that could have gone better.

Time to counterattack. Our guys roll out again to take on those big stacks, supported by all available air.

Our guys are repulsed in the north, and in the south, discover a huge concentration of VC.... I'm not sure even the Marines can take on all those guys. 

Another disaster. We are defeated and take heavy losses. The survivors fall back.

The VC follow up with a direct assault on Khe San and the trenches next to the Rock Quarry. Clever this game AI isn't it?

Fortunately the assault on Khe San is (just) repulsed, but the ARVN are overrun. As Mr Springsteen sang "Had a brother at Khe San, fighting off the Vietcong. They're still there, but he's all gone. Gone, gone away maan". 

Fortunately we managed to whistle up some more reinforcements, so it was time to attack again. We concentrated all our spare stuff against one VC stack near Long Bai, taking advantage of the special Firebase Support card which gives a combat bonus.

At least that worked, and the VC were driven off. There is still that huge VC stack top left though. 

More VC assaults near Khe San in the trenches. 

We managed to beat that attack off as well, and the dead VC pile was pleasing high. However the US had by now lost no less than six ground units, and there was no coming back from that as we simply couldn't kill enough stuff and take enough ground to offset the big VP penalty for all those destroyed units. We called it at that point, US Tactical Defeat, the worst result so far.

What a clever game, with endless replay value.  

Khe San

 Decision Games have published a number of solo games, and one particular series are the 'Cold War Blitz' games which share a common rules framework but have scenario specific rules and unit ratings bolted on. Tim brought the game covering Khe San along to one of our Zoom sessions to play as a 'collective' solo game.

It is an area movement map, with various types of terrain box - clear, Firebase, mountain, jungle, entrenched and VC staging areas in the DMZ and Laos. The routes linking the boxes represent various trails and roads including Highway 9.

The VC units are all inverted, only being revealed when they are in combat (and then they are inverted again) and the flow of the acton is driven by event cards which are very similar to those found in Quartermaster General, being based in historical events, but thy are used to determine each sides allowable actions and the run the 'AI' for the VC as well.

The player gets VPs for killing VC units and occupying key terrain (firebases, VC entrenchments and hills). An interesting wrinkle is you have no idea how long the game will last, as the 'end game' marker moves back and forth depending on the card draws, although losing Khe San itself is an immediate loss.

The US player starts with six units, one SF unit is placed in the Firebase near Laos, and the rest can deploy pretty well anywhere not occupied by VC, but obviously defending Khe San is important! The initial forces are a bit of a mix, an airfield garrison unit and an ARVN Regiment, niether of which are much good, an SF battalion and Marine Tank Company, and a Marine Regiment. The garrison unit is immobile so we put that on Khe San along with the Marines. The tanks and SF went in the Rock Quarry (another Firebase) and the poor old ARVN went up into the hills near that big stack of VC. The tanks can move 2 areas, everyone else only 1, which makes them a useful reinforcement, but being only a company, they aren't that powerful. 

On our first turn we drew a reinforcement card and opted for an Aircav Regiment, another Marine Regiment and some more transport helicopters (we had one already). We used the choppers to fly the Marines into Khe San, the Aircav onto ARVN Hill, so we could use the ARVN to occupy another hilltop.

We decided to find out what was in the trenches around Khe San with airpower, we had a Wing of B52s, four Wings of Sky Raiders and a Wing of C47 Spooks available. The B52s plastered the trenches next to Khe San and revealed two VC infantry units. While the Skyraiders uncovered VC elite Sappers and 37mm AA! The AA downed some of our planes and although we didn't inflict any losses, at least we knew what was there.

The VC response was fairly passive (I can't recall what cards they drew).

This isn't Dien Bien Phu, the US can't win by hiding in their Firebases, they have to attack to take terrain and destroy VC. The Marines sallied forth to assault the VC trenches next to Khe San, supported by Skyraiders.

We overcame the VC fairly easily, which was a real morale booster. I think some of my colleagues had been a bit nervous about attacking. One Marine unit was forced back but we stormed the trenches and eliminated the VC.

The VC responded with a big attack from Laos. Three units, including sappers, against a lone SF battalion! If the C47s hadn't been used for offensive air, they can be used as defensive support, so we threw them in.

We just managed to throw the VC back thanks to the air support, although the SF lost a step (our units could take 2 hits). The surviving VC were forced to retreat and we bombed them with the B52s.

After the success of our last attack, we took on the VC in the trenches next to the Quarry, throwing in the marine tank company to support the 1st Marine Regt and supported by Skyraiders. If you use B52s on a hex, you can't assault it as well.

That was another successful attack. Ooorah! Clearing out the areas next to our main objectives seemed to be a good idea, and then we could start looking at choke points on the communications network.

The VC had other ideas however, and a great mass of enemy units piled towards our base, making contact in the two hill 'triangles'.

We managed to hang on to one hill, but the ARVN were driven back to the Rock Quarry.

Time to counterattack. We did a mass ground/air cav assault on the captured hill, and bombed the heck out of the VC on the major road junction just north of Khe San (the map is upside down). The ARVN were parked out of harms way.

Our counter attack just kept rolling, and we launched a mass assault on the trenches near the DMZ.

It was all looking pretty peachy by now, piles of dead VC and everything secure.

Well, all peachy apart from this huge stack of VC who rolled down from the DMZ, while our guys were busy running around miles away. The airforce was sent to bomb them while we hastily redeployed our ground troops to meet the threat.

We massed all our Marines and Air Cav to take them on, and succeeded in destroying half of them and driving the rest back into the jungle. The ARVN and REMFs were left holding Khe San.

Which proved to be a mistake as VC units popped up in the trenches again. The ARVN were overrun and once more we had to charge back and try and restore the situation, this time the only units which could reach were the Air Cav in helicopters and the Marine tankers. Combined with air attacks, we managed to restore the situation.

Phew, we got away with it. We needed to avoid overextended ourselves again, so pulled back to a tighter perimeter. VC units started to build up menacingly again around the DMZ.

We had to call it a night at that point, and I've got no idea how close we are to the siege actually ending as the game end track is quite variable, going both up and down with different events. The US score points for areas currently occupied (not last controlled) and the current heap of dead VC units (from which new ones are generated) so both these totals go up and down. The only constant are the deductions for destroyed US units, although some events allow step losses to be restored.

The others played on the follwing evening, and eventually the game ended with a score of 25, a 'tactical victory', which is pretty much a draw. One more (26+) and it would have been an actual victory. Tims previous solo efforts had netted 15 VP, just enough to get in the 'Tactical Victory' band.

I was really impressed, what a clever game system, particularly the amount of fog of war it produced and critical decision making every turn. The ability of the system run VC to generate 'surprise' was very impressive, and it worked well as a team game too. Highly recommended. 

Year Zero

 In our long running series of various polmil games about the 1970s, John B rather bravely put a game about goings on in Cambodia in the years 1970-79. Now this sort of thing isn't to everyones taste, but we usually try and keep the treatment of the subject matter respectful.

The time period was deliberately chosen to span both the latter stages of the Vietnam War and the Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia itself in the late 1970s, as it put the Cambodian Civil War into a greater strategic context.

As is usual in committee type games, we had various maps and things. This one was quite useful as it showed the major communications routes. A key communication route is that most of the trade and supplies for Phnom Pen go up and down the Mekong, rather than inland from the coast. Fine as long as Saigon is in US/ARVN hands, but otherwise...

For player roles, we had:

Prince Sihanouk, John A

General Lon Nol, Tim G

Pol Pot, Jim R

Le Duan, Micheal

The PRC, Pete

and finally the good guys, those loveable spooks of the CIA, me

My job was threefold: 

1. to save Southeast Asia from being overrun by Communists and bring Cambodia into the western fold 2. disrupt and and ideally halt the transit of supplies from North Vietnam

3. avoid the use of significant US conventional forces and instead rely on mercenaries and SF

The game was run using the modern version of Matrix Games, so a structured committee game where each participant could basically try and do one 'big' thing per game phase, in this case, once per year.

They don't tend to be terribly photogenic, this is mainly what we were looking at for two evenings:

At least Tim and I hade an effort on the hats. I've got my 'The Quiet Man' CIA hat on and Tim has a French para cap with Cambodian badges - the Cambodian Army, such as it was, was very heavily influenced by the French.

The game then proceeded as what, quite frankly, was a monumental shitshow due to the conflicting objectives of all the participants.

This 1970 dated map of the provincial divisions of Cambodia was very handy.

My 'forces' were two brigades of Cambodia mercenaries, who were actually pretty good, plus a Cambodian Special Forces team, who were also pretty good. These units had all been recruited from Cambodians living in Vietnam and were excellent at blending in.

Pol Pot and his gang of thugs were up in Districts V and VI, while Sihanouk had a couple of loyal Militia Regiments and the National Police, and Lon Nol had all the better Army units, of which there weren't many - Armoured Brigade, Paras and Marines plus a Riverene unit holding the Mekong LOC open.

1970 opened with my mercs heading into districts V and VI to set up bases to interdict the Ho Chi Minh trail. This was partially successful but needed more direct support. I had one battalion detached keeping an eye on VC interdiction of the Mekong route to Phnom Pen. Meanwhile the PRC was piling supplies into the Khmer Rouge and Le Duan was busily pushing stuff down the trail into Vietnam. Lon Nol received some US military aid to beef up the Cambodian Army.

1971 saw a much more determined effort on the trail, my mercs started calling in air strikes flown from Vietnam, which worked really well and caused significant disruption. This coincided with a major US ground operation from Vietnam into Cambodia, which went down a real storm back in the US and Congress reined back heavily on direct military interventions. Meanwhile in Cambodia, all hell broke loose as Sihanouk tried to arrest Lon Nol on charges of corruption, supported by Pol Pot! The arrest attempt failed. 

1972 presented a real problem, Lon Nol was hanging on by the skin of his teeth, and it seemed Sihanouk was some sort of communist sympathiser. I had to switch CIA resources to support Lon Nol, who duly conducted a coup, siezed Phnom Pen and became President for Life. In the chaos, Pol Pots reinforced Khmer Rouge fanatics began to march southwest towards the capital.

1973 saw the Khmer Rouge on the outskirts of Phnom Pen, conducting uncoordinated attacks alongside Sihanouk, who was trying to retake the capital. These attacks failed and Pol Pot resorted to a blockade of Phnom Pen, running a campaign of terror against ship captains and their families to block river traffic on the Mekong.

By 1974, it was clear that South Vietnam was lost and I had to focus on saving Cambodia instead. I pondered assassinating Sihanouk to unify the Cambodian leadership, and even wrote the mission brief, but in the end opted to put all my forces into breaking the blockade of Phnom Pen, which was close to starving. Fortunately this succeeded.

In 1975, Lon Nol felt strong enough to mount a counter offensive against Pol Pots blockade, and suceeded in defeating the Khmer Rouge, thanks to the surprise intervention of Sihanouk on Lon Nols side. Taking advantage the chaos of defeat, I hastily rewrote the SF mission and they tried to assassinate Pol Pot instead. They nearly got him, but he escaped wounded. Damn! Meanhwhile Le Duans final offensive overran South Vietnam and Saigon fell. The river route down the Mekong wasn't much use now.

In 1976 Lon Nol and Sihanouk came to agreement that the Prince would be crowned King and take over as head of state, while Lon Nol became Prime Minister. This was eminently satisfactory and I did what I could support the new regime. Pol Pots forces fell back to their stronghold to regroup and try again later. I headed back to Langley for Medals and Champagne, having saved Cambodia, for now, at least.

We called it a day there as it would obviously be a few turns before the Khmer Rouge tried again, and John wanted to have  a washup/feedback session instead.

That was a fascinating slice of history of which I was very aware of some of the major events, but only dimly aware of others. I'd never realised that Sihanouk and Pol Pot were allies for quite some time. I've been to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia but the game actually put a lot of what happened in the region in the 1970s into perspective. It is a tough subject to make a wargame out of, but I think John had succeeded admirably. We suggested a couple of minor tweaks, but for a development session it went swimmingly well.