Combat Commander: Vietnam

 

True, we never lost a major battle in Vietnam, but the vast majority of the fighting was not on that scale. We did lose innumerable skirmishes.
- Robert Graham, Platoon Sergeant US 4th Division

Histories of the Vietnam War have overwhelmingly privileged the American experience.
- Nathalie Huynh Chau Nguyen, Historian

Long awaited by fans of the series, Combat Commander (CC) now covers the Vietnam War in all its complexity. Building off of Chad Jensen’s superb Combat Commander: Europe, this new game strives to capture the spirit of the original while transporting the system to a new era.

Starting from the view that the heart of CC is Chad’s random scenario generator (RSG) design, Combat Commander: Vietnam captures the immense diversity of units, regions, and periods during the Indochina conflicts from 1961-1975. We harnessed the ingenuity of the RSG system and extensive research of perspectives from all sides to provide one of the most representative depictions of the Vietnam War (plus Laotian and Cambodian civil wars) to date. Whether famous or lesser-known, comprehensive coverage of nearly all relevant units, engagements, and periods is provided by 6 factions, 24 scenarios, a full RSG system, and a new Campaign mode tailored to fit the Vietnam War. For additional coverage we could not cram into the already stuffed base game box, Battle Packs and an expansion are already being devised. We are happy to introduce players to the first step in the broader Vietnam Experience of games by adapting a classic wargaming system to explore the dynamics of small-unit engagements.

Highlights:

• New mechanical changes including Break Contact, Fire Support, Objectives, Patrol Posture, Fate Deck Shifts, and more to adjust to the new conflict
• New Orders (e.g. Withdraw), Actions (e.g. Anti-tank Weapon), and Events (e.g. Ghost Soldiers) appropriate to the Vietnam War
• Six new factions (each with a Fate Deck, Counters, and Order of Battle)
• New weapons and other counters including recoilless rifles, civilians, traps, advisors, and many more
• 24 maps spread across six regions (I-IV Corps in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) based on 1:50,000 period maps, archival photos, and descriptions of engagements
• New RSG system for generating scenarios for any factions, period, and region in Indochina between 1961-1975
• 24 scenarios highlighting the diversity of factions, regions, and periods included in the base game box
• A new campaign mode, playable as one of 8 campaign scenarios or using the random campaign generator (RCG)

The Six Factions of Combat Commander: Vietnam
Worse than the Americans were the Australians. The Americans’ style was to hit us, then call for planes and artillery. Our response was to break contact and disappear if we could, but if we couldn’t we’d move up right next to them so the planes couldn’t get at us. The Australians were more patient than the Americans, better guerrilla fighters, better at ambushes. They liked to stay with us instead of calling in the planes. We were more afraid of their style.
- Trinh Duc, NLF Village Chief


Combat Commander: Vietnam includes 6 factions, each with their own Fate Deck, Counters, and Order of Battle table. The factions were selected to cover all major fighting formations relevant to the fighting in Indochina (South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) between 1961-1975. Two Communist factions, NLF and NVA, go up against four Free World factions, ARVN, Free World Allies (FWA), Special Forces (SF), and US. They can be organized into three categories:

• Local Irregulars: Using 36 card Fate Decks, similar to those of CC: Resistance, these factions represent locally recruited forces fighting as irregulars. The NLF Faction represents the National Liberation Front (NLF), commonly known as the Viet Cong, but also the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge. The SF Faction covers local Free World Force irregulars, usually led by Special Forces, including units such as MIKE Force, CIDG, and Hmong Special Guerrilla Units.
• Local Conventional: Using standard 72 Card Fate Decks, these factions represent the conventional forces of the states in the region. The NVA Faction represents the North Vietnamese Armed forces, officially the People’s Army of Vietnam (VPA), that served in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Rules account for their deployment as light infantry early in the conflict and their more conventional deployment during the major offensives toward the end of the war. The ARVN Faction represents the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) but also the armed forces of Laos and Cambodia. They include units such as ARVN Rangers all the way down to Territorial Forces.
• Foreign Conventional: Also using standard 72 Card Fate Decks, these two factions represent conventional forces deployed from outside of the region fighting on behalf of the Republic of Vietnam. The US Faction represents the Airborne, Army, and Marine infantry deployed to South Vietnam alongside units such as the Combined Action Platoons. The FWA Faction represents the “many flags” that joined the American war in Vietnam including ANZAC, Republic of Korea (ROK), and Thai forces. Special Fate Deck shifts account for the differences between Army and Marines in the US Deck and between ANZAC and the other nations in the FWA Deck.

Scenarios and the RSG
As a man who spent twelve years in combat, I can honestly say that we had many brave, diligent, and patriotic soldiers in our armed forces. They fought valiantly and selflessly against the communists year after year.
- Le Cau, ARVN Colonel


Combat Commander: Vietnam comes with 24 scenarios selected to highlight the diversity of engagements, formations, periods, and terrain featured in the Vietnam War and adjacent conflicts. The scenarios include parts of famous battles such as Ap Bac (1963), Operation Starlite (1965), Long Tan (1966), and the siege of An Loc (1972), but also many more obscure engagements such as the South Korean defense at Tra Binh Dong (1967), ARVN forces at Prey Veng fighting NVA in Cambodia (1970), and Hmong guerrillas fighting off NVA encroachment of Skyline Ridge (1972).

Following on from Chad’s brilliant WW2 RSG system, the game also comes with a complete Vietnam War RSG capable of generating nearly any possible engagement among the major fighting formations at the scale of platoon to company from 1961-1975. Detailed research for all the factions has resulted in Order of Battle tables that includes well-known formations such as US Army Company, North Vietnamese Sappers, or ARVN Marines but also the lesser known ones such as North Vietnamese “Filler” Units that filled out shattered NLF units later in the war or units from Thailand’s Queen Cobra Regiment. The RSG also incorporates new rules that modify scenarios, including the Rules of Engagement in Populated maps (Free Fire or Restricted), and the Season, Dry or Wet, that impact players’ ability to call on Fire Support or maneuver.

New Campaign Mode and the RCG

They search thousand-meter grid squares that appeared on the maps carried by leaders and artillery observers. In the south, the squares were filled with symbols indicating rice paddies or jungles. Farther north, the map's grid squares were crammed with squiggly brown contour lines - so close together they could hardly be resolved by the naked eye -- depicting rugged, jungle-covered mountains. The word "destroyed" appeared in parentheses near scores of villages.
- James Ebert, Historian


Not wanting to just adapt Chad’s superb system for the Vietnam War (a fairly daunting task already!), we also designed and included a full Campaign mode for Combat Commander: Vietnam that can be played as either one of 8 historical campaigns or a randomly generated campaign using the random campaign generator. Campaigns in CC:V focus on “one scale up” from standard CC engagements by placing players into the role of Battalion commanders launching a month-long operation. Players will confront issues normally above the scale of Combat Commander such as finding and fixing the enemy, attrition and interdiction of opposing forces, and the impact of military operations on the “village war.” Using a modified version of the standard RSG, the Campaign mode generates engagements relevant to what is occurring on the Campaign display. In other words, the Campaign mode illustrates how the broader goals of each side generates CC scale engagements.

The eight included campaign scenarios were carefully selected and researched to capture the incredible range of variation across factions, regions, and periods highlighted above. From a Marine Operation into the Que Son Valley in I Corps, to ROK operations in II Corps, to ANZACs in Phuoc Tuy of III Corps, and finally the famous Sea Swallows CIDG units in IV Corps—these are only half the included historical campaigns. Like with Combat Commander: Europe, we hope to extend campaign scenarios and mechanisms with future Battle Packs.

Conclusion
On the eve of the 20th Anniversary of Combat Commander and the 50th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, now is the perfect time to revisit the Combat Commander system in the new context of the Vietnam War. Sufficient distance from the war has enabled us to leverage hundreds of sources including memoirs, oral histories, archival research, and translations of accounts in French, Lao, Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese. The various factions of the war are presented on their own terms.

Like with Combat Commander: Europe, we plan to expand Combat Commander: Vietnam beyond the extensive content provided in the base game box. We are working on Battle Packs themed around the Tet Offensive, US Army Divisions, “Wider War,” and an expansion dialing back the clock to the first Indochina War (1945-1954) that offers new maps, counters, and an RSG for the earlier conflict.

Components:

• 24 Scenario Maps on 12 Double-sided 17" x 22" Sheets
• Eight Campaign Maps on Four Double-sided 11.5”x11.5” Sheets
• 410 Cards: (Four 72-card Decks, Two 36-card Decks, One Fate Card, Three Fire Support Cards, Six Reference Cards, 40 Campaign Event Cards)
• 22 Mini-cards (16 Scenario Objectives, Six Campaign Objectives)
• Six and a half Full-color Countersheets
• One 8½" x 22" Track Display
• 10 Player Aid Sheets (Six Two-sided Faction Aid Sheets, One Terrain Chart, One Miscellaneous Aid Sheet, Two Campaign Aid Sheets)
• One 24-page Rules Booklet
• One 52-page Scenarios Booklet
• One 24-page RSG Booklet
• One 3” Box

Time scale: Several minutes per turn
Map scale: 30 meters per hex
Unit scale: Squads, Fire Teams, and Leaders
Game length: 1-3 hours
Players: 1-2

Game Designers: Stephen Rangazas & Non-Breaking Space
Original System Designer: Chad Jensen
Game Developer: Joe Dewhurst
Series Developer: Kai Jensen