casualties may have been higher than they needed to be. It took some off-line study to learn that, while successful, the U.S. What I do think is this – full appreciation for these eight (individual) scenarios requires some background reading. Is taking 6 turns of small losses while finding a better position superior to taking 2 turns of large losses in a frontal assault? My gut says no but I’m not patient enough to grind through a rigorous analysis. These scenarios (even the longer ones) are short enough that trying to maneuver outside of the sight and range of the enemy is generally not feasible. As I’ve discussed before aplenty, I’m just not sure it works at this scale. The path to victory, assuming there is one, would be to use maneuver and flanking to improve upon the frontal assault tactics that come naturally in this game and were criticized historically. Is figuring out how to squeeze out an unlikely victory going to be fun for me? Consider that I’ve never quite mastered the terrain in this engine, a shortcoming that surely hobbles my ability to optimize tactics. I’d prefer to blame large losses in a tactical encounter on mistakes or omissions at the operational levels rather than insufficiently-optimized tactics. I am not sure I’m fully on board with the latter. The player is both shown why the assaults were difficult and, perhaps, is challenged to optimize his use of forces and the rules of the game to obtain a cleaner victory. Each of the four fights at Dai Do were U.S. One such lesson involves the critique that the Marines used blunt-force, frontal assaults where they should have used more finesse. – The Marines used an amphibious operation to cross the river and move in on NVA positions I’ve speculated that this is done as a kind of “lesson” an attempt to teach how a battle historically developed in a way that can encompass factors that are too big for the Squad Battles engine to handle at one go. The initial fights, namely The Battle of Dai Do – Parts 1 & 2, start small with limited engagements (turn duration, map size, and unit availability) but then the scope grows as you work your way through. Instead, I’d say that the Dai Do and Nhi Ha scenario sets exemplify much of what I’ve talked about in earlier posts. All that scripting, new weapons, innovative maps? Don’t look for it here. Everything about it is a little behind what we might expect, especially coming fresh from House to House. But remember that the Squad Battles: Vietnam product was the first of the Squad Battles series. It’s a bit of shift, especially sine I was crowing how well that last group of scenarios were crafted. The best defense is a good offense.įollowing the last of the major Squad Battles: Tour of Duty projects and the announcement of more and better Squad Battles to come, we return back to the software’s beginning. – The 320th PAVN is near Dai Do, about to assault Dong Ha. I didn’t find anything, but if you stay tuned until the end of this, I’ll give you an update. You can see, in the below screenshot, the units being moved into position. A joint Marine/Army force, called “Task Force Robbie,” was dispatched to locate and eliminate the threat. command learned of an attack on the forward command post at Dong Ha. Just in advance of Saigon’s so-called “mini-Tet,” the U.S. Spring 1968 is a little more active… more units are available and the missions tend to be more decisive.Īs the first month (April) wraps up, VCO alerts me to a battle that is featured in Squad Battles. All around, the rhythm of the game is back to what I was used to from volumes 1-6. As shown above, the situation around Tet is just as I left it at the end of Volume 7 but now with an assigned mission to lift the siege on Turn 1. I was also right to sit tight * regarding Khe Sahn. – Khe Sanh is still under siege but the cavalry (literally – the 1st Cav. It’s a comfort in their familiarity but, once again, getting myself out of the “draw” zone is probably going to be impossible. Those big victory locations just across the border have returned. See here for the previous post in the series or return to the master post.Īfter wrapping up Volume 7 and starting Volume 8, several of my speculations from last time around turned out to be accurate.įirst off, as I kick off another round I can see the scoring has returned to normal. This is the hundred-twenty-seventh in a series of posts on the Vietnam War.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |