D Kershaw 2006

Contents:

A. The Game Synopsis: ........................................................................................................ 1
A 1 Game components .................................................................................................... 1
A 2 Game Setup .............................................................................................................. 2
B. Playing a Game Turn........................................................................................................ 2
B 1 Ho-Chi-Minh Trail Grows ........................................................................................... 2
B 2 Attack Ho-Chi-Minh Trail............................................................................................ 2
B 3 Raise/Move Forces.................................................................................................... 3
B 4 Combat ...................................................................................................................... 3
B 5 Place Enemy Units .................................................................................................... 4
B 6 Insurgency................................................................................................................. 4
B 7 NVA/VC Offensive..................................................................................................... 5
B 8 AirCav Redeployment................................................................................................ 5
B 9 Determine Final PP Score for Turn............................................................................ 5
C. Victory ........................................................................................................................... 6
D. Optional Rules............................................................................................................... 6
D 1 Fast Game................................................................................................................. 6
D 2 Extra Allied Commitment ........................................................................................... 6
D 3 Historical Game......................................................................................................... 6
E. Design Notes .................................................................................................................... 7
F. Counters ........................................................................................................................... 8


A. The Game Synopsis:

A solitaire game for one player. The player plays the US/South Vietnam side against a
simulated North Vietnamese enemy. The game takes the assumption that the North
Vietnamese will ultimately win, the players aim is to delay that for as long as possible the
longer the North Vietnamese victory is delayed the better.

A 1 Game components

A game map, showing South Vietnam, divided into five named Regions, each of which has
four Areas. There is also the Ho-Chi-Minh Trail, which consists of six named Areas.

Game counters are as follows:

North Vietnam:
NVA = North Vietnamese Army unit
VC = Viet-Cong infiltrators
Trail = Ho-Chi-Minh trail counter (note that there are extra trail counters for an optional
rule)

US/South Vietnam:
ARVN = South Vietnamese Army unit
Grunt = US Army unit
AirCav = US Air-Mobile Army unit
B52 = US Strategic Airforce unit
Green Beret = Special Forces unit
Napalm = Tactical Airforce unit

There are also game turn and political point (PP) expenditure counters.

The game requires two normal six sided dice to play.

A 2 Game Setup

For each Region: place one VC unit in the 1,2 Area and one ARVN unit in the 3,4 Area.
Place one Trail counter in Hanoi and one Trail counter in Haiphong.
Place the PP counter at 1 and the Turn counter at 1 on their respective tracks.


B. Playing a Game Turn

Place the PP counter at whatever number the turn counter is on.

The following actions are then performed in order once:

1. Ho-Chi-Minh Trail Grows
2. Attack Ho-Chi-Minh Trail with B52s and Green Berets
3. Raise/Move Forces
4. Combat Napalm and Ground Combat
5. Place Enemy Units: NVA and VC
6. Insurgency
7. NVA/VC Offensive
8. AirCav Redeployment
9. Determine Final PP Score for Turn

B 1 Ho-Chi-Minh Trail Grows

Roll two dice & place a trail counter in the correspondingly numbered trail areas. If there is
already a trail counter, do not place an additional one.

B 2 Attack Ho-Chi-Minh Trail

Areas on the Ho-Chi-Minh Trail with Trail counters can be attacked, with the objective of
removing the Trail counters.

Hanoi and Haiphong can only be attacked by B52s. The other Areas can be attacked by
either B52s or Green Berets.

There are two B52 and two Green Beret units. This is the maximum number of attacks that
can be made per turn on the Ho-Chi-Minh Trail (note that one Trail Area may be attacked
more than once).

To attack with a B52:
Place the B52 on the Area being attacked. Increase the PP track by two. Roll a single die
on a roll of 1 to 4, remove the Trail counter, on a roll of 5 or 6 it remains in place.

To attack with a Green Beret:
Place a Green Beret on the Area being attacked. Increase the PP track by one. Roll a single
die on a roll of 1 or 2, remove the Trail counter, on a roll of 3 to 6 it remains in place.

B 3 Raise/Move Forces

Forces can be placed in any Area of any Region, including those occupied by NVA or VC.
There is no limit to the number of units in an Area.

To place ARVN increase PP track by one
To place Grunt increase PP track by two
To place AirCav increase PP track by three

New and existing Grunts and ARVN can be moved to any Area in the same Region.
New and existing Aircav can be moved to any Area in any Region.
New and existing Grunts can be moved to any Area in any Region, at the cost of increasing
the PP track by one.

There is a maximum number of each type of unit that can be on the map at any one time. This
is 10 ARVN, 4 Grunts, 2 AirCav.

B 4 Combat

There are two attacks: Firstly Napalm and then Ground Combat.

Any enemy unit can be attacked with Napalm and as many attacks may be made per turn as
desired. To attack with Napalm, place the Napalm counter on the enemy VC or NVA unit
being attacked. Increase PP track by one. On a roll of 1 to 4, the unit is eliminated.

Ground combat only occurs in Areas that contain both NVA/VC and US/ARVN units. In
Ground Combat, roll a die for each unit involved. The unit scores a hit if it rolls equal to or
less than the following number (cross reference unit with the terrain of the area):

Unit Jungle Paddies Urban
VC 2 1 1
NVA 2 2 2
ARVN 1 2 2
Grunt 3 3 3
AirCav 4 4 4

For each hit, remove a unit - VC are removed before NVA; ARVN are removed before Grunts
which are removed before AirCav.

For each ARVN unit eliminated, add 1 to the PP track
For each Grunt or AirCav unit eliminated, add 2 to the PP track

If there are no remaining units, or units of one side only, then the combat is over. If there are
units of both sides left then the player has the option to retreat to a higher numbered Area
(e.g. from the 3,4 Area to the 5 Area) provided that that Area is free from enemy units. There
is no retreat possible from Area 6. If the player decides not to retreat then repeat the process
until either one side is eliminated or the player decides to retreat.

For example, two ARVN and one AirCav occupy the same 1,2 Area in the Hue Region as one
VC and one NVA this means ground combat will occur. One die is rolled for each unit.

The NVA unit hits on a 1 or 2 and rolls a 2 a hit!
The VC also hits on a 1 or 2 as the Area contains jungle terrain, but the die roll is a 5
miss
The two ARVN hit on a die roll of 1 only in a jungle Area both roll a 3 and miss
The AirCav hits on a 4 or less and rolls a 3, a hit

The NVA/VC have taken one hit (from the AirCav) and remove one unit, which must be the
VC as VC are eliminated before NVA. The US/ARVN have also taken one hit and remove one
unit, which must be one of the ARVN units as they are removed before US units. The player
may decide to retreat at this point or continue they decide to continue. The combat is now
between the remaining NVA unit and the remaining ARVN unit plus the AirCav. In this round
only the NVA scores a hit and the US player removes the remaining ARVN unit. At this point,
rather than risk losing the AirCav in a further round of combat, the US player decides to
retreat (note that the retreat must be to the 3,4 Area, which also must be free of enemy units).
The NVA unit remains in the 1,2 Area.
B 5 Place Enemy Units

There are two unit placements to complete: VC insurgents, and NVA regulars arriving:

1. Roll a single die to determine Region. If a six is rolled for the Region, then there is no
placement. If the Region rolled for contains no US/ARVN forces then roll again to select a
different Region. Upon selecting a Region, roll a second die to determine the Area within
the Region and place a single VC unit in that Area.
2. Each Trail Area corresponds to a Region on the map (shown by arrows). If there is a Trail
counter in a Trail Area, roll a single die and place an NVA in the Area rolled for in the
corresponding Region. For example, there is a Trail counter in Hanoi. Hanoi corresponds
to Hue. The player rolls a single die and gets a 5. One NVA unit is placed in Area 5 of the
Hue Region.

The units are placed irrespective of whether the Area contains existing units of either side or
type. There are no limits to the number of NVA or VC units.

B 6 Insurgency

NVA or VC which are placed in Areas containing enemy forces immediately engage in
combat as described in the Ground Combat section above.



B 7 NVA/VC Offensive

Roll a single die to determine Region. If this Region contains an NVA or VC unit, then an
Offensive is launched in that Region by the North Vietnamese forces:

Move all NVA/VC units from the Area they are presently in to a higher numbered area (if a
unit is in Area 6, move it to Area 1,2). If a unit ends up in the same area as the players
unit(s) then a combat is performed as described in the Ground Combat section above.
Otherwise, repeat the move until NVA/VC are in the same Area as the player. Note that there
is only one combat per Region (except in rare cases where there are 2 Areas with NVA/VC
next to 2 Areas with US/ARVN units).

If the Region does not contain an NVA or VC unit, then there is no offensive this turn.

If a six is rolled, then an Offensive is launched in all Regions that contain an NVA or VC unit.

B 8 AirCav Redeployment

All US AirCav units may move to any Area in any Region that does not contain NVA or VC.

B 9 Determine Final PP Score for Turn

For each Region that contains NVA or VC, but does not contain any other units, increase the
PP track by 2.
For each Region that contains a Players units, but no NVA or VC, decrease the PP track by 1
A region with no units of either side has no effect.

If the PP score is 14 or more, the game is over.

Otherwise, the final PP score will determine how the next turn may be played. Roll a single
die and modify the roll as follows:

PP is 5 or less: -2 to die roll
PP is 6 or 7: -1 to die roll
PP is 8 or 9: No effect on die roll
PP is 10 or 11: +1 to die roll
PP is 12 or 13: +2 to die roll

Modified Die Roll Effect for Next Turn
1 or less Play as normal
2 No B52s allowed
3 No Green Berets allowed
4 No B52s or Green Berets allowed
5 No US units may be raised
6 or more Immediately remove one US unit of any type







C. Victory

Victory is determined by the number of the turn upon which the game ends:

Turn Game Ends Victory Level
1-6 Heavy Defeat Apocalypse Now
7-8 Defeat Hamburger Hill
9-10 Draw Full Metal Jacket
11-12 Victory Good Morning Vietnam
13+ Major Victory Rambo


D. Optional Rules

D 1 Fast Game
The game starts with no trail counters. However, Each Ho-Chi-Minh Trail area can contain up
to two Trail counters, each of which may produce one NVA.

D 2 Extra Allied Commitment
This rule assumes that South Vietnam received far more foreign assistance than it did. Two
Grunt counters may be deployed in any Area free of charge at the start of the game. These
are in addition to the 4 normally allowed, so extra counters will have to be printed.

D 3 Historical Game
In this game, PP is not used. Instead, use the following chart to determine the forces available
each turn & there are no limits on attacks and/or casualties.

Turn ARVN Napalm B52s Insurgents US
1. (1963) 2 1 0 0 None
2. (1964) 2 2 1 0 1 Grunt
3. (1965) 2 2 1 0 2 Grunt, 1 AirCav
4. (1966) 2 2 1 0 3 Grunt, 1 AirCav
5. (1967) 2 2 2 1 4 Grunt, 1 AirCav
6. (1968) 2 2 2 2 4 Grunt, 2 AirCav
7. (1969) 2 2 2 2 4 Grunt, 2 AirCav
8. (1970) 2 2 2 2 3 Grunt , 2 AirCav
9. (1971) 1 2 1 2 1 Grunt, 1 AirCav
10. (1972) 1 2 1 1 1 AirCav
11. (1973) 1 1 0 0 None
12. (1974) 0 1 0 0 None
13. (1975) 0 0 0 0 None
14. (1976) 0 0 0 0 None
15. (1977) 0 0 0 0 None
16. (1978) 0 0 0 0 None

Turn: Indicates the turn number on the turn track each turn also has a year for
historical interest.
ARVN This is the number that may be placed each turn, but only 10 may be on the
map at any one time.
Napalm This is the number of Napalm attacks that may be made in the turn
B52s This is the number of B52 attacks on the Trail that may be made in the turn
Insurgents This is the number of Insurgent attacks on the Trail that may be made in
the turn
US This is the number of US forces that may be on the map. At the start of the turn
place or remove US units so that the total numbers equal the value given in the table.

Victory is determined by how long it is before the Player is reduced to 1 region. Better than
1975 (historical result) is the objective.


E. Design Notes

I decided to make a Solitaire Vietnam game after visiting Vietnam, reading the Vietnam
Historical Atlas and also reading about the war a bit. My pre-education impression was that
the Viet Cong guerrillas were experts at jungle warfare who ambushed the, largely unwilling
US conscripts, thus forcing America out of the war and over-running the country. This is far
from what happened and is an impression that owes more to the assorted movies than any
historical reality. In the real Vietnam War, the VC were ineffective and the NVA out-gunned.
The ARVN were tied to their localities & crumbled if forced out, but US forces rarely lost.

Essentially, the game boils down to this: You do great in the early turns and can pretty much
keep the map clear. But as time drags on, your available PP are increasingly limited and the
NVA/VC can become established. Then an "unlucky" turn finishes the game.

This reflects the real war in that the NVA/VC were almost always beaten in the field. The Tet
Offensive was a military failure and wiped out the VC. The Eastertide Offensive in 1972 (when
most US ground forces had left) was also defeated - largely by US airpower. It was only the
removal of the US airpower support that eventually gave the edge to the NVA/VC in 1975.

So, if the US always won, why did they leave? The answer is political - the cost of the war for
no apparent gain (a defensive war has no gain except survival) eroded support and the US
eventually gave up. Invading North Vietnam would have not been possible with
Chinese/Soviet intervention - as in Korea - very likely, only this time backed up with nuclear
weapons. In sum - the NVA/VC can't lose.

Also, I am perfectly aware that Australians and Koreans also fought in Vietnam. I do not wish
to belittle their impact in the war, but their numbers were not sufficient to justify an extra unit.
The same goes for Chinese/Soviets, who are incorporated into the NVA.

If you have enjoyed this game you may enjoy my other solitaire games, which are:

Barbarossa Solitaire: The player controls the Axis forces invading the USSR in 1941.
Solitaire Caesar: The player controls the forces of Rome from 300BC to 1453AD.