Back to Indochina

I've owned Warlord's Pacific Theater book for a while and I decided to put it to use, by using the Chinese army list and totally forgetting all the other nifty rules that would have made the game interesting. For this scenario a small force of Vietminh guerrillas has encountered a platoon of paratroopers who are waiting for a column of reinforcements to arrive and extract them. The guerrilla cell has requested assistance from a local force of Giap's regulars.

The militia platoon on the right consisted a 2nd Lieutenant with an extra man regular, a scout team with SMG's veteran, 3 squads of 8 guerrillas with 3 SMGs each inexperienced, a light mortar regular, and a bazooka regular.

The reinforcement platoon on the left consisted of a 1st Lieutenant with 2 extra men one with flag veteran, a 3 man scout team with SMGs veteran, a 10 man X and Y force squad with 2 SMGs and an LMG veteran, 3 rifle squads each with 8 men with 1 SMG and 1 LMG regular, and for support they have a light mortar, bazooka, MMG, and a 75mm recoilless rifle all regular

The French para's who would be holding off the horde has a 1st Lieutenant with an extra man, a medic, 4 squads of 10 paratroops with SMGs and an LMG, a light mortar, and a 75mm recoilless rifle with the entire platoon being veteran. Their relief force is a 1st Lieutenant with an extra man in a bren carrier, a 5 man engineer squad with flamethrower and 2 SMGs in a bren carrier, and 2 squads of 10 "marines" with 2 SMGs and a BAR in a halftrack. Everything is regular.

The French Paras set up in the middle of the table with the guerrillas deploying just outside the outskirts of the village hidden in the jungle in hidden setup.

French infantry keep watch over the jungle, they know something HAS to be out there.

A squad of Para's moves out into the jungle and into contact with the VM scout units

Hearing their comrades being engaged a guerrilla squad launches an assault to try and relieve the pressure  

The guerrillas are killed to a man but at a costly toll for the French squad

The scout units attempt to fight their way out with fists and butt strokes from their weapons 

The guerrilla leader was coming to render assistance

but decided to assault the remainder of the squad in the longhouse

and the French platoon commander

Even with him holding such a precarious position reinforcements are moving up behind him

With plenty of light indirect weapons to cover the assault

Killing medics is against the Geneva convention, butt he guerrilla leader didn't sign the Geneva convention, or even really know what the Geneva convention is. Fortunately for the medic he has no compunctions with killing a man and proceeds to do so accordingly.

The VM wave has started to hit the French positions

The French launch a hasty counter attack and buy some respite

but a second wave hits

By this time the French platoon has suffered over 50% casualties, the survivors regroup by the rice paddies as the sound of engines has started to be heard 

The relief force is making a mad dash to try and extract the stranded platoon

While the main force was engaging the paratroopers several AT teams moved to the most likely avenue of appraoach

The last VM squads are moving in for the kill

The VM make a dash for the house killing several Paras with their sporadic fire on their way

The house won't protect them from the retribution brought by the survivors

French engineers slowly work their way up the road eliminating the AT threats

Having lost almost his entire platoon the VM Lieutenant launches into a charge with his two men in a last ditch effort to take all the paratroopers with him

While several do go down five men from the platoon manage to fall back to the relief column as the VM artillery falls on the village behind them