Gooooood Moooorning Viiiieeetnaaaaam!

[Lady Selune]

"Boys, welcome to 'Nam. Now, let's keep things simple for you knuckleheads that only got in because we've been lowering the fuckin' standards recently. We're here on behalf of Royal 'Nam, or South 'Nam. They're backed by our boys back in the States, despite what the fuckin' hippies seem to want. We're against the Commies up North, so surprise surprise, they're called North 'Nam, or Victor Charlie. Victor Charlie don't get along with Willie Pete very much, but that's a different matter altogether. You fuckwits are gonna get dropped in for your first mission against Charlie reaaaal soon. Search and destroy, but we don't do much of the searchin'. Get in there, burn those pretty little thatch huts that the primitive screwheads live in, and get the FUCK out, you here me? Get ready for Huey pickup at 0800 tomorrow morning sharp.

DISMISSED."

---

Get in the mood!

And The War Machine Keeps Turning...

So, I've been playing a lot of Vietnam war games recently, and I finally threw off the shackles of apathy long enough for me to throw this interest check together. Yes, we'll be entering the most infamous war of the past sixty or so years, but don't worry, this won't be a fun little romp through the jungle. If you don't like making characters and developing them, I'd recommend not going for this one, because death and new characters will be extremely common. If you're lucky though, you might get a medievac!

I'm looking for about 5-7 people for a small firesquad, and I would like for people to not get all riled up about the politics of this war. You're a grunt, not a general. Anyone interested?

[GarlandChaos]

Generals gathered in their masseeeeeeeeeeeees...
Just like witches at black masseeeeeeeees
Evil minds that plot destructiooooooooooon...
Sorcerers of death's constructiooooooooooooon

Probably not gonna join myself, but you have my interest. Hope this thing gets off the ground!

[Copperpen]

Hey, if enough people share interest, I'm sure willing to join. Always fun to pry out white phosphorus from your legs.

[Bee]

Interested. I was just in Vietnam :P

[HeySeuss]

Do we have this nailed down to one of the four Corps regions/one of the divisions over there and a year? Also...

@Gunther@idlehands@byrd man

And some music for the mood;

[Lady Selune]

@HeySeuss

To the first one, no, because it'll be a series of generic jungle excursions, search and destroy missions, base R&R and maybe a trip or two to Saigon, but the year'll be '68 or '69.

[Byrd Man]

Ready to rock n' roll.

[Foster]

Oh good, this plot is sliding forwards again.

[Gunther]

I don't know if I have the time, but I'll give it a shot.
Responding to @HeySeuss query.

I appreciate HS's question about the regions and your response to move around Vietnam. The only units that would do that are Super Secret Special Operations units, possibly working directly for MAC-V. Or are we going to do a series of vignettes with different characters each time assigned to different units? I guess what I'm trying to say is, if we are all members of some LRRP team in the 173rd Airborne Brigade (as an example) assigned to Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon. This Brigade would not do operations in other Areas of Operations (AO). The Brigade was a Corps level asset which allowed them to operate in a larger area than a division, but still, they were restricted as to where they would go.

If you are suggesting we write all new characters assigned to different units every time we jump to a different region, sure, that's sounds cool. MAC-V (Military Assistance Command-Vietnam), is the theater command echelon containing the four-star general (William Westmoreland, initialy and later Creighton Abrams) commanding all US Armed forces in Vietnam. They have a unit that is not an entire corps of 50,000+ Joes that could go just about anywhere in Vietnam. That unit is the 5th Special Forces Group. They operate in 8-12 man teams lead by a Captain (đại úy - pronounced Die-Wee), 1st Lieutenant (XO) and a Master Sergeant (NCOIC) and spend most of their time working with indigenous populations (i.e.: the Montagnards) training them how to fight against the NVA and VC. They occasionally were tasked with direct action missions like assassinations or raids.

[HeySeuss]

1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne fought all over too, but that was in 1965-1967. After that, more of the division arrived and they settled in for operations in the Central Highlands, notably the A Shau valley and the infamous Hamburger Hill battle.

Mike Forces operated on a country-wide basis. These were companies of ethnic minorities (Nungs (Ethnic Chinese), Hmong, Cambodians, Montagnards) in Vietnam that were Special Forces-trained and led as strike/relief elements to support other operations. They did search and rescue as well. MACV-SOG also used much smaller groups of SF-led groups of native troops for recon of the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and in Cambodia as well, though the latter was even more hush-hush with only foreign weaponry and without air support if trouble happened.

SEALs tended to keep their operations in the Mekong Delta, where ST-2 was particularly effective. Australians and ROK Marines had a real reputation out there too.

I love the idea of writing new characters for a new scene. Because that would give us the flexibility to play a MACV-SOG element doing a Shining Brass mission in Laos, and then shift to the Battle of Hue in 1968, and then down to the Mekong Delta and up to the Central Highlands. All very different wars, really.

Edit: Also, I loved the movie Bat-21. I'm not sure if it got the same kind of kudos as other movies, but I loved how it portrayed search and rescue crews and the way the operation rolled out. It gave a person a great appreciation for the harrowing nature of CSAR operations and what the helicopter pilots/crew went through in that war. That's a fun idea for a scene.

[Gunther]

Gene Hackman and Danny Glover. That was a good movie, I agree, HeySeuss. I like the use of the Golf Courses to determine direction and distances for each leg of his journey. Wasn't the Mike Force the focus of the John Wayne Movie, Green Berets?

[HeySeuss]

Gene Hackman and Danny Glover. That was a good movie, I agree, HeySeuss. I like the use of the Golf Courses to determine direction and distances for each leg of his journey. Wasn't the Mike Force the focus of the John Wayne Movie, Green Berets?

@Gunther

Yeah. They had the base camps and the Mike forces in that movie, which was a departure from the usual.

[Foster]

I kinda like detachment B-52 of Delta. Something about resorting to treating special-operators like a triple slung load under a huey and the unfortunate consequences when the cargo doesn't quite make it into the straps.
(or the whole list of everything that can go wrong)

Projects Gamma (B-57)* and Sigma (Bravo-5-6)** were also things.

Also, hardest moment to watch of BAT*21:
"I say again, is it the pilot?"

*In 1969, the intellegence-gathering network had been compromised, extensive burn-notice throughout Cambodia... huge rescue-affair and assasination mission ensued. Buzzword that followed in a Senate inquiry: "Terminate with extreme prejudice" / "You have failed me for the last time" > You are in command, Admiral.

Then there's the "Regional/Popular Forces" AKA: "Ruff-Puffs", ARVN militia. Mid-war, the USMC tended to implement a few men per platoon with some success. Despite the average grunt only recieving ten days of training in the vietnamese language (causing plenty of communication barriers, amonst other problems).

-PFs were intended to be purely defensive, having some sort of occupation precluding them from actual deployment, but trained more-or-less as minutemen. This changed for the worse towards the end of the war.
-RFs were closer to 3rd-line national-gaurd with WW2 era equipment and scavenged stuff, patroling rear areas "of strategic importance" (such as some wealthy landowner rubber-plantation).

How they were treated by the VC is pretty straightforward.

[HeySeuss]

Watching Full Metal Jacket again. Had an uncle that was in Vietnam was a Marine during late '67-early 1968. He was an M-60 gunner that fought in Hue.

[Foster]

Oh, and this is a thing that happened.

NYC to Vietnam beer-run, 1968.

[Gunther]

Yea, I watched that video a month or so ago. That was pretty ballsy going to Vietnam during the war as a Civilian.

[Lady Selune]

>The moment when your knowledge is completely blown out of the water and your history dick seems really really tiny.

Well shit, you guys should just GM this.

[Foster]

>The moment when your knowledge is completely blown out of the water and your history dick seems really really tiny.

Well shit, you guys should just GM this.

@Lady Selune

I've had decades to study and interview people on the subject. Everyone from mech-infantry, LOACH-pilots, paymasters, and coast gaurdsmen, to fighter stick jockies and pig-gunners.
-I've been told it gets annoying when I try getting into the specifics, as some of them had the luck of Jack Lucas and John Ripley.

>That moment you you realize your birthdate is closer to the Vietnam war than it is to today.
-By nearly a decade

[HeySeuss]

>The moment when your knowledge is completely blown out of the water and your history dick seems really really tiny.

Well shit, you guys should just GM this.

@Lady Selune

We all -liked the idea- and signed on. That means being supportive. If you want, we could have a different GM per scenario? Or you can just run it and we can support you here.

[AlShayatin]

HA! Ill just play SpetsNaz, GRU, KGB or SVR...Unless you need less red.