With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.

#86: LRRP from Fire in the Lake: Insurgency in Vietnam from GMT Games

The COIN Series uses cards in a very different way from other CDG’s. These cards are not necessarily the driver of the action but more assistive to the actions of the players by setting eligibility and also providing powerful events. The Event Cards are more often than not, very powerful. They either give you a continuing bonus on future Operations and Special Activities (as in the case of the volumes that include the various Capabilities) or allow you to take Operations and Special Activities more times that round than you would normally have been able to had you not chosen the Event and more often than not, at no cost! Also, because of the power of the cards and their ties to one or more factions, you can take the Event which allows you a huge advantage, only to see that very powerful Event reversed with the next Event or with a regular Operation. This is very frustrating but is one of the major reasons that I love the card-assisted element of the COIN Series. Today we are going to take a look at the LRRP Event Card.

The LRRP Event Card, with LRRP standing for Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol, allows the US player to place 3 Irregulars outside the South then conduct a free Air Strike, that also allows for the removal of Bases first. Keep in mind that Irregulars are US Special Forces pieces, which are the hexagonal shaped cylinders not ARVN Rangers. “Outside the South” means any Laos or Cambodia Provinces. Seems pretty pedestrian but it is important to note that this card changes the rules when played as normally all other units in a space must be removed before Bases can be removed. A very powerful card that typically will be played by the US player when it comes up. But keep in mind that Air Strikes are a dual edged sword as you get rid of pesky enemy pieces but it will result in shifts of Support/Opposition but can also Degrade the Trail. On the bottom of the card, the text allows the VC or NVA to ambush these LRRP”s and remove 3 Irregulars from the map to Casualties. Then it gives an added benefit of shifting each space these removed Irregulars were in 1 level toward Active Opposition.

A Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol, or LRRP, is a small, well-armed and nimble recon team that is tasked with patrolling deep into enemy territory to identify or destroy key targets and gain recon on the enemy. The concept of scouting forces such as LRRP’s dates back to ancient warfare but also has been used in more modern and contemporary wars such as the French & Indian War where specialized Rangers, such as Rogers’ Rangers, were tasked with raiding Indian settlements, disrupting supply lines and reporting back to command on troop disposition and movement.

In Vietnam, veteran or specially trained forces often augmented with Vietnamese irregulars usually carried out Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols into enemy territory. The Studies and Observation Group (SOG) was the ground element of the US air war against the Ho Chi Minh Trail as illustrated by Project Tiger that spotted for and marked enemy trail activity for elimination by US air assets.

Here is a link to a very interesting summary of an LRRP and its mission on a Vietnam veteran run blog called Boxxer’s Blog: From the seat of a motorcycle: LRRPs: “—doing the impossible for the ungrateful.”

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at Proletarian Revolution from The Republic’s Struggle: Battle for the Republic, Spain 1931-1939 from NAC Wargames.

-Grant

With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.

#78: Hamburger Hill from Fire in the Lake: Insurgency in Vietnam from GMT Games

The COIN Series uses cards in a very different way from other CDG’s. These cards are not necessarily the driver of the action but more assistive to the actions of the players by setting eligibility and also providing powerful events. The Event Cards are more often than not, very powerful. They either give you a continuing bonus on future Operations and Special Activities (as in the case of the volumes that include the various Capabilities) or allow you to take Operations and Special Activities more times that round than you would normally have been able to had you not chosen the Event and more often than not, at no cost! Also, because of the power of the cards and their ties to one or more factions, you can take the Event which allows you a huge advantage, only to see that very powerful Event reversed with the next Event or with a regular Operation. This is very frustrating but is one of the major reasons that I love the card-assisted element of the COIN Series. Today we are going to take a look at the Hamburger Hill Event Card.

But first an aside. Along with the movie Platoon, my introduction to the fierce fighting in the Ashau Valley of Vietnam was mainly from the movie Hamburger Hill starring Dylan McDermott as Lt. Frantz and Courtney Vance as Doc. The images from this movie will be forever burned in my mind and with the recent passing of the anniversary of the battle’s start on May 13th I thought it would be a perfect time to cover this card.

The Hamburger Hill Event Card has a top event and a bottom event, which is the case with all cards found in the decks of COIN Series games. The top event benefits the US/ARVN players while the bottom benefits the NVA/VC players. The top event allows the US player to move 4 US Troop Cubes from any spaces on the board to any Highland space, which are the brown colored regions representing less forgiving elevated terrain and mountainous areas. It then goes onto allow the removal of any NVA or VC base there, even if the base is currently Tunneled. This is a very powerful event as normally moving units requires an Air Lift Special Activity or a Train Operation to place new units into a space. Also, removing a Base, and especially a Tunneled Base, requires multiple turns and a focused approach of Patrol, Sweep and Assault to uncover hiding Insurgent pieces and then to destroy them allowing for a Base to be removed.

The Insurgent half of the event allows them to place a new Tunneled Based into a Highland space as well as remove 3 US Troop Cubes to Casualties. The Casualties Box is where these “dead” cubes are stored until the Coup Round where they will have negative effects on the United States player and then be available again for use in the next turn. This event is very powerful and is a major boon for the Insurgent player in taking control of and maintaining their presence in the Highland Provinces.

I also very much like the historical connection to the Battle of Hamburger Hill and think that the designers did a great job of creating this event with real game effects related to the battle and consequences that are felt from the play of the card. This Hamburger Hill Event is one that will be played by both sides often rather than taking their Operations and Special Activities. The effects are just too efficient and powerful to pass on unless the timing of the game dictates differently.

The Battle of Hamburger Hill was a major battle that lasted from May 13–20, 1969 was fought by United States Army and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces against People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) forces during Operation Apache Snow of the Vietnam War. Though the heavily fortified Hill 937, a ridge of the mountain Dong Ap Bia in central Vietnam near its western border with Laos, had little strategic value, US command ordered its capture by a frontal assault, only to abandon it soon thereafter. The action caused a controversy among both the US armed services and the public back home, and marked a turning point in US involvement in Vietnam.

The battle was primarily an infantry engagement, with the US troops moving up the steeply sloped hill against well-entrenched troops. Attacks were repeatedly repelled by the PAVN defenses. Bad weather also hindered operations. Nevertheless, the Airborne troops took the hill through direct assault with heavy use of artillery and airstrikes, causing extensive casualties to the PAVN forces.

Local Degar tribesmen call the mountain Ap Bia, which means “the mountain of the crouching beast.” Official histories of the engagement refer to it as Hill 937 after the elevation displayed on US Army maps, but the US soldiers who fought there dubbed it “Hamburger Hill,” suggesting that those who fought on the hill were “ground up like hamburger meat.”

The quote was attributed to Sgt. James Spears who said, “Have you ever been inside a hamburger machine? We just got cut to pieces by extremely accurate machine gun fire…”.

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at Culper Ring from Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection from GMT Games.

-Grant