"Gaming France in Vietnam ?" Topic

Anyone gaming the first Indochina war ?

Rules? Minis ? (mostly after 15mm here)
Skirmish or larger battles ?

What sort of equipment are we looking at for Vietnamese and French respectively? WW2 or later stuff ?

I've run games in French Indo-China many times in both 20mm and 15mm.

Rules: I've used Battlefront, but didn't really like them that much. Now I use I Ain't Been Shot, Mum available from Two Fat Lardies.

For 15mm I've used W.W. II Americans for French (most of the equipment was US). For the Viet-Minh I used Peter Pig Vietnam line.

In 20mm, Liberation Miniatures makes a GREAT line of figures for French Indo-China.

With 15mm the close detail is not that important. In 20mm you can see that the SMG is a MAT-49.

Most of the battles I've done have been company level or platoon level. I did go crazy a few years ago and run a huge Dien Bien Phu game with about 1,000 figures, but I received medical help and don't do that any more.

On the subject of equipment it is very easy.

Viet-Minh forces were almost all infantry w/ mortars or off board artillery.

French Forces were American W.W. II stuff. The most common were:

M-24 tank
M-3 half-track
2 1/2 ton trucks
3/4 ton weapons carriers
jeeps
M-8 and M-20 armored cars
amphib weasels
some LVT's

There were even M-4 Shermans and M-10 / M-18 tank destroyers.

Hope this helps you in gaming a very interesting and under played period of 20th Century combat.

Thank you Oddball, very good information. Which WWII US miniatures did you use for the French? Marines or Army? Pacific Theatre, I guess.

Eureka miniatures are producing a line for the period under the 300 club whihc should be available soon (I shall certainly be investing when Fighting 15's carry the line.

There is a picture here
link

Or check out the forum posts

here
link

If anyone from Fighting 15's/Eureka is looking at these posts I'd be interested in an estimate on when these ranges will be available.

I use 15mm for the war. For the French I use a mixture of WWII US troops (paratroopers & US marines) along with some British Commonwealth figures (14th Army, Pacific theatre Australians, a few paras, some 8th Army type figures) & now the Eureka 300 Club figures which will hopefully be on general release soon (and you can tell their MAT49 from other SMGs!). Opposition is from Peter Pigs VC, QRFs Viet Minh & Eurekas new VM range. I'm planning on adding the odd Japanese figure too as there were a fair number of Japanese deserters fighting with the VM, at least in the earlier years of the conflict.

Equipmentwise there's not much that isn't available in 15mm except the Coventry Armoured car, Bearcat fighter bomber & some of the landing craft.

There are a number of variant rules around, as listed over on the 'Indochine' website linked to elsewhere. I'm partial to the IABSM variant provided there personally. Cold War Commander is another good set of rules which covers Indochina, and which would suit larger scale (battalion sized) actions. Lists are provided in the CWC rulebook.

Check on the Fields Of FIre forum, there are some guys there that play Indochina games, really goo reads of their AARs too!

I play it using 10mm Pendraken stuff, they have specific VietMinh figures and French paratroops etc.

This site link contains information you might find helpful if you're interested in gaming the French & Viet Minh. Kevin

Check out the Vietnam/Modern expansion for our rules, Guts 'N Glory. Two of the scenarios in that set are French versus Vietminh. The expansion covers the Vietnam war from the French period through to the American involvement, as well as scenarios for Russia versus the Mujahideen and the US forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

gutsnglory.org

Thanks guys!

Lots played here : link – Mostly played with Lardies' rules and a club home grown set.

Oddball gave a pretty good list of the equipment used. I have also seen pics of an FFL Cav unit with M5 Stuarts. The French refered to the M-29 Weasels as Crabs and the larger LVTs as Alligators. And again, the French were using mostly WWII US weapons and equipment. Along with their own standard small arms, the MAT-49 Submachineguns and MAS-49 Bolt Actions. I have seen Bren Guns in French units too.

Also Sten guns, SMLEs & Thompson SMGs. In short a little bit of everything.