"Two Brothers Fight #4" Topic

All,

1130 Local Time
11 November 1965
Near Tam Ky, 15 miles north of Chu Lai, RVN
Operation Blue Marlin I

Two days ago the boys boarded landing craft, which deposited them at 'Green Beach' about 15 miles north of Chu Lai Airbase yesterday (don't worry, the Corps brought out enough with the nightly resupply helos for everyone to get a couple bites of cake and a warm beer). The squad was now attached to 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, which was working in conjunction with the Vietnamese 2nd Marine Battalion. Once ashore the US Marines peeled left and began pushing southeast between the Song Tam Ky and Song Truong Giang (Song = River), parallel to Route 1, while the Vietnamese Marines were lifted by US Marine helos (yeah, that caused the US grunts a little heartache) west of Route 1, where they begin their sweep to the southeast. The boys walked all day, passing numerous villages and locals, but not seeing a single Viet Cong or hearing a single shot fired. They stopped multiple times to search for weapons caches, boobytraps, even villages that seemed to have 'too much' rice, but nothing of interest was found. As usual, about an hour before sunset the sweep halted and the Marines dug in to their night defensive positions and ate their evening chow. The boys spent a long, uneventful night, including being out together for a couple hours on OP/LP. The next morning the Marines got up, pissed and brushed their teeth, ate morning chow, stomped in their holes, and set off in search of the Viet Cong again.

This morning the squad is walking point, escorting a team of Combat Engineers that are sweeping the road for mines ahead of the tanks and tracks. They've been on the road for five hours already, having started at 0630, but are behind schedule as the Engineers have had to stop and remove several mines already.

North is DOWN, the convoy is moving on the road from northeast (bottom left) to southwest (top right). At bottom right is a tributary of the Truong Giang River, while at top right is a small village, and at top left is a small rise/ridgeline. A couple small rice paddies dot the landscape, as well as patches of thick jungle.

Cpl Little motioned the Combat Engineers to start sweeping again and off they went.

But there it is, contact! From the north side of the river, a rocket pops and comes hissing in!

As an understrength VC squad in the south (bottom left) opens fire on the boys' squad (top center to top right).

Caught on the road, the Marines are having a rough go of it.

Nik (bottom right) gets the Pig thumping away at the VC (top left).

Cpl Little looks as Doc treats the wounded and Griffin gets on the radio to call for MEDEVAC.

To see the whole fight, please check the blog at:
link

Next fight coming soon.

V/R,
Jack

Loving "Chapter IV", Jack!
Maybe it was just closer photography, but your terrain in this one is even better than in the last two. Great narrative and scenario. As your earlier AARs, this one too pretty much
matches an actual action. The "in person" approach makes it up close and personal. Again, great stuff! Thanks again for sharing. Still say this would make a wonderful graphic novel.
Semper Fi!
Sam

Looks like the bug hit this post. Hey Bill, can you fix the credit on the home page so that Jack gets well deserved credit.

Sam,

Thanks man, I appreciate it! Yeah, sometimes I forget to take close-up photos, but I definitely need to, probably need to get a better camera, too. With the added historical details and first-person commentary, it's definitely a more ‘intimate' approach than I've ever taken in my batreps, and it seems to be working ;) It definitely takes a lot longer to write up, but it's worth it, it's been a tremendous amount of fun, and I've almost finished the write ups for all 24 fights in their first tour.

The fights are all occurring during real-life operations, though most of the tabletop fights are not tied to specific real-life firefights. That is not true when we get to the fights against the NVA in Operations Utah and Hastings, where the tabletop fights are very closely tied to real-life firefights, though I'd say they are not meant to be recreations, just representational of a portion of those fights, most of which are company-sized battles. Sometimes it gets pretty hard isolating the battlefield on a single squad; I've done my best, and in some cases I cheated, basically plussing up the squad to the size of an under strength platoon in order to make it feel a bit more ‘right,' hopefully without losing the focus on the boys and their squad mates.

Regarding the graphic novel thing, it looks like Wolf has a line into that, but I don't really know anything about it, and I'm not particularly interested; don't have time, really. Maybe at some point in the future; remember, I'm looking to play out about five of these tours, so I'm plenty busy playing, typing, and painting up more toys to get on the table. So a graphic novel might be cool, but it's gotta wait awhile, unless someone else wants to run with it.

And the bug, eh? I didn't know that, it looks normal on my browser, except it's missing a cross post to the Modern Battle Reports board, which I'd swear I'd done. What do you see?

Anyway, thanks again Sam, and Semper Fidelis.

V/R,
Jack

Tango is credited for the post and it is showing posted on the campaign board. All this is showing on the homepage. The topic is correct and I easily recognized it from your earlier ones.
Hope Wolf catches it and reads.

Ah, gotcha.

And Wolf won't see it, he's only half literate as it is ;)

That's a joke, of course, have you seen the rules he uses? There's 25 pages just for getting out of the track! ;)

He's out on the West Coast, he'll be here in Cali time.

V/R,
Jack

Jack,
Ouch Dude! That would hurt my feelings but fortunately, my DI beat them out of me at Parris Island. I think I lost some brain cells there too

Yes, I plead guilty to the 25-page rules just for getting out of tracks. It was originally 3 lines but for you new millenium Marine Grunts Jack, I had to write it with a crayon in big letters and it took 25 pages.

Bismarck, what did I miss?

Off Topic Announcement: I have eight 3'x5' Marine Corp flags that need a good home. Email me your address at treadheadgames AT gmail. I'll pay postage.

Wolfhag

Wolf,

I don't mind the crayon remarks, I actually find them quite tasty with a dash of sriracha, but New Millennium??? You wound me. Just because you were already in the Corps when I was born, ya decrepit #%$&…

And what did you miss? Fight #4, that's what, go take a gander.

And that's mighty gracious of you regarding the flags, much obliged. I'll shoot you an email.

V/R,
Jack

Ooohh xxxx, here it comes! LOL

oh yeah,,,both of you should have been here back in the Old Corps! Not sure about Wolf, but I definitely can say that to Jack. I can only imagine how the three of us would be sharing a few beers.
Seriously, lads. You must remember Chesty's old quote " Old breed, new breed? There's not a xxxx bit of difference as long as it's the Marine breed."

Wolf,glad you didn't miss Jack's post. Thanks for the offer on the Marine Corps flags. I already have one.

Semper Fi, Brothers!

Sam

Sam,

Yes, indeed, to all of it! ;)

It's kinda funny that I'm the ‘boot' here, at age 47! ;) So when were you in? I was in Oct ‘94 to Dec ‘04. Wolf was in during the mid/late 70s, if I recall correctly.

V/R,
Jack

Hi Jack,
I was in from Jun '67 to Jun '73. So I am indeed Old Corps to both of you. Not all that time was active duty. I only spent two years active including 13 months in Vietnam. The rest was spent in active reserves. Was a Sgt. MOS 2841, ground radio repair. It really hits you when you think…hey that was 54
years ago!

Sam

Sam,

Gotcha man, very cool. Just to make you feel super old, my Dad was there in 68-69 ;) And yeah, even for me, I can't believe it's been sixteen years since I left the Corps.

V/R,
Jack

I was in the college PLC Program in 1971 having passed my pilot's test. Then for personal reasons enlisted in 1972 with an 0311 guarantee. By 1975 there was not much opportunity and morale was pretty low so no reason to stay in. I doubt if I would have made it far as an officer as I had a habit of displaying too much "individual initiative".

My son could have gone to Annapolis but he didn't want to "go over to the dark side" and be a Marine officer. Which was the right decision for him as he has the same problem as I do. He got into SigInt as a field collector working with grunts, spec ops and spooks with a specialty in tracking people with cell phones. At 6'5" with multiple antennas sticking up he made a great target. He's doing cybersecurity now.

Damn, Jack, I'm old enough to be your uncle.

Wolfhag

thought I would elevate the conversation here by bringing in an air force perspective.
your reports are getting better Jack; mediocre now. :) it is impressive that you are focusing on such a small scale for an extended length of time; well done!

cheers

Joe

Wolf – Is that you, Pa? And Sam could be yours, and I could be your son's! It's the circle of life, baby ;) And speaking of cake-eaters/strap-hangers…

Joe – Yes, please complain about the lack of an espresso machine and the sand on the volleyball court having the wrong consistency, tell us the living quarters we occupy on base for four nights out of every month is substandard, we're just dying to hear from the Air Force ;)

Yeah man, it can be difficult to isolate a single squad on the battlefield, so tempting to bring in the rest of the platoon, or even the company, but it would slow things down and pull the focus off the couple Marines I'm trying to follow. I've written up the first 23 fights, can't seem to summon the strength to write the 24th, and I just based up and primed some Vietnamese irregulars for the boys' second tour.

I continue to patiently wait for you to get some more games in and post them…

Speaking of batreps, you guys need to get off this one and head over to fight #5, which I posted last night!

V/R,
Jack

Jack,
I think keeping things at the squad level is perfect for your narrative and keeps it "up close and personal". These have all reflected things from the point of the individual Marines.
It also gives the reader a good taste of what the grunts
went through. Their comments are so much dead on the mark.
And the comments banter is hilarious.

Sam

Sam,

Thanks a bunch man, you're too kind. My goal was certainly to get down to the nitty-gritty, individual troop level, maybe even actually convince the reader to get emotionally attached to the characters, at least the boys.

And it's funny you mention the banter; I'm a little concerned that folks will think it's silly, maybe even childish, and certainly a bit cheesy. But the point is, as I'm sure you recall, these 19 and 20 year old kids actually talk like that. I can remember, as an ‘old man' (a 30 year old Staff Sergeant) in Iraq), rolling my eyes a lot whilst listening to the musings of the non-rates ;) Or even giving the green light to a pack of Lance Corporals and PFCs to go beat the hell out of a Corporal that had bought a slingshot from a local and was using it to torment the platoon using Skittles from the MREs! Gotta love grunts…

V/R,
Jack

Jack,
I want to clarify my comments about the banter. I was talking about the banter here in the TMP posts. The dialogue you have written isn't cheesy at all. Yes, I still remember being one of those 20 year old Lance Corporals. I shook my head when you mentioned being the "old man" 30 year old Staff Sergeant. From the standpoint of a 20 year old, you guys WERE Old Corps.
Funny how perspective changes with age.

Sam

Sam,

Gotcha, and yeah, old Joe and I have been going at it for several years now ;)

And yes, perspective it everything. I turned 27 in Afghanistan, and 30 right before we shipped out for Iraq, was so old. To me that's the biggest thing the movies screw up; they want to make big bucks so they go grab established actors in their mid-30s, then make NCOs and Company-grade officers in their 40s or 50s!

If the world only knew how young the men doing the actual fighting really are…

I'll post the next fight this evening.

V/R,
Jack