Round 2

Current Event: LRRP US VC ARVN NVA

On Deck Event: Coup! Nguyen Cao Ky

The first event is LRRP. This is the background the game gives on this event:

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 or 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 prosecution by US air assets.

As the next event is a Coup! that means that a monsoon is in effect.

The US is up next, and what does it do?

= US Start Turn =

Consulting the Eligibility Table we can see that the US does not play its pivotal event, so we move on to checking if it will play the LRRP event. It will only do this if the event is critical to the US and effective. However the US does not care about this event, and so skips it. The next eligible is me, the VC, and I could choose a critical event (LLRP is critical to the Viet Cong) and so the US will play an Op only round, blocking me from being able to play the event.

But which Operation will the US perform?

To the Trung cards!

  • Draw Trung card US-D:
    • 2 or more spaces with Support and Underground Guerrillas? ❌
  • Draw Trung card US-C:
    • COIN-controlled Pop + Patronage >= 42? ❌
  • Draw Trung card US-B:
    • Any 2+ Pop space not at Active Support has COIN Control and US pieces? ✅
    • US pieces in any space with 4+ NVA Troops or vulnerable Base? ❌
    • FLIP CARD
  • Flipped Trung Card US-BB:
    • All LoC routes from Can Tho to Hue blocked and shaded M-48 is not in effect? ❌
    • Sweep, but that is ineffective
  • Draw Trung card US-A:
    • Any 2+ Pop space not at Active Support has COIN Control and US pieces? ✅
    • US pieces in any space with 4+ NVA Troops or vulnerable Base? ❌
    • FLIP CARD
  • Flipped Trung Card US-AA:
    • Train Operation ✅

US Train Operation

  • Train in Pleiku-Darlac

    • Place 3 x ARVN Troops
    • Place 3 x ARVN Police
    • COIN Control added
    • COIN Control plus Patronage goes from 41 to 42
    • Activation roll against a 3 = 6 ✅

  • Train in Saigon

    • Place 2 x ARVN Rangers

  • Train in Quang Tri-Thua Thien

    • Place 2 x US Irregulars
    • COIN Control added
    • COIN Control plus Patronage goes from 42 to 44

  • Train in Binh Din

    • Place 1 x US Irregular

  • Saigon selected to transfer Patronage to ARVN resources

    • Decrease Patronage by 3 to 18
    • COIN Control plus Patronage goes from 44 to 41

= US End Turn =

Ok so the ARVN have arrived in force into Pleiku-Darlac, likely worried about any creeping VCs and may have received reports of NVA build-up along the Laos and Cambodian border? They’ve also decided to place the ARVN special forces into Saigon, and are attempting to hunt down some VCs in the mountains around Hue and Kontum. Makes sense to me!

So what will the VC do to further their goal? The plan is to win through getting out more bases and increasing the total opposition in the provinces (might be a bit difficult to achieve that in the cities). So, really, the VC aren’t too bothered about whether something is COIN Controlled or not, as that is irrelevant to their goals. They are more about the hearts and minds of the people.

The trouble is the US have blocked me from being able to do anything good. Urgh. I am stuck with a Limited Operation.

= VC Start Turn =

I guess I should rally in the south where there is already a lot of opposition, so I chose Tay Ninh and placed 3 guerrillas.

This moves my resources down to 4.

= VC End Turn =

What an underwhelming start for the Viet Cong! And I waited three turns for it, too.

Oh well, a Coup is occurring next, so stay tuned.

Oops

Well, after 40 turns the application I was using to maintain the game state (not written by me) seemed to have got confused. It was reflecting a totally different state from what was on my physical board. Considering I was only moving pieces based on what the app was telling me to move, it makes no sense that the physical board would contain pieces that the app had no knowledge of telling me to move.

I was winning, too.

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2nd December 2025