Free World Forces sweep the village of My Lai

For the second time in three days Free world forces attempted to sweep the villages and hamlets west of My Lai.

This time Major Williams had decided to personally oversee the mission following Friday’s media disaster, when Captain May perpetrated what has been described on TV and in the Press as a war crime, due to his indiscriminate shelling and shooting of civilians. His whereabouts are currently unknown, but his career in the US army is decidedly uncertain.

The American platoon decided to adopt a more “hearts and minds” approach, quickly securing and searching three hamlets.

Food caches were located and destroyed. Even when an NVA ambush was encountered whilst searching a hooch, remarkable restraint was displayed in only using small arms fire to retaliate. Eventually however the NVA did enter one of the villages in some numbers and fierce fighting broke out.

Major Williams decided discretion was the better part of valour and called in the artillery to help neutralise the threat. 155mm shells were followed up by a close assault that broke the NVA unit.

Things got even better for the Americans when their two M113 ACAV reinforcements entered the fray rolling up the road and engaging the enemy with 50cal machine gun fire.

The fire was not as effective as hoped but it did mean the Gooks kept their heads down. Comrade Chris finally managed to launch a close assault out of the jungle against the exposed flanks of the M113s. One withdrew into the dense bamboo, leaving the other a burning wreck. Once more the Major turned to the “Red Legs” to save the day. However garbled communications meant a blue-on-blue artillery strike that killed civilians and GIs alike. The second strike was more effective and Comrade Chris’ continued to desert him with poor saves. Cue more dead Gooks.

Meanwhile the two other squads continued a textbook search and destroy mission. They spotted NVA forces in the final village and closed to the edge of the jungle looking out over the paddy fields. Desultory NVA small arms fire was ineffective, and following a round of M16 and M60 fire the squad charged in and overwhelmed the defenders.

Comrade “Chris” looked at the battlefield and conceded victory to the “Yankee Running Dogs”. The body and cache count were deemed a major success by US High Command in Saigon and the operation would be cited for many years as a textbook “search and destroy” operation. A complete contrast to events of a few days before.

A few post-game observations one a new set of rules for us. Easy to say that I enjoyed the game as the victor. However, “The Men of Company B” are quite thought provoking different. When I started gaming Vietnam in the 1980s, most rulesets focussed on the combat albeit trying to recognise it was “different” to say WW2. In this game the real objective isn’t just killing the enemy. It is more subtle. My observation to Chris was that a test of good rules is longevity and a V2 that proves that (a) the author has learnt from feedback and (b) they are popular enough to warrant a second edition.

Simon