One Brain Cell Vietnam Rules

 

One Braincell Vietnam Rules

The rules

The One Brain Cell Vietnam Rules did I find as a wayback-archive on the Miniature Wargaming site. This is the link to it: One Brain Cell Vietnam Rules

The scenario

I've placed this skirmish to the United Nations largest mission in both scale and operational scope during the Congo Crisis 1960-65, when UN troops 'peacekeeping' was more offensive 'peace enforcement' with force.

Situation:

This skirmish is finding place in fictional place of Lumbaya in the early January of 1963, when the UN during operation 'Grand Slam' are turning their attention to the remaining Katangese strongholds in Southern Katanga after after securing the Katangese capitol of Élisabethville.

Place:

Lumbaya is a very small village located 80km south west of Élisabethville, and are made into a stronghold by a small platoon of Katangese Gendarmes. The village is one of several strongholds in the area to trying to hold the UN off while trying to keep the self-proclaimed president Tshombe by power of the self-proclaimed Katanga state.

Forces:

• Katangese:
• 2 rifle-squads each of 10 soldiers, a LMG and and a bazooka/flame thrower. Each squad can operate as 2 fireteams independently. 
• 1 HMG-detachment of 3 soldiers
• 1 sniper
• HQ-section with platoon-leader and 2 medics
• After turn 12: A QRF consisting of 1 truck with a HMG and a section of 10 'veterans' armed with assault rifles, a LMG and a bazooka arrives from the next village. Only if Lumbaya is still held by Katangese forces.
• UN:
• 1 Platoon of 3 rifle-squads each of 8 soldiers and a LMG. The squads can operate independently.
• 1 Light mortar-detachment of  2 soldiers and an observer
• 1 bazooka-detachment of 3 soldiers
• HQ-section with platoon-leader
• 1 Jeep with HMG and 2 soldiers.

• Katangese: To hold the strongpoint of Lumbaya. Can request QRF-support as mentioned in the force-section from turn 12 if still holding whole or part of the strongpoint.
• UN: To take and hold the strongpoint of Lumbya, preferably within 12 turns, and take control on as many Katangese gendarms located there as possible.

AAR

Time:     2 hours and 40 minutes

Turns:    12

Result:   UN withdrawal 

The game started well for the attacking UN-forces. Their mortar started to support the advancing squads...

...and got a direct hit...

...Securing the UN-advancement towards the village:

The mortar had limited fire-range, and wasn't able to follow up the advancement. But it was used for firing smoke-grenades to give the advancing squads cover behind smoke screens so they could advance to hard cover.

When approaching Lumbaya, the UN forces got in range of the Katangese weapons, resulting in loosing their supporting .50 cal. on the Jeep. The advancing squads was actually now without any effective supportive-fire.

That resulted in an effective Katangese halt to the UN advancement. This is how far the UN got before losing men. The UN-loss got higher for each turn and able men had to be used for medevac the disabeled ones.

So in turn 12 the UN-attack came to an definite halt in the outskirts of Lumbaya, as all in the infantry sections was either dead, disabeled, wounded, pinned or busy medevacing their fellow soldiers. There was no other way for the UN to retreat.

2 soldiers medevacing 2 fellow soldiers whom got disabeled during the attack

Pros

• It's simple and can be played with easily available and cheap army men or toy soldiers.
• Rules makes it harder for moving soldiers to shoot in the same turn or hit moving targets.
• Have rules for wounded and disabled soldiers, and disabeed needs medevac.
• Make it harder to take out a softskinn with light infantry weapons than previous rules.
• Have rules for smoke-screens giving cover.
• Morale rules.
• Rules includes different skill-levels in morale and hand-to-hand combat.

Cons

• As given by it's name, these rules are for the Vietnam war. Despite that, I think that these rules can be useful and playable for other scenarios from WWII and onwards.
• Have no rules for pistols, sniper rifles or flamethrowers.
• No "Overwatch-option" letting stationary troops to fire back or stop advancements.
• Short weapon-ranges. 
• This game has many rules to cover effects on fire; pinned, wounded and disabled and many different effects for morale. This goes for each individual soldier in a squad, resulting in some squads might "go in all different directions" after been under fire.

Conclusion

I thought actually that this game was made for 54mm soldiers, but I find the weapon-ranges so limiting that I guess it will be better for smaller scales. Perhaps 28mm or 1:72 scale would be better? When your squads comes under fire there will be a lot of reference-checking to sort out all your individual soldiers effect on the firing or the morale outcome. I don't recommend to have too many squads on the table when the shooting starts. Being so detailed in every aspect of individual soldiers, it's strange that weapons like pistols, sniper-rifles or flamethrowers are not included in the rules.

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