VENETIC

The Battle of Ấp Bắc

2 January 1963

Early on the morning of 2 January 1963, ARVN forces and their US advisors converge on the village of Ấp Bắc in response to a VC radio transmitter located there.

The village appears empty - the locals have been warned of the impending assault by the VC, who are monitoring South Vietnamese radio transmissions. Stay-behinds include a company of the veteran VC 261st Regional Battalion, and members of the village’s VC Local Force unit. They are in concealed positions, awaiting the impending assault.

The village stands on a long strip of raised ground in-between two broad expanses of paddy fields which are muddy and wet but empty.

South of the village, the strip of land forms a dog’s leg, extending out into a peninsula.

Beyond the peninsula the only cover is offered by paddy field berms, providing good fields of fire for the defenders.

At 7.45 am, a company of South Vietnamese Regional Force troops approaches Ấp Bắc. Their commander, seeing these wide open approaches, decides to halt behind a long berm several hundred metres away from the village and wait, taking up a blocking position.

Not feeling pressed to assault, the company commander calls for breakfast to be prepared, and soon the unit is cooking.

Not overly impressed with this, John Paul Vann, the senior US advisor, flying high overhead in a Cessna Bird Dog, spends the next two and a half hours trying to get this company to attack, but is given the run-around. The company commander refuses to move unless he has direct orders from his superior, the Province Chief.

So very little is happening until 10.20 am, when an airmobile ARVN company in US Shawnee helicopters, escorted by UH-1B gunships, arrive on the scene, fly over the South Vietnamese Regional Force company’s position.

With the Hueys providing cover, the Flying Bananas begin landing, with the LZ being dangerously close to the peninsula.

ARVN troops begin debussing.

The US pilots do not stick around. Soon the first wave of Shawnees is taking off to make room for the second wave at the LZ.

The company commander is among the last troops to land.

The last of the Flying Bananas exit the LZ.

The US helicopter gunship support follows them out, being under orders not to stick around. VC are known to be holding the peninsula.

By around 11 am, the South Vietnamese troops are positioned in two lines. At the rear is the Regional Force company, whose commander is still refusing to move forward, with the ARVN airmobile company successfully deployed in front of them.

Their arrival has not gone unnoticed. The VC start dropping 60 mm mortar rounds on the airmobile company.

The airmobile company is showing itself to be in no hurry to move forward either, preferring the meagre shelter of the paddy berm rather than moving forward to take a less exposed position on the peninsula. John Paul Vann, overhead, spends the next two hours swearing into his radio, trying in vain to get the commanders of this and the other company to move forward.

At 1.40 pm, after much delay, an ARVN mechanised rifle squadron arrives, urged on by a US advisor on the ground; Captain James Scanlon.

They move past the position of the Regional Force company, which still refuses to move, and on to the position of the airmobile company.

There, they form up in line.

Captain Scanlon, wanting them to move forward and assault, gets out of the flamethrower M113 he is riding in to try and put pressure on the ARVN commander in person.

He is barely out of the vehicle when the VC start raining down 60 mm mortar rounds on the M113s. A lucky round lands through an open hatch and knocks out the end vehicle.

The M113’s crew is killed but the soldiers inside manage to get out.

Not wanting to get caught in this mortar fire, the ARVN airmobile company’s commander decides to attack the peninsula.

Local Force VC are waiting for them and open fire.

The ARVN airmobile company takes its first losses as it comes under heavy, sustained fire from various elderly but accurate weapons.

Caught in the open, the company starts falling like nine-pins.

ARVN BAR teams return fire.

The VC receive their first casualties.

Another VC stand is pinned down.

Then the VC return fire. One BAR team is suppressed.

And is then killed.

The other BAR team is suppressed and the fire keeps coming - the whole company is caught in the open.

Behind them the ARVN mechanised rifle squadron sits doing nothing. Captain Scanlon is still trying to get them to take action.

The VC Local Force continue pouring fire into the exposed ARVN airmobile company.

First one stand is suppressed, and then the whole company starts going down.

Within twenty minutes, most of the company is wiped out.

To their left rear, Captain Scanlon has finally managed to rally the ARVN mechanised company and they are taking up positions.

Before they can roll out, another lucky 60 mm mortar round lands in another M113 hatch.

The surviving passengers scramble out of the vehicle.

Not wanting to lose more men from lucky mortar shots, the ARVN mechanised squadron commander orders all his men to get out of the remaining M113s.

They take up position along the berm, and then the remaining M113s and the BARs start pouring machine gun fire into the peninsula.

Being in concealed positions is not enough to protect the Local Force VC from such heavy, sustained fire. They take more casualties.

Some die-hard VC nonetheless manage to survive.

Then the VC 60 mm mortar opens up again, landing a stream of shells on the ARVN mechanised squadron.

Captain Scanlon mounts up in the flamethrower M113.

Meanwhile, the ARVN airmobile company commander starts opening fire on the VC on the peninsula, with effective results.

Soon, most of the remaining VC are either pinned or suppressed.

The VC manage to rally and return fire, pinning the company commander.

The ARVN M113s and the BARs alongside them then start targeting the remaining VC.

The VC Local Force is shattered under the accurate machine gun fire.

Keeping their heads well down, the VC Local Force commander and his commissar are debating whether to withdraw.

The M113s and BARs then stop firing....

Captain Scanlon is advancing in the flamethrower M113 to finish off the VC.

After clearing the first stretch of bank, they move on to where the other remaining VC are.

The bush is cleared.

More of the mechanised squadron move forward on foot, with the remaining two M113s providing cover as they advance across the open ground.

It has been a painfully slow advance. It is already late afternoon and the ground troops are not even close to Ấp Bắc.

While all this has been going on, VNAF Skyraiders have been ineffectually strafing and bombing Ấp Bắc, heedless of the fact that the VC defenders are not actually in any of the houses.

With nightfall coming soon, the ARVN forces are going to have to move very fast to take the village before the VC slip away under cover of darkness.

Particularly as they have not advanced any further than the end of the peninsula.

They do however finally manage to spot the VC forward observer who has been bringing down mortar fire on them.

He is eliminated and they advance onwards, into the bush.

The remainder of the unit advances in line behind them to catch any VC survivors who might make a run for it across the paddy fields.

Captain Scanlon, in the flamethrower M113, is feeling confident that they have cracked the VC defences wide open.

It is not to be however. A VC HMG opens up on one of the M113s.

The M113 takes serious damage from the HMG, with the crew being killed as they try and bale out.

It then turns to rake the side of the next M113 with fire, its calibre being sufficiient to penetrate the vehicle’s side armour.

A lucky hit knocks out the M113.

Following which, more VC open up from concealed positions, forcing the ARVN troops to go to ground. So much for the VC flank being cracked wide open... The ARVN mechanised squadron’s advance has been stalled again and, with all but one of their M113s now knocked out, it is going to be a slow, hard slog to take the peninsula, let alone Ấp Bắc. It is clear that there is no point in continuing, and the Free World commander throws in the towel.

At this point it is 6.00 pm, and nightfall will be arriving just after 7 pm. John Paul Vann, circling overhead in his Bird Dog, is by now screaming expletives in an attempt to get the South Vietnamese Regional Forces commander to move his company forward, but they sit resolutely on the start line they never left. VNAF Skyraiders may continue to intermittently strafe and bomb Ấp Bắc, but it will be to no great effect, as their pilots are fixated with targeting empty hooches and refuse to heed Vann’s pleas to bomb elsewhere.

It has been a dismal day for the Free World player, with the same command and control problems encountered in real life proving insurmountable. In spite of theoretically having overwhelming numerical superiority, air mobility, air power, and AFVs, it has all been to no avail. In the absence of a clear, centralised chain of command, he has been unable to bring his forces to bear in any co-ordinated manner. He has also lost over a company’s worth of troops.

The VC, in spite of having no anti-tank weapons, have managed to knock out four M113s, and they will have no trouble withdrawing as nightfall comes, meaning they have fulfilled the game’s victory conditions: Inflict heavy losses on the Puppet Régime troops and their Yankee advisors, hold the village until nightfall, and then withdraw under cover of darkness.

The only miracle was that the VC commander chose not to open fire on the US helicopters as they came into an LZ that was dangerously exposed to VC positions. The helicopter turkey shoot that occurred in real life did not happen on the tabletop. It was a calculated risk on the VC commander’s part, but he chose not to expose his concealed ground positions to the helicopter gunships, knowing they would be raked with rocket and machine gun fire.

Ấp Bắc proved to be a very tough nut to crack. Instead of the frontal assault made directly on Ấp Bắc, which failed disastrously in real life, the Free World commander was hoping that a flank assault on the peninsula would prove the key to breaking the VC defences. This clever tabletop plan also failed.