Tran approached the American perimeter silently, at a low crouch, his heart pounding in his chest. In the darkness he could dimly make out the tall bunker to his right and the sand bag perimeter in front of him. The fire of the M-60 machine gun on top of the bunker masked the sound of his footsteps. Tran knew he hadn't been spotted since the machine gun wasn't firing anywhere close to him. A moment ago two claymores had been set off at the base of the bunker, narrowly missing him. Suddenly he froze. Up ahead he recognized the outline of an American moving out from behind the bunker and along the perimeter. The figure seemed to look right at Tran without spotting him. Covered in grease and charcoal, Tran was nearly invisible. He waited to see what the American would do. Time was not on Tran's side. He could see the flickering fires inside the compound that told him the other sapper teams were already inside the perimeter. The garrison must be coming to full alert. He also knew that Lieutenant Hieu was crouched near the front corner of the bunker and would toss a satchel charge into the lower firing loop in a few moments. But, most urgent of all, Tran was holding a satchel charge of his own, and the fuse was already burning. The American was standing in his way. Finally the American moved away from the bunker, and Tran knew this was his chance. Throwing caution to the wind he sprinted ahead, over the low wall of sand bags, and around to the back of the bunker just as Hieu's charge went off. His ears ringing, Tran tossed his own satchel charge into the top of the bunker, right on top of the M-60 crew. He didn't wait to see if it would detonate, he was already spinning around to face the American behind him, raising his AK-47. The American's reflexes had been quicker and he got off a burst from his M-16, wounding Tran. As the sapper fell he heard an AK-47 fire nearby, and saw the American go down. Bleeding from a light wound Tran watched Lieutenant Hieu move to the American to make sure he was dead. Tran looked at the smoldering wreckage of the bunker with satisfaction, and for the first time that night thought he might just survive this mission after all. Double Blind System That's a sample of the action I experienced in my first "double blind" game when I participated in Pete English's "Sappers in the Wire!" Vietnam scenario at Cold Warls 2003. The scenario was loosely based on the successful sapper attack on Firebase Mary Ann in 1971 (described in the book Sappers in the Wire: the Life and Death of Firebase Mary Ann by Keith Nolan). The battlefield consisted of a sand bag perimeter in a rough semi-circle anchored by four bunkers. The bunkers were bi-level with a lower section topped by a raised firing position protected by sand bags. A line of barbed wire surrounded the perimeter. Inside the firebase were a supply bunker, a command bunker, a truck, and an APC. Each side had their own copy of the battlefield on which to play the game. Pete had a nice system in place to separate the two sides and maintain the secrecy and surprise that is essential to a double blind game. A tall white sheet extended along the table edge on my right, across the middle of the board, then continued along the left table edge. The sheet was held in place by wooden posts, which were screwed to C-clamps. The rules used were based on Battleground WWII. Spotting was accomplished by placing an index card where you wanted to look. Pete would check to see if there was anything there and roll the dice. Pete handled all the spotting rolls and warned us that, if the rolls were very bad, we might see things that weren't really there. The rules worked effectively. Pete did a good job of creating an intense atmosphere appropriate to the scenario. Sometimes you had to wait a long time for your card to come up, but this just added to the tension. I volunteered to play on the Vietnamese side and found myself commanding Sapper Team Two (three sappers with AK-47s and an unlimited supply of satchel charges). Jim commanded Sapper Team One, and Jerry took charge of Sapper Team Three. Our mission was to infiltrate the base under cover of darkness and cause as much damage as we could. Our primary targets were the command and supply bunker, the vehicles, and any crew served weapons. We were elite, and our morale was 17. As far as missions go it doesn't get much better than that! We immediately began discussing strategy. We considered concentrating our forces so we could overwhelm any resistance we encountered and penetrate the perimeter. However we expected the Americans to have a lot of firepower, and if we were detected while approaching the perimeter it would be better to be spread out. We decide to opt for stealth and send in our sappers individually, spread over a wide front. I waited for my card to come up as my teammates reached the barbed wire safely. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, machine gun fire from the bunker in front of me ripped into the wire right where one of my sappers was planning to cross. When I was able to move two of my sappers made a wide detour of that area, putting my men a move behind the other sappers. We all made it safely through the wire while the Americans continued to sporadically fire at phantoms. Based on the pattern of fire we had a good idea of how the defenders were deployed. There seemed to be M-60 crews on alert in the top bunkers with the rest of the garrison just starting to wake up in the lower bunkers. Best of all there was no fire coming from the perimeter between the bunkers. We all resolved to move right through the perimeter and into the compound without firing if possible. The Americans had all their attention on the kill zone in front of them, and this was not a safe place to linger. The Americans scored their first success of the night when Bunker Two set off a claymore. Although they were aiming for a ghost that wasn't there the blast still managed to kill one of Sapper Team One's men that had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Another member of the team successfully crossed the perimeter and headed for the command bunker. Sapper Team Three sent two men into the compound to attack the supply bunker and vehicles while the third peeled off to attack Bunker Four. A moment later one of my sappers was killed by a burst of M-60 fire from Bunker Three. I realized that I would have to neutralize that bunker. While the defenders continued to pepper the corpse of my man with M-16 and M-60 rounds the rest of my team tiptoed in the other direction. One member of Sapper Team One heard voices as he approached the command bunker. He decided to dash around the bunker and attack from behind. Just his bad luck to run right into a Sergeant who dispatched him with a pistol shot. The Americans began shouting "Sappers in the compound!" So much for the element of surprise, but confusion can be just as useful. A member of Sapper Team Three tossed a charge into the top of Bunker Four, but it was a dud. Before he could try again he was run over by a panicky GI and killed in the ensuing struggle. The other members of his team were deep inside the compound. Suddenly a jeep pulled up behind the supply bunker, just a few yards away from a sapper. The driver called out a challenge. When they didn't receive a satisfactory answer the Americans turned on their headlights. They caught a brief glimpse of the sapper before he tossed a satchel charge into the jeep and disappeared into the darkness. The charge went off, destroying the jeep, killing one American, and routing the other. The third member of Sapper Team Three tossed a charge into the supply bunker but it was a dud. Before he could try a second charge he heard American voices from all around him, converging on his position. He bravely primed another charge and destroyed the bunker before they gunned him down. The surviving member of Sapper Team Three headed for the APC but was forced to retreat under a hail of M-16 fire. He moved toward the truck and saw a machine gun in the back. A juicy target indeed! Before he could destroy it an American soldier, fleeing from Bunker One, spotted him and killed him with his M-16. An American guarding the perimeter had wounded the last member of Sapper Team One. The sapper primed a charge, and then realized he couldn't throw it far enough, and didn't have time to get closer. He threw it with all his might but it landed short. However the blast was large enough to eliminate his adversary. He didn't have time to savor this victory as he was killed my machine gun fire from Bunker Two. At about this time I was finally in position to assault Bunker Three, as described in the opening passage. That left me with the only two surviving sappers, and one of them was wounded. I tossed another satchel charge into Bunker Two for good measure (I thought I saw some survivors in there) and gunned down another American. At this point I had few options. I figured the Americans from the supply bunker would be headed my way in force. Pete decided this was a good time to stop, and both sides joined together to hear Pete describe what had happened. In conclusion this was one of the most interesting and entertaining convention games I can remember. It would have been instructive to hear what the American players thought of the game, especially they guy in charge of Bunker One. We never even got close to that bunker, the guys in there were fighting phantoms the whole game. Back to Table of Contents -- Junior General Report #2 Back to Junior General Report List of Issues Back to MagWeb.com Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by Matt Fritz. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles covering military history and related topics are available at http://www.magweb.com