BUCKLE FOR YOUR DUST (BD) is authored by Greg McCauley and was published in '96? '97? '98? (no date on the booklet) by Paddy Griffith Associates. In a nice looking glossy booklet, 8 x 12 inches, of 59 pages, McCauley has assembled most of the data you'll want to know about wargaming and weaponry, Viet Nam style. The problem is that the rules themselves are somewhat difficult to dig out in the mass of assembled information. For our test scenarios, we used my collection of 25mm figures which had been gathering dust on my shelves for years... I had picked them up in England years before... and had never generated what I thought would be an appropriate set of rules. The figures came with 'detached heads', which I abhor, because when epoxying the heads on the torsos, there is always an excess of epoxy in the neck area, which gives each of the men the appearance of having a huge goiter problem. BD is a skirmish game, played with single-mounted figures, and wants you to set out 10-man squads for US army forces (Marine squads have 14 men in them). The OOB says that an army rifle platoon has 3 squads, plus a weapons squad, and a platoon HQ of 1 officer and 2 men. I didn't have enough figures for a complete platoon, and so my US army field forces consisted of an abbreviated platoon of 3 squads, each with only 6 men, plus the HQ of the officer and his 2 assistants. I also assigned the platoon a corpsman, a fairly important fellow. The book doesn't detail the makeup of the VC contingents. McCauley speaks of the local guerrillas, the VC Montagnards, the mainforce regional guerrillas, the mainforce regulars, the VC elite, and the North Vietnamese regulars (NVA), but it's hard to pin down unit size. In the end, we dubbed the Bad Guys as the local VC, and gave them 6-man squads. Commies Fred Haub and Jeff Wiltrout volunteered to run the Commies... they had the same number of infantry as I did, but they also had a 2-man RPG team with which to swat my 2 APC's, M113A1. They also volunteered to do all the research in the rules book, leaving me free to take notes. With the VC in position... hidden... my platoon came on the field, the APC's preceding the infantry. My infantry had 2 modes of movement... normal (8 inches), and cautious (5 inches). I chose 'cautious movement', just in case. When we researched the topic, however, 'cautious' movement didn't seem to do anything. The effect of moving cautiously appears to show up when your own unit is trying to observe the enemy... US army units, if they're moving cautiously, and the Bad Guys are over 5 inches away, can observe the enemy on a 10-sided die toss of 5 or more. For normal movement, a toss of 8 or more is required. What's interesting about the observation die roll is that there's no modifier for the terrain in which the enemy is hiding... dense jungle, or behind a wall, or in short grass, or in long grass. There are a couple of observation modifiers, but these pertain solely to target movement... moving targets are more easily seen. Also of interest is the fact that moving cautiously does not affect your probability of hitting the enemy, or his probability of hitting you. The sequence is VC Fire VC Move US Fire US Move I marched on in cautious mode, and after my troops had gone about 24 inches up field from my baseline... they were making for the town of Qing Qong... the Commies opened fire. Since I was in the open, a visibility check for the firing unit was unnecessary... line of sight in the open extends across the table for target units in the open. The firing procedure consisted of two basic steps: First, there's a table telling of how many men in the firing unit will actually fire. McCauley states this decrease in fire effectiveness is due to fear, restricted visibility and, in general, 'friction'. The Commies, for our scenario, were assigned a combat factor of 3, and when we cross-correlated the combat factor (3) with the number of men in the unit (6), the chart told us that 4 of the 6 men fired. If the Commies themselves had been under fire, the number of men firing would have been reduced to 3. In any event, 4 men fired, and each tossed a 10-sided die. Second. We referred to the Direct Fire Table. This is a large multi-parameter chart, taking into account the weapon firing (here, it was assault rifles), the target range, the type of target (stationary in the open, moving in the open, lying in the open, man in hard cover, etc.), and we determined that for each of the 4 dice to be tossed: 1 hit would be scored on a toss of 6, or 7, or 8 2 hits would be scored on a toss of 9 The result was that, from the 4 dice thrown, 2 hits were scored on my leading squad, 2 men were down. Now, given that I had 2 casualties out of my leading squad's initial roster of 6 men, what to do with them? In this low level skirmish game, one might suppose that you'd dice to see which men in the squad of 6 were hit... after all, the same unfortunate fellow might have taken the 2 hits. But the rules are silent on this, and we chose to spread the hits out. Spread the pain and suffering. But to balance this, a hit does not seem to be a kill in BD. At least, there's nothing to indicate so in the text. My 2 men were severely wounded, and I had to use two of the remaining four men in the squad to drag the casualties out of the line of fire and escort them to shelter where the platoon corpsman could work on them. I could med-evac them to safety via helicopter after 3 turns. Unlike the US army, the Commies must drag their wounded off simply to ensure the bodies do not fall into unfriendly hands. The Commies don't care about med-evac services... the text states the casualty will be "treated when and if it is convenient." The Commies then zeroed in on one of my APC's with their RPG team. The 2-man team popped up on a ridge about 15 inches away. Again, because the vehicles were in the open, no observation checks were necessary. BOOM! First, we went to the hit table, which indicated that a toss of 6 or higher on a 10-sided die would be a hit. Second, the die roll was a 7... a hit was scored. Third, we went to the vehicle damage chart, and tossed again. This second toss resulted in a 3, which then gave us a letter code (E) depicting the type of hit on the APC. Fourth, we went to yet another chart where, using the letter code (E) previously obtained, the damage to the APC was detailed, in this case: the tracks, the wheels, and the hull were damaged. Plus one crewmen was hit, and if there had been any troops aboard the APC (there were none), 3 of them would have been hit. Note that in the firing procedure, there would have been a fifth step, taken at the very beginning, if the APC had to be first observed, prior to being fired upon. In all, therefore, not too confusing, but one tends to think there must be a shorter, Better Way. Better Way? The 4-part sequence, which I listed above, is not that clear and simple. For example, when does sighting take place? The text says nothing specific about this, but does give one example. Note that fire takes place before movement... and from the one example given, it appears that a unit 'sights' during its movement phase. Hence, it can't, on its fire phase, both sight in and pop away at a target. In the example given in the text, a unit of Good Guy troops sights in on a VC sniper that has just fired at them. They are successful in their sighting, and the text states that the sniper is "placed on the table, and may be fired upon... in the next fire phase" (emphasis supplied). But note in the sequence that movement follows firing. Hence the VC sniper can fire first on his next turn, and after firing, on his own movement phase, he can be gone before the Good Guys can zero in on him. All of which says it's hard to close with the Bad Guys. A couple of turns later, and my second APC went up in smoke. And my second squad was pretty much shot up, so much so, that the ground was littered with casualty figures... I didn't have enough able-bodied men to drag the wounded to safety. The only man on his feet was my platoon sergeant. Those nasty VC chose this moment to dash out of the woods, and engage in hand-to-hand combat with the sergeant. I assume their thought was that, if the sergeant could be downed, they could mop up the remainder of the bodies lying about. And so 3 VC out of a 6-man squad charged forward into contact. There doesn't seem to be a provision for defensive fire, and the sergeant assumed the karate position, the better to fend off the attackers. With 3 VC's surging forward, this was a 3-on-1 fight, and how is it handled? The text says: "In the case where two or more figures from one side are fighting a single enemy figure, a die is rolled to establish the sequence in which actions are fought out." The text goes on to say that a die is rolled for each combatant, and high score takes it all. And so we interpreted the words to mean that the sergeant had to engage all three VC, one at a time, and whup 'em all. And he did. BANG! WHAM! CRUNCH! Two kicks and one slash, coupled with three high die tosses, and the charging VC were on the ground. The sergeant wasn't even out of breath. The only combat modifier pertinent to the fight was the combat factor of the men concerned. For this scenario, we had assigned the men of both sides a combat factor of 3, hence there were no advantages. I should note there are no morale tests in the rules. But now, flushed with my sergeant's success in combat, and wanting to end my search-and-destroy mission, I brought out a helicopter gunship, the better to spray the enemy force hiding out in Qing Qong. The helicopter did not have to dice to see the target... there they were, in the streets of Qing Qong. Neither aircraft nor helicopters actually 'fly' across the field... you just bring 'em on and plop 'em beside the target. Incidentally, here's where we erred. The aircraft should appear on the movement phase, after firing, which means that they've got to 'hover' during the enemy's firing phase, giving the Bad Guys a chance to shoot. Another source of confusion. The text says to treat air-weapon fire as artillery fire. And in artillery fire, a template is used for indirect fire to determine the impact point of the shell, but the size of the template is not clear. There's a table for 'concentration areas covered by indirect fire weapons'. A mortar section, for example, can concentrate fire on an area measuring 6-inches by 7.5-inches. Does that mean that all men within the affected zone are impacted? Or, having chosen a 'concentration area', do you then go to the template and single out specific figures? Not clear at all. Besides, I thought the helicopter gunship wouldn't employ 'concentration areas' or templates, but would bring down the wrath of the Lord directly on Qing Qong. From the hit chart, we determined that the type of target for the men within Qing Qong was Class D, 'men in hard cover'. Then we went to the impact chart, which told us that a toss of 8 would 'neutralize' a target within the town, while a toss of 9 would kill 'em. For comparison purposes, a man standing in the open was a Class A target, and a toss of 2, 3, 4, or 5 would neutralize him, while 6 or more would kill him. The text gives the gunship 6 machine gun bursts... I assume that means 6 bullets, total. Does that mean that each burst can kill only one man, or can it hit more than one man? Unclear. It would seem that a 6-bullet helicopter gunship with a maximum casualty infliction rate of 6 men, would be fairly impotent, not even worth having around. Luckily, I tossed a 9... and we interpreted this to mean that all the Bad Guys in Qing Qong fell down. My search-and-destroy mission was over. My boys went home, less 2 APC's and a host of wounded men. Back to PW Review December 1998 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com