Nam Nam Nam Nam!

[dmakatra]

Everyone know SEB Nam Pack 2 right? Everybody loves SEB Nam Pack 2 right? Everybody of you military freaks wanna help me with my Nam problem right?

In SEB Nam Pack 2 there's a few different military directions; LRRP, Marines, Army, Air Cav, SEAL, MFR and SF. Now, I kinda know what these groups specialize in, but not exactly. And as I'm a history freak and want everything historicly correct I don't want to mix 'em up. So I was wondering if anybody knows where I can find some information (or maybe write some, *hint* ) about these groups? Not just like 2 rows like "Army that's em dudes that kill people and then the Air Cav comes and mop up Charlie at the LZs and then the Marines are all like, 'we're badass' and the SF is like wow weirdo."? That would be cool.

Thanks!

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

[Dubieman]

Well the army was the main land force I'm pretty sure. You know, they go out on romps through the jungle to just meet and greet the enemy.

Air cav is basically what its name is, kinda like the army but using helis as transportation and protection. Kinda like our Deltas and Rangers fastroping from a MH60 , take the obj and get out on their birds. The air cav are like that, except no fastrope...

Seals: Navy Branch of amphibious troops?

Marines: Army branch of amphibious troops? frogmen. ;D

LRRP & MFR what are they, cause I dunno?

SF your fav wacked ppl. specializing in those missions behind enemy lines, days in the jungle doin every imaginable thing. Amphibous, land, air cav stuff, spotting, and recon. Weirdos for a reason.

That's pretty much what I know/made up. Mainly truth but I could be wrong.

[dmakatra]

I have a question. I'm using the SEB Ia Drang Valley. Would you use marines or army soldiers for taking an island of that size? I mean, marines take care of islands if I'm not misstaking, but Ia Drang is a big island. Maybe both?

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

[barry_the_baldy]

It goes:

Army:

Ground pounders primarily used to take and hold objectives, engage the enemy etc etc. They basically do it all. The ones who do the hard yards.

Air Cavalry:

Primarily a 'seek and destroy' quick reaction force. If a large group of VC/NVA were spotted it generally took the regular army units too long to get there and the Air force was useless in thick scrub so Air Cav would be deployed.

Marines:

Troops specialising in amphibious ops but are also used in regular combat roles. Higher standard of training compared to the army.

SEALS:

Formed during Vietnam and trained in guerilla tactics. They basically took the 'fight fire with fire' approach to fighting the VC. Special forces group who could be deployed VIA Sea, Air or Land (Hence SEALS). Primarily conducted hit and run, harrasing attacks behind enemy lines.

MFR:

Marine Force Recon. I'm not 100% up to scratch on what they did but I'm pretty sure they were a recon commando unit.

LRRP:

Again not 100% but pretty sure they were the Long Range Reconnisance Patrol. Kept an eye on enemy movements and located targets far behind enemy lines, normally stayed out for days on end.

Hope that helps.

And to answer your question, the army and marines would be used to secure something the size of Ia Drang. Marines would secure a landing zone then army and marines together would move in with armour etc.

[General Barron]

I'm not really the most knowledgable person on 'Nam, but I'll try to give some info...

The Army is, well, what you think of when you think the word "army". They're job is to work on the ground... although they also have their own aircraft to support them.

Aircav is just a division of the army; just like the 101st or the 82nd airborne are divisions of the army. I think there were a few different Aircav divisions, but I'm not certain. Anyway, I'm not exactly sure how their mission differed from the rest of the Army's mission, really, aside from flying in on helocopters... But regular Army and Marines flew into LZ's on helos as well, so again, I don't know what exactly Aircav was tasked with. I do know the unit in "We Were Soldiers" was aircav, but that doesn't really help.

Seals are the Navy's special forces. Their job is to do covert ops for the Navy, like clearing obstacles from enemy beaches, securing enemy boats, killing terrorists on oilrigs, yadda yadda. Again, I'm not really big on Nam history, so I couldn't tell you what the Seals did in Nam.

The Marines basically do the same thing as the Army (fight on the ground), only they do it better . But seriously... historically, Marines were the guys on ships who would shoot rifles/muskets at the guys on the other ship, and who would also board the other ship for some hand-to-hand fighting. Later on Marines were used to do fighting on land, after being dropped off of their ships. In more modern times, the Marines have been used pretty much the same as the Army, only the Marines specialize in amphibious landings. Also, the Marines are the first ones into a hot country, because there are always "floats" of Marines sailing around the ocean, who can be deployed into a country in some 72 hours.

But like I said, the Marines are used for the same kinds of missions as the Army (not JUST amphibious landings). The Marines are technically a department of the Navy (the men's department), but they are considered one of the branches of the military (Army, Navy, Airforce, Marine Corps, Coast Guard). The MC is smaller than the army (less than a third the size?), but is generally better trained, due to higher standards. In the Iraq war, there was basically a 2-pronged assault out of Kuwait: the Army drove through the desert kinda westward to Bagdad, while the Marines drove straight up the main freeway, fighting from town to town.

In Nam, the Marines were in charge of certain areas of the country, while the Army was in charge of other areas. I'm pretty sure that the battle of Ia Drang valley was fought by the Army, but there may have been some Marine activity in the region at different times. Oh yeah, the events in "We Were Soldiers" took place in a part of Ia Drang as well. Some famous battles fought by the Marines include the seige at Khe Sanh, the battle for ancient Hue city, and the landing at De'nang (not really a battle, but it was where the first US combat forces came to Vietnam).

I don't really know about the rest. I don't know what LRRP stands for, but my guess would be "Long Range Recon Patrol". No idea bout MFR though... SF I would think stands for "Special Forces", but I don't know WHICH special forces it refers to (Rangers? Seals? Marine Recon? PJ's? Delta Force (don't think it existed then...)? Green Berets?). Each of these special forces has different missions, and each of them is a part of one of the branches of the military (Rangers -> army, Seals -> Navy, etc). Green Berets are noteworthy though, as far as Nam goes. They would basically operate alone, and would be inserted into some village. There they would train local Vietnamese and conduct offensive/defensive operations against the Vietcong (North Vietnamese guerillas). The movie "Apocalypse Now" is about one of these guys.

There are about a million books on the Vietnam war out there, but I wouldn't know which ones to refer you to. I started reading a book called "Semper Fi Vietnam", which basically covers everything the Marines did in 'Nam, but I put it down now that school started.

[General Barron]

I have a question. I'm using the SEB Ia Drang Valley. Would you use marines or army soldiers for taking an island of that size? I mean, marines take care of islands if I'm not misstaking, but Ia Drang is a big island. Maybe both?

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

Keep in mind that in reality, Ia Drang Valley is a huge expanse of land in the middle of South Vietnam, not an island. But if it were an island, the whole thing could easily be dealt with by the Marines, and most likely would be. Keep in mind that all OFP islands are tiny compared to real islands... the only comparison I can think of is Iwo Jima, which was roughly 7km x 4km. But most other islands the Marines took in WWII were much larger, while the largest OFP island is what, like 32x32 km?

[Blip]

Hey All-

Just thought I would confirm a few things.

LRRP does stand for "Long Range Recon Patrol" and these guys were your basic Army Ranger types.  In fact, the LRRP units are still around.  

MFR definitely stands for Marine Force Recon.  These guys were very similar to SEALs, just a little less specialized in the water.

SF stands for "Special Forces" which are commonly referred to as the Green Beret.

SEALs have already been talked about.  I have read way to many stories written by SEALs in Vietnam so here the basics of what they did.  
-They worked 95% at night, unless a special mission arose.
-Mainly, they would be given intel on a possible ammo cache, VC supply area, or other random stuff and there job was to get rid of it.  Worked mainly in smaller groups 4-12.
-So typical mission meant three to four hours of slowly creeping through the jungle to the target area.  Then they would do there job.  If any shots were fired that usually woke up all the VC nearby and sent the SEALs running back through the jungle to there extract with VC shooting randomly into the forest to draw there fire.  Upon extract these guys went back to camp, debriefed, showered, ate, then slept and drank beer most of the day.

The stories I have read in regards to the Force Recon, SF, and Rangers all followed the same sort of pattern.

The "1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)" was the group that operated in the area of Plei Me and were involved in both LZ-Xray and LZ-Albany.

-Marines are rapid depolyment to an area to attack and control.  So the main difference is the Marines are a shorter deployment force, the Army gets in for the long haul or better worded as occupiers.

Hope this helps,
I can recommend a good lists of books for anyone who is interested.

Blip  :joystick:

p.s. The phrase "men with green faces" refers to both the green berets and the SEALs.

[dmakatra]

OK, this is great stuff. The main story is that Ia Drang is taken, but is facing difficulties with the VC, so I can use the army models but still be able to have that LZ fly in I've allways wanted to do. ;D

Cheers all!

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

[OrangeLeader]

In Nam the army used helicopters to get troops to the (AO area of operation). In We Were Soldiers the Army decided to fight in a new way. Before the battle in the movie, the military would mainly defend their bases and cities. The only offensive operations they conducted was search and destroy mission. If you have seen Forest Gump that is what they did.
    Search and destroy misssion usually meant dropping a platoon into an area where their are possible enemy contacts. They would search basically, HQ would update them if they had intel on ememiesi n the area. When they made contact, they would evaluate the situation. Then decide what to do. Air strike, artillry, reinforcments, and etc. The problem with this type of fighing was illustrated in Forest Gump. These platoons would get ambush and in some case get whiped out. Any sucess more than likely came at a great cost of lives. And usually yhe results were nothing major than killing a few VC or maybe a platoon. The war could not be fought and won this way this way.
   In We Were Soldiers the army introduced a new form of warfare in Nam. The military usually knew with a good certainty where large bases where and the number of troops there. But these bases were deep inside the enemy territory and in thick jungle. There was no way to move large amounts of troops over land with getting ambushed left and right. So they decided to fly in troops to an LZ and defend it. Then go on the offensive against a base. The problem with this tactic is the troops are all alone. They have all the air and artillery support they need. But if they become over run and lose the LZ, all the troops would be slaughtered. Most people don't realize that it could have happened. The movie could have end with just a bunch of dead Air Cav soldiers.
   If you want to make a campign. One mission defending a base, another on a search and destroy mission, and a third on a air cav operation. I have other ideas if you want. PM me or post here more.

[dmakatra]

Thanks for the info, but I got the campaign pretty much planned allready.

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

[The-Architect]

Sorry to do this Armsty, LRRPs do long range recon missions. Sleep in the jungle and stuff. Kinda like what the SAS does in Colombia and other such places.

[dmakatra]

That's cool Arch, I haven't included any LRRP guys (yet) in the campaign.

A lil' question though. OrangeLeader said that the US military begun fighting in a new way in We Were Soldiers. I want to include both kinds of warfare in my campaign as they are both badass gameplay, so what year did they transform into this 'new' tactic?

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

[HUSTLA23]

Heres a few tidbits:
Marines and SF guys sometimes would make necklaces out of the ears of slain enemies.
Also, the air cav went back to their mounted cavalry roots by having someone dress up in an 1800's style uniform, and blow a bugle at the start of an attack.
That out top be...umm...interesting in an intro!

[Nixer6]

Heres a few tidbits:
Marines and SF guys sometimes would make necklaces out of the ears of slain enemies.
Also, the air cav went back to their mounted cavalry roots by having someone dress up in an 1800's style uniform, and blow a bugle at the start of an attack.
That out top be...umm...interesting in an intro!

Great rumors

Any facts to back them up?

[Blip]

@dmakatra

The new type of warfare Orangeleader was refering to was the aircav being considered "airmobile".  Basically, the helo's were moving guys in and out of the area all the time.  Moving the battalion or whatever size group of aircav soldiers into the area, then supporting them with supplies and medivac.

I will get you the exact year the airmobile went operational tommorrow morning.  It's late and my pillow is calling my name.

Later,

Blip :joystick: