These rules aim to allow gamers to play a campaign of pacification in a fictional territory against a communist guerrilla insurgency. The location can be any rural area in which insurgency is possible, from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the African Bush.
The player or players take the role of the police and army whilst the guerrillas are generated randomly, so there’s no need for a live player for the campaign, although one may be useful for the individual battles. The rules require a minimum of bookkeeping whilst generating a large number of small actions, and maybe a few not so small battles. However, like real life, most will be quite minor and trivial. On the plus side though is the possibility of seeing things through to a conclusion and either winning or losing the war with the guerrillas.
The contested area is a section of countryside with a population of about 10,000 scattered in small hamlets a few miles apart over an area of between 25 and 400 square miles, depending on whether we’re talking about the Mekong Delta or the deserts of North Africa. There may be a few larger villages and possibly a small town or two with about a thousand inhabitants. There will also be tracks, roads and possibly rivers for people to come and go on, and one edge of the map may be a border with a foreign country aiding the guerrillas. The one thing the area must have is lots of cover for the guerrillas to hide in. If it’s not there they have to become urban guerrillas, who are covered by a different set of rules.
First, the bad guys. The communists know that revolutions don’t just happen, they have to be made, and with this aim a unit of guerrillas has moved into the area. The exact composition of this force isn’t clearly defined, but it consists of about 60 guerrillas operating from one or more bases, armed with personal weapons and backed by a few heavier ones. They will operate in a number of small groups who will be out and about spreading dissension, collecting supplies, assassinating reactionaries, sniping at the agents of the capitalists and maybe planting booby traps. There may be other, larger, groups abroad who’s aim is combat with the Security Forces and they may be able to call on guerrillas from other areas or regular troops from a sympathetic neighbouring country for larger operations.
The main way the guerrillas inflict themselves on you is by acts of political violence. Not sitting on the fence about this we’ll call this Terrorism. The level of Terrorism is set by the Guerrilla Attrition level, which is covered below.
The other way that the guerrillas inflict themselves on you is by attacking your bases and outposts. Any visible Security Forces’ position is a viable target, including stationary units that have given their position away by making a noise. Roll a d100 each night for each position.
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| 01 to 69 | Nothing |
| 70 to 89 | A burst of long range small arms fire |
| 90 to 96 | 3 or 4 mortar shells fired |
| 97 to 99 | Sustained bombardment by mortars, rockets or artillery |
| 00 | Base attacked by Large Unit |
Exact weaponry used will depend on what exactly you are up against. Small arms used could be an old rifle fired at maximum range or a state-of-the-art sniper rifle, whilst a bombardment could be by a home made mortar or a 130mm artillery piece. Similarly the size of the Large Unit depends on whether or not the guerrillas can be reinforced from outside your area. If not, the largest unit they can put together will be able 50 strong.
The other way of meeting the enemy is when you bump into them when one or both of you is moving about. Whether you are a battalion on a Search and Destroy mission, or a supply convoy just trying to get to your destination in one piece, you roll on the Patrol table if you move.
Roll once for every 10 miles covered through guerrilla territory. For journeys of less than 10 miles roll a d10 first less than or equal to the distance moved in miles to see if a roll is to be made on the Patrol table.
| Table 2: Patrol | |
| 01 to 59 | Nothing |
| 60 to 64 | False alarm |
| 65 to 74 | Guerrilla tracks |
| 75 to 85 | Booby trap |
| 86 to 89 | Sniper |
| 90 | Cache |
| 91 to 95 | Small Party |
| 96 to 98 | Combat Group |
| 99 | Base |
| 100 | Large Unit |
A false alarm means that the unit has spotted a herd of wild pigs or water buffalo and opened fire, giving away it’s position.
To spot tracks you must be on foot and roll greater than or equal to 4, 5 or 6 depending on your troops’ bushcraft skills. Once found they can be followed the next day. To do so, roll for another patrol, but in addition to anything that crops up when you roll again on the Patrol Table you can roll on the Tracking and Ambush table to see if you’ve caught up with whoever your following. If not, then provided you have not given your position away by making a noise (shooting, using vehicles, calling in helicopters etc) you can dice again to see if you find any tracks, and if successful repeat the process tomorrow.
A similar dice roll is needed to detect booby traps, with the difference that if the role fails the trap is found anyway when it goes off. You can avoid booby traps by staying off roads and tracks, but whilst this is easy enough in the desert or the bush, in the jungle it will reduce progress on foot to 200 yards an hour, and is impossible in vehicles.
Snipers are single guerrillas armed with an appropriate weapon, hidden and waiting for you, who shoot and scoot.
Cache’s are hidden and must be diced for to find, they won’t be found in the vicinity of your base or on main roads.
Small Parties and Large Units we have already met, Combat Groups though should be bigger, say 3d6 strong. They are out looking for trouble and could have a light support weapon or two.
Bases are where the guerrillas live. If they heard you coming the base will probably be empty when you find it, otherwise they have about 2 to 40 guerrillas in them. Bases will be located in the most difficult terrain so they can be defended, and so count this as a none-result if you’re not looking in the right place. Depending on where you are they may be located over the border in a neighbouring country or even underground.
| Table 3: Tracking and Ambush | |
| 01 to 69 | Nothing |
| 70 to 74 | False alarm |
| 75 to 89 | Small Party |
| 90 to 98 | Combat Group |
| 99, 00 | Large Unit |
As above, a false alarm indicates that the unit has opened fire and given away its position. The other results are the same as on the Patrol Table.
When you get an encounter roll a d6 for the Security Forces and another for the insurgents to see who has the initiative. Add 1 for stealthy troops like LRRPs and subtract 1 for clumsy ones like ARVN. Add 2 if you are stationary or for the very best troops, such as the SAS. Subtract 2 if travelling in motor vehicles. Finally subtract 1, 2 or 3 if one side is a larger formation e.g. a platoon meeting a section subtracts 1, a battalion meeting a platoon subtracts 2. The winner gets to shoot first, and if he wins by 2 or more he can set up a quick ambush. You can avoid combat entirely if you win by 3 or more during the day or by 2 at night.
This is the pay-off for all your hard work, where you get to measure how much impact your activity is having on the guerrillas. Guerrilla attrition starts at 0. Keep a running tally as the campaign progresses:
| 1 | Each personal weapon lost by the guerrillas (-1 Each weapon captured by the guerrillas) |
| 1 | Each guerrilla killed or captured |
| 1 | Each Small Party that failed to carry out it’s mission |
| 3 | Each Combat Group that failed to carry out its mission |
| 5 | Each mortar, HMG or other heavy weapon lost by the guerrillas |
| 10 | Each Large Unit that failed to carry out its mission |
| 20 | Each base or cache located and denied to the guerrillas |
Failure to ‘carry out its mission’ is very hard to define. As any guerrillas that escape your ambushes can just go and hide for a couple of days before carrying on with whatever they were doing, the only sure way of stopping a unit is to inflict serious casualties on it. 30 to 50 percent should disable a unit, depending on how dedicated to the cause the guerrillas are. However, if you captured or disabled the vehicle or boat the guerrillas were using, then that too can count as stopping them. What doesn’t count is failed attacks on your positions, unless you were able to inflict such enormous casualties that the attacking unit is permanently out of action. To win at this game you have to actually leave your Firebase.
The guerrillas know how the rules work perfectly well, and will take steps to recover weapons from fallen comrades, evacuate wounded and generally try and stay alive. Unless the guerrillas initiated the action or heavily outnumber the Security Forces they will generally try and escape rather than fight and suffer casualties. Whether or not guerrillas press attacks to the extent that units are wiped out depends on what their political doctrine says. Cautious guerrillas will not press attacks, but such reactionary backsliding is frowned on by more hard line regimes.
As the Guerrilla Attrition rises the nature of their operations changes and the amount of Terrorism decreases.
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| Up to 19 | As normal | Terrorism weekly |
| 20 to 49 | No daytime Combat Groups | |
| 50 to 149 | No daytime Small Parties or Large Units | Terrorism fortnightly |
| 150 to 199 | No Large Units | |
| 200 to 250 |
No Combat Groups No mortaring or bombardment of bases Reduce Political Consciousness by 10 Defections start |
Terrorism monthly |
| 250 to 299 |
No snipers Half numbers in bases Reduce Political Consciousness by 10 |
No Terrorism |
| 300 to 399 |
No guerrillas outside bases No booby-traps Reduce Political Consciousness by 20 |
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| 400 | Area pacified | |
Terrorism usually consists of a Small Party of 1 to 6 guerrillas armed with personal weapons who go out with the aim of killing an agent of the Imperialists in order to raise Political Consciousness. The target could be a civil servant, white farmer or local politician. If there are no suitable targets they will blow up a bridge or public building.
Once defections start, the chance of a guerrilla coming over to your side is (Guerrilla Attrition – 200) percent each week. Defectors will talk willingly and so make an Intelligence roll for each one. Once Guerrilla Attrition reaches over 300 they start to defect at a rate of d6-3 each week, however by this stage you can probably hand things back to the local police to take care of.
However Guerrilla Attrition isn’t just a one way process. The ocean in which our revolutionary fish swim are the simple peasants of the area, and it is from them that the guerrillas re-supply and recruit.
Communist agents have been at work attempting to get the locals into a suitably revolutionary frame of mind. How successful they have been we call Political Consciousness and it is a rough measure of the percentage support the insurgents have
The Political Consciousness rises as the guerrillas destroy the instruments of Imperialist oppression i.e. as they execute local government officials. It also increases every time a Worker gets caught in an artillery barrage or if the Capitalists get carried and start shooting the wrong people. As the Political Consciousness rises the guerrillas get more recruits, local people provide them with more food, and the amount of intelligence gathered by the local police drops.
| For every 10 points of Political Consciousness: |
Guerrillas gain 2d10 new recruits Guerrilla Attrition reduces by 1 every 2 weeks Intelligence Level drops by one |
The Intelligence Level starts at 10 and is a measure of how much the security forces know of what’s going on in the area. Every week the Security Forces player roll a d10 and if the roll is less than or equal to the Intelligence Level he can roll on the Intelligence Table to see if anything has been discovered of interest.
In order to get this roll, the Security Forces must be actively engaged in intelligence gathering operations. This can be carried out by police of army units, and requires on one unit a day to travel somewhere and do something such as search a village or set up a checkpoint This will require rolling on the Patrol table.
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| 01 to 79 | Nothing |
| 80 to 89 | Set up Ambush |
| 90 to 95 | Cache |
| 96 to 98 | Small Party |
| 00 | Combat Group |
If the roll allows you to set up an ambush determine the position randomly. Either the unit must travel silently to get there or else most of the troops must move on leaving only a small party behind. Then, once night falls, roll on the Tracking and Ambush Table. If nothing comes up and you haven’t given your position away you can roll again the next night.
Should the Security Forces decide to cut their loses and abandon the locals altogether, all intelligence gathering ceases and guerrilla re-supply is doubled.
Your campaign could well become long and interminable. Decisive victory for either side is likely to prove illusive. Depleted army units will be replaced and rested, whilst defeated guerrillas will simply melt into the jungle to return when they are stronger. Such is the way of counter-insurgency warfare.
However if you manage to get the security situation to the point where army units can withdraw, then you have won a qualified victory. On the other hand if you lose your base or all your men then you have definitely lost, and the revolution moves on to somewhere else.
In tackling your guerrillas you may decide that wandering around getting shot at is not necessarily the best strategy. These are some of the historical counter-insurgency strategies tried.
Going Native
Using locally raised forces frees up regular soldiers from guard duties. An area of this size should be able to field about 50 full-time police or paramilitaries and up to 250 part-time home guard able to guard their own village. However it will take several years to train this number of people, that recruiting will be reduced by high Political Consciousness.
The down side of using these troops is that whilst the police will be just as good as regular troops in gathering intelligence, in all other respects these units will be very poor in combat. Even worse they are easily infiltrated by the guerrillas. If you are using local troops for an operation you will never be able to take the enemy by surprise. Also, if a unit is present in a base that is attacked by a Large Unit, then if a d100 roll is less than the Political Consciousness then 3d6 turn out to be guerrillas infiltrators. On the plus side though their bushcraft skills will be at least average and may be very good.
Relocating the Locals
Known as New Villages when this plan was successfully tried in Malaya, and Strategic Hamlets when it failed in Vietnam, the idea was to relocate scattered villagers into more defensible towns of about a 1000 people or so. Carrying the plan out is a major operation, as you will have to transport everybody yourself. It is also deeply unpopular and raises Political Consciousness by 20. The New Villages themselves become targets of attack like bases, with the risk of infiltration as above.
However, once the New Villages are set up and guarded, the guerrillas are unable to recruit or re-supply from that village. New recruits generated by increasing Political Consciousness remain in the village, but can join the guerrillas if the village is overrun.
Search and Destroy
General Westmoreland’s favourite strategy. The idea was to fight the guerrillas when all the advantages were with the Security Forces, the downside was that in all the noise and confusion the stealthy insurgents escaped. So when a large number of troops are covering an area, don’t roll an individual Patrol for each unit. Instead roll once for each square mile thoroughly searched.
Aerial reconnaissance
Guerrilla bases can sometimes be observed from the air, so for every 100 miles flown by a low altitude reconnaissance aircraft roll on the table to see if you’ve located a base. Everything else the plane may fly over will be invisible from the air, unless in mountains in which case moving units may be Large Units (which could have air defence weapons) or if areas of open terrain have been created by bulldozers or chemicals.
Free Fire Zones
Once you’ve moved out the locals into their Strategic Hamlet, you can spare yourself the hassle of actually having to go out and look for the enemy and just bombard them from a distance. It’s hard to imagine anyone actually getting any pleasure out of wargaming random artillery fire and bombing. But if it is a strategy you want to pursue then I suggest that each weak for every 105mm battery or equivalent, or for every 100 tons of bombs dropped, you roll once on the Intelligence table to see what you hit. I suggest you also roll d6-1 to see how many peasants get hit by mistake.
The object lesson in counter-insurgency warfare. New Villages were set up and local Home Guard set up to defend them resulting in the Communist Terrorists (CTs) being cut off from their supplies and hunted down in the jungle. Fortunately for the government the CTs never managed a Political Consciousness of more than 30 and never really used booby traps, however at the start of the campaign their active strength was actually greater than the available British infantry and things were pretty hairy. With minimal air support, and only a few small helicopters, the British had to do things the hard way, stalking the CTs through the jungle. Regular troops could stay out for 7 days, but SAS remained in the jungle for months, being re-supplied by air. British regulars get +1 when rolling for encounters due to their jungle training, whilst the CTs won’t appear in numbers greater than 50.
Indochina 1950
Not knowing what was about to hit them, the French deployed their troops in company strength forts across the country, waiting for Ho Chi Minh’s troops to come to them. In late 1950 the storm broke and the French had to retreat. This scenario has a heroic French force, possibly a Foreign Legion unit of ex-SS men, defending a triangular jungle fort and waiting for their doom.
After this guerrilla warfare played only a minor part in the French defeat – tying down troops whilst Giap’s regular divisions closed into for the kill. Apart from some Chindit style units harassing the Viet Minh’s supply lines the French for the most part fought this as a conventional war, with predictable results.
Algeria 1954 to 1962
Chastened by their experiences in Indochina, the French army endeavoured to learn from its mistakes and take the fight to the guerrillas this time. This they did with good effect, using locally raised harkis to hunt the ALN, who could be in anything up to company sized units, through the mountains before calling in elite Paras to finish them off. The French made good use of air support, including the first use of the ubiquitous A1 Skyraider and Pirates; an early form of helicopter gunship based on the UH34D (made under licence in the UK as the Wessex) and mounting 20mm cannon and HMGs. With the guerrillas cut off from re-supply from Tunisia by the Morice line, and Political Consciousness never rising very high, they were to face military defeat. Independence was eventually achieved by political means after which many of the Paras themselves becoming terrorists and joined the OAS.
The above two scenarios could be linked, with a German SS unit starting off fighting Italian, Russian or Yugoslav partisans, joining the Foreign Legion to fight in Indochina and Algeria (possibly even taking part in the Suez operation as well) before ending up as the terrorists in the OAS or hunting them for French Intelligence.
Following the failure of a popular revolution British forces faced regular Indonesian troops infiltrating across a 700-mile jungle border. In response they set up small 1 or 2 gun firebases and sent British and Gurkas troops into the jungle, and even on raids on bases across the border. As in Malaya, SAS teams went on long patrols tracking the insurgents. To play this scenario, ignore Political Consciousness and Terrorism and just concentrate on fighting an illusive and continually reinforced enemy in the jungle.
Vietnam wasn’t just a guerrilla war, and by 1970 the indigenous VC had largely disappeared to be replaced by regular NVA. However in the tunnels of the Iron Triangle they stuck around longer than most places. The main feature here is the extensive tunnel network the VC used. Caches and bases are all located underground, and whilst it’s easy enough to find the entrances they don’t count as destroyed until you’ve been down there. Similarly snipers will have bolt holes to escape down once they’ve fired. Given the extent of the tunnel system, the chance of an encounter on the Patrol table is doubled, and a Large Unit can mean anything up to a regiment of NVA with sapper support. Also, when exploring underground make another roll on the table to see if you encounter any booby traps or live VC down there. Political Consciousness is likely to be very high (80 plus). On the other hand the US troops have helicopter gunships, armour and more air support than they could possibly need. In the end though it was Rome plows, Agent Orange and B52 that eventually made the Iron Triangle a ‘military desert’.
Dhofar, Oman 1970 to 1975
Attempting to prop up the absolute monarchy of the Sultan, British SAS advisors attempted to keep a ramshackle army together to fight the rebels who held the mountainous jebel region. The monarchy was initially fairly unpopular, but Political Consciousness stated to drop rapidly once clean water and medical facilities started to appear. Rebel bases will either be in caves or across the border, whilst the rebels themselves were well equipped with automatic weapons, RPGs and later SA7s. They were often more than a match for the Sultan’s British officered regular troops. SAS troops raised and led irregular firquas who took the fight to the rebels, whilst the RAF Regiment guarded the main airbase. Until the unexpected victory in 1975 the Sultan’s forces were largely on the defensive, with much of the high ground held by the rebels.
Back in the days when the mujahadeen were the good guys, the Russians faced a guerrilla force of unsurpassed technical sophistication. Hiding in the mountains they ambush convoys with Milan missiles and shot at aircraft with Blowpipe and later Stinger missiles. The Russian response was to utterly destroy the small villages that supplied the guerrillas, leaving them to rely on supplies shipped across from Pakistan. Guerrillas bases can be in huge, impregnable, cave complexes, whilst large scale Russian and Afghan operations to dislodge them were often frighteningly inept.