A Tale of Two Citadels

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way."

How enlightened was Charles Dickens when he wrote the above passage in 1859, 109 years before TET 1968.

We have all read many accounts of the events leading up to and through the 1968 Tet Offensive and within I Corp especially the Battle of Huế where the USMC fought literally hand-to-hand house-by-house for days on end to finally recapture the old imperial city and its citadel.  In addition to the Battle of Huế there was another very similar battle for the provincial city, also with a moated citadel, a little over one hour north west of Huế, Quang Tri City. (Google Maps Reference: 16.753960998599222, 107.18948548443262).

The US Army Center of Military History has a very detailed PDF available: The 1968 Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue

Like many of the PDF's and books I tend to read this is high level, Corp Level and below, at its core.  But it is one of the most detailed reads of the combined operations surrounding Quang Tri and Huế that I have read.

It is a great source for a campaign, for either city or both, but parts of the battles could easily be played at nearly any level from battalion to Company to Skirmish.

There are sapper teams attempting to capture primary government targets in the cites and then attempting to hold on until relieved by the attacking forces.  Those sapper teams are up against National Police and Regional Force units. There are PAVN unit blocking forces attempting to keep the US and ARVN relief forces from reaching the city.  Main Force battalions dug in amongst the tombs and headstones in a cemetery to the south of Quang Tri holding off an ARVN armoured column attempting to reach Quang Tri as reinforcements.

Then of course there is the cavalry, Companies B and C from the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, flown in to LZ's by 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry, with gunship support, in an attempt to envelope the PAVN forces.

It is of interest that it appears the Main Force NLF battalions had been filled with NVA, significantly more than the traditional level of PAVN cadre in the NLF units making then considerably more effective and stronger than normal Main Force Battalions.

While in essence there was no "general uprising" as the leaders in the North had hoped but it would be an interesting effect to have groups of civilians in a skirmish or company level game who can quickly change from one side to the other based on certain criteria impacting dice roles to ascertain if the uprising happens or not.

This PDF has it all for every Vietnam gamer.

Sounds great, but the clicking on the link gave me this: "502 Bad Gateway". I tried accessing "US Army Center of Military History The 1968 Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue" via Google and got the same result.

OTB wrote:clicking on the link gave me this: "502 Bad Gateway". I tried accessing "US Army Center of Military History The 1968 Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue" via Google and got the same result.

Wayne,

That looks like a Microsoft issue "Microsoft-Azure-Application-Gateway", so the Azure site/database may be down right now, I would suggest trying again later.

OK

It is back up this morning