Contre Les Viets

I recently rediscovered these photos from COW 2001. This was a Megablitz game run by Ian Drury. It dealt with the Vietnamese assaults on the French position at Dien Bien Phu and used 20mm toys (and 1/144 aircraft) from Ian's collection. At my behest he is currently scouring his archives for the game briefings and orbats as we'd both like to run it again.

In the game I commanded the French - given the passage of time my recollections of the finer details of the game - including the names of the other players - are understandably hazy.

The terrain consisted mostly of jungle and the French defended positions - with charming names including Beatrice, Anne-Marie and Gabrielle.

To help combat the vast hordes of Viet Minh (and their Chinese 'advisors'...) French aviation assets made a number of sorties.  The Armee de l'Air provided B-26s while the Navy sent Consolidated Privateers (think Liberator with a single tail fin).

As the Commie noose tightened around the defenders it was largely the bombers which saved us.  The general personally participated in fighting off several assaults on his command post - being ultimately reduced to hurling empty cognac bottles and blowing Gitanes smoke in the attackers' faces.