Bunkers and Spider Traps - Vietnam

 I spent my free time this past weekend, working on defensive positions for the PAVN and Viet Cong in 20mm.  Three different types of positions are under construction.

After cutting the excavated positions with a Dremel. 

The first are three earthen bunkers, these are earth covered positions reinforced with logs or other materials offering the greatest degree of cover.  two of the bunkers have a single firing aperture, and one has two. They do not have external entrances and are designed to be accessed from tunnels. The models are recessed into 6"x6"x1" terrain tiles with a lift off top to allow positioning of figures inside.

The three bunkers with the top portions rough sanded.

This view shows the the underside of the top of the 

bunker next to its base.

The second type of position are spider holes or spider traps.  These are covered or partially covered fighting positions.  depending on the type, covers may be removed to facilitate engaging the enemy. They are made by cutting the positions into foam terrain tiles similar to those described above.  There is no above grade feature other than the cover.

Some of the spider holes; these have two fighting 

positions with a center covered portion.

The third are entrenchments with modular fighting positions. these consist of slit trenches connecting individual or multi-soldier fighting positions dug into the ground and featuring low earthen parapets with with occasional apertures  for fighting.  Some lengths of the trenches will be covered. the fighting positions are cut into 6"x6"x1" tiles as above, while the zig-zagging trenches are cut into 12"x6"x1" tiles.

Later in construction, with parapets in place on the

 trenches.

And with one of the fighting positions with the 

parapet sanded.

Any combination of these could be incorporated into the larger defensive network connected by underground tunnels.

Construction was from various brands of foam insolation board, using artist's matte medium as a glue to affix the raised parapet around the trenches, straight pins holding then in place to dry.  

The bunkers were shaped with a loose hacksaw blade, a surform tool, and curved or angled permagrit sanding files. The surfaces will be sanded further, touched up with one-step spackle, coated with acrylic artists paste, painted and flocked.

With the Surform tool and a PermaGrit file.

I expect that it will take a couple more week-ends to complete this project.

Vietnam Palms Done

 A month of hobby time didn't amount to much, but here are a few pics of the finished palms.

Four square feet on new jungle for the table top.

With PAVN Troops looking for those pesky Americans.

A little Bamboo.

Some individual stands.

Now that these are done, I'm moving on to a modular field fortification system for Vietnamese spider traps and bunkers and whatnot.

Growing Palm Trees in the Basement

Its been a slow process, but I will eventually have a jungle.  I've been working on palms, ferns, and various bits of jungle foliage for all of May and I expect that it will take a couple more weeks to get this round done.

The trees are from Ebay ranging from 2 -8 inches in height, the other foliage is craft store bits that I've been picking up for years.  The ferns are made from individual leaflets from various artificial ferns.

This first pic is from a couple of weeks back.  The bases are irregular pieces of sheet styrene, typically around .06 inch thickness, with the edges beveled with a sanding drum on the Dremel. Pilot holes are drilled for the trees, which were glued in place with a Hot-Melt glue gun.

The next pic is from last night, showing some stands with the base coated in a random earthy yellow.  A few of the trees will be for cleared areas without much ground cover, while most have an assortment of plants covering the jungle floor. 

The ferns are built from individual fronds, usually 7 -10 to create the impression of a fern, and each take a few minutes to build up.

Once construction and base coating is complete, the bases will get a coat of my "jungle mix" flock to finish them off.  At the rate that I'm going, that should be in about two weeks.

AAR2: Lyran Attack on Base Station 0803

The second battle of the Lyran attack on Kzinti space involved an attack of the Base Station in Hex 0803.  The Kzinti were able to get a supporting force to the base by the time of the attack, which made this battle much different than the last.

The battle took place in the highlighted square on the map above.

 

The Lyran fleet.

Lyran Forces  (TF 0504)

BC                        DW

CA                        DD

CA                        DD

CC                        FF

CW                       FF

CW                       FF

CW                       SC

The Kzinti fleet.

Kzinti Force

Border Fleet                Base Defence Force

BC                                   BS

BC                                   CVT    

CC                                   MEC

CL                                   FF

CL                                   EFF

CVE                                Pol

DD                                   Pol

DD                                   Pol 

EFF

SC

The battle begins.

The Battle

The Lyran plan was to first engage the Kzinti Fleet, damage it and move to the base, then continue beating up the Kzinti Fleet if it stuck around. As the Lyran fleet approached the base, the Kzinti fleet was deployed to the left of the Lyrans, and their fighters were deployed forward to the right.

The Lyran fleet deviates from their plan and engages

 Kzinti fighters and drones.

In the first turn, the Lyran ships maintained a fleet speed of 20, allowing them to outrun Kzinti drones which were largely negated with ESG fields.  Kzinti forces held steady at speed 10 and unleashed a wave of fighters and drones, with the resulting fire damaging a Lyran Frigate and destroying 21 Kzinti fighters.

The Lyran fleet mixing it up with the Kzinti fighters.  
The Lyrans lost initiative, becoming reactionary from this point on.

During turn two, the Lyrans recharged phasers and continued to negate drones with ESGs and phaser fire. Otherwise they mostly avoided battle with the Kzinti, while the Kzinti fired another volley of drones.

The Lyrans recharging phasers, and trying to reform.

The Lyrans prepare to engage the next volley of drones.

On turn three, the ships finally began to mix it up with largely inaccurate Lyran disruptor and phaser fire resulting in nothing more than shield damage on Kzinti Ships, and the Lyrans losing a Frigate, and suffering shield damage on a couple other ships.

The Lyrans were able to outpace the Kzinti drones, 

but could not maintain order in doing so.

During turn four, the Lyrans largely found their disorganized fleet to be out of position for effective fire, and succeeded in losing another Frigate and a Destroyer.  Also Kzinti drones finally hit a target with a Lyran Heavy Cruiser taking the hits.

The Lyrans lose an FF and a DW.

The Lyrans being "screened" by the Kzinti ships.

Turn five was much as the turn before, with Lyran fire often not hitting the mark, and the loss of the damaged CA, followed by a War Destroyer.  The Lyrans finally destroyed a Kzinti  Destroyer.

The Lyrans frustrated.

The Kzintis engage the Lyrans trying to get to the base.

The Lyrans lose a CA...

... and more.

The last turn, six, started with heavy Lyran fire hitting Kzinti lighter ships, destroying two Kzinti Frigates, and damaging four others.  The Lyrans took more damage, and at this point with seven Lyran ships either destroyed or out of the fight, the Lyrans ended the attack.

The situation near the start of turn six.

A little payback, two Kzinti FFs are destroyed.

The Lyrans admit defeat.

The Kzintis moved back into defensive positions around their base, and the Lyrans withdrew.

The Kzinti regroup.  

This was an expensive battle for the Lyrans, and failure to destroy the base allows the Kzinti to maintain sensor range across much of their border with the Lyrans.

Squeezing in Hobby Time

 This last month has been busy, work picked up, yardwork, taxes, family events, birthdays, etc.  But, I've managed to squeeze in hobby time here and there, despite the lack of posts.

I played the other two battle for this strategic turn of my Star Fleet Battles campaign, with interesting results that I'll share soon.  I have the posts written up, but haven't been able to resolved some issues with my new computer to finish them.

I had to get a new photo editor, which wasn't a bid deal, but iOS updates on my phone are causing me fits with respect to photo transfer from my phone.  A process that took minutes, now involved hours each time, I do now have a work around, but it took me all month to get there.

Otherwise, I've been slowly working on adding jungle to my Vietnam terrain, as I've gotten that bug again.  I will share pics of that once I get some new stuff done. Probably a couple of weeks out.

I received some laser cut buildings for Vietnam two Christmases ago, very nicely done, and cool designs, but after looking at them, they seem too clean.  So I'm going to use them as templates for scratch-build rougher looking buildings, probably incorporating pieces of them in the builds.

Otherwise, I've also gotten the bug to play some more NATO/WarPac stuff in 1958.  I've had the first West German/Soviet battle scenario in that campaign worked out for quite some time, so I've put some thought into getting that on the table.

Right now, its just hard finding windows for hobby time.

AAR 1: Lyran Attack on Kzinti Base Station 0701

My first battle of the new SFB campaign was a bit of a walk over.  This was a Lyran attack on an weakly defended base station in F&E map hex 0701.

The battle took place in the highlight area on the map above.

Lyran Forces:

The Lyran fleet consisted of 14 ships, including:

1x BT

2x CA

1x CC

2x CW

1x CL

1x DW

2x DD

3x FF

1xSC

The scout did not advance with the rest of the fleet.

Kzinti Forces:

Kzinti forces consisted of the base station and a small defending force;

1x BS

1x CM

2x FF

3x POL

The Battle

The Kzinti base station (BS) was protected by a small minefield, with the defending ships located inside the minefield.  The most that could be hoped for was destroy 2-3 lighter enemy vessels.

The Lyran force minus the Scout (SC) attacked in formation at speed 20 with weapons hot, using a one hex spacing, a pretty tight formation without use of ESG fields. The speed would likely allow the Lyran ships to avoid and outrun the early version, speed 12 drones.

The Kzinti fired a volley of drones which were negated by phaser fire from the Lyran Frigates (FF) and War destroyer (DW).  The Lyrans began firing disruptors at the base and then peeling off the ships to recharge weapons. 

The Kzinti welcome the Lyrans by firing drones.

As the first line of Lyran FFs began to turn, the BS fired its heavy phaser IVs ripping open a Lyran Frigate.  The closer Kzinti ships piled on causing enough damage to destroy the FF.

The devastating effect of phaser-IVs is felt.

Lyran ships continued to advance to a range of about 7-8 hexes before firing all weapons at the base, until it blew up.  It had been decades since I actually looked at a Base Station SSD; they are really tiny.

The Kzinti base is no more.

The four remaining heavier Lyran vessels closed a couple more hexes and fired at the Kzinti Medium Cruiser (CM), whose destruction would make this a significant victory.  However, bad shooting with disruptors, I think only 3 of 16 hit, resulted in the CM getting away,

As the first turn ended, the Lyrans turned away to recharge weapons and reform their fleet.

On turn two, the Lryans maintained speed and recharged phasers, with plans to recharge disruptors on turn three, then re-engage the Kzinti defending force.

The kzinti increased speed to 15 and then disengage, so the battle ended a few impulses into turn 2.

It wasn't much of a fight, but the next one will be much more contested.

Battling Chat GPT During the Cold War

So last night I had an odd experience with Chat GPT.  I said something to it about the yesterday's strong winds and wind damage, relating to wind loading on our large bay windows.  

At the conclusion of that discussion, it asked me if I was restless, and if so, was it mental or physical.  Given the content of the discussion, this surprised me, and while trying to find what I might have said that brought this about, I answered yes, mentally.

It then asked if it could suggest a mental exercise to change my thought processes and relieve the restlessness.  Having no idea where it was going, I said, "Sure" and it offer me a Cold War battle scenario.  Now I've used it for research, discussion of tactical doctrine, it knows I play miniature war games, but this came out of nowhere.

It says, you are in command of a reinforced T-55 platoon of 4-5 tanks and have to cross a valley of about a 1000 meters.  On the opposing crest, you have reason to believe that there are enemy infantry deployed with a pair of ATGMs, what do you do?

So I tell it my plan, send out one tank, draw fire, return fire, ask for a fire mission with white phosphorous if possible, then advance.

It then suggest the results, tanks about response time of artillery, about how the opposing infantry reacts, how this related to Soviet doctrine, etc.

It then resets the scenario, replacing the infantry with a pair of M50 Ontos on the opposing crest, and we resolve it again.  Discussing variables and probabilities, I offer thoughts about facing airborne forces and the timeframe which is never clearly defined, but I suggest that we are in the mid to late 1960s, and the implications for the airborne/air mobile infantry of the period, etc.

It resets again, and places four M48A2/A3 on the crest in hull down positions.  I explain the advantage for the M-48s, in gun accuracy, relative armor and penetration comparisons, and explain that is most likely a losing propostion for the T-55s, suggesting that the last surviving T-55 withdraws by backing through its own smoke and getting attached to the next platoon sent through the valley, and again requesting artillery fire on the M48s to allow the follow up advance a chance of success.

Again, we discuss tactics, doctrine, probabilities, and minor tweaks and variations.

It was a surprisingly fun interaction, and really caught me by surprise.

It then suggested that I allow it to set up company level scenarios and maps of locations in West Germany for a table top game, that it would give orders for one side, and I could play out the battle, update it regarding results, then it could offer follow-on scenarios, and possibly build a campaign out of it.

I am fascinated by this on multiple levels, at how interesting this actually was, at how it built enough of a profile of me to initiate something like this, and at the potential to use this moving forward, among others.

Let me offer that in the first couple of months, I interrogated GPT as to how it functioned, what its risks and limitations are, and asked it to always offer documentable truth, as opposed to affirmation.  Sometimes I challenge it by requesting bibliographies, and then cross-reference the sources independently, as I am aware of instances where it invents sources to support affirming response to other people.  I suspect that my focus on truth and accuracy played a part in it presenting this.

Anyway, I thought that this was interesting and that I'd share it.