Destruction of the French Mobile Group 100 – Vietnam

Bill Cainan, former Regimental Historian of the Regimental Welsh, ran an amazing Indochina game at the Penarth show recently using home-grown rules. The game was played on a 25ft by 6ft table and represented the initial stages of the destruction of the French Mobile Group 100. The Group has driven into an ambush. The leading French company of the 1^st Korea Battalion has just dismounted from its trucks and is trying to clear a route through to the Bailey Bridge. The French advance guard, a troop of the 5^th Cuirassiers, is trying to get back and link up with the infantry at the bridge. The French tanks take a pounding from the Viet Minh recoilless rifles and can only get two vehicles through to the bridge. The Viet Minh prematurely launch a company-size attack across the rice fields which meets heavy French fire. The French call on the support of a Hellcat ground attack fighter and managed to re-open the road. The Mobile Group (some 3,000 men and 400 vehicles) moves on – only to be ambushed again a few kilometres down the road.