Ian M. Sullivan is the Special Advisor for Analysis and ISR at the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, US Army Training and Doctrine Command.

Disclaimer: All views expressed in this post are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, or Army Training and Doctrine Command

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Turn 13 and Endgame

So game turn 13 began as a bright sunny day, with the storm clouds gone.  The Allies had the initiative, and had a big decision to make.

The Allies did not immediately respond to last turn’s nuclear strike by China, opting instead to continue their conventional offensive.  However, they shifted their targeting priority to China’s nuclear forces to prevent further attacks.  Allied SOF opened the counterforce campaign, causing relatively significant damage to three nuclear sites.

The air superiority phase kicked off with a massive Allied advantage in aircraft, although the fight was surprisingly even.  The Allies initially downed two PLAAF squadrons—a Fifth Generation J-20 and a Su-30MKk2—but a second PLAAF J-20 got hot, and downed a VNAF Su-30 and a USAF F-16 on its own.  The Allies retained Air Supremacy, however.The strike phase began with USN TLAM strikes against PLARF nuclear sites, damaging two and destroying one that had been previously damaged by US SOF.  The Chinese then faced a decision.  With concerted attacks on their nuclear forces, the PLA Central Military Commission decided to continue tactical nuclear strikes, lest their forces be destroyed.  They targeted elements of the 11th MEU and the 3-101 BCT in the jungles south of the Chinese border, and the PAVN 9th Division and 22nd Armored Brigade southwest of Nguyen Thai. 

This strike was their final miscalculation, and although both were successful, it prompted a massive US retaliation and a global nuclear exchange.  As a result, the Chinese lost the game, as did the rest of humanity.

Lessons Learned:  “Habe ein Luftballon gefund, Denk’ an dich und lass’ ihn fliegen”… So this game ended fast, and everybody lost.  The Allies decided to restrain themselves, and avoided a response to last turn’s strike.  They knew they had a massive edge in conventional forces, and were a turn or two away from utterly evicting the PLA from Vietnam.  As a hedge, though, they began a counterforce operation against Chinese theater nuclear forces to deny them additional nuclear strikes, and this was what forced Beijing’s hand.  This decision prompted the Chinese to “use ‘em or lose ‘em,” hence the two more nuclear strikes.  Last turn’s strike was a Hail Mary designed to compel the Allies to withdraw from the war.  The second was aimed at giving the battered PLA a chance to escape.  It obviously failed. My die roll (see the picture) was a 3…

Had the game not ended in nuclear Armageddon, the VP tally stood at 39 for China, which would have been a draw.  At one point, China had 140 or so VPs.  The game was trending the Allies’ way before Damocles’ sword fell.

Final Thoughts

I have now played through three Next War games (Poland, Taiwan, and now Vietnam), and I think this was the best one yet.  I had no real idea what to expect, and the fight sort of took a life of its own. 

So as a reminder, I played the Strategic Surprise scenario, in which Beijing launches an invasion of Vietnam to punish Hanoi after a Vietnamese Coast Guard vessel rammed and sank a Chinese “fishing boat”.  Because I enjoy playing the full scope of the game, I kept US, Commonwealth, and French participation at level 4, full intervention.  The next time I play this game, I will adjust the levels to something else, but the truth is I cannot stand having all those beautiful counters not being used!  I then rolled for participation of other regional states.  I used the US diplomatic pressure on Thailand first to get access to Thai airbases, and then to get their full participation in the war.  The Philippines and Malaysia also joined the Allied cause, but Indonesia remained neutral. 

I also played with some of the rules from Supplement 1, including those for cyber warfare and submarines.  I think both add greatly to the game, and are essential in terms of adding a more complete approximation of contemporary and near-future warfare.  I was happy to see that the game gave China ballistic missiles, which truly is one of their great strengths.  The early edition of Next War: Taiwan lacked them, so I created some “house rules” for them when i played that game.  I utilized those same rules in this game, however to simulate China’s increasingly capable MRBMs and IRBM force, which include a capability to target maneuvering warships.  The DF-21/DF-26 “carrier killers” need to be accounted for, so I again allowed their use.  I know Supplement 3 has rules for these missiles, but I do not yet own a copy.  I also employed the optional coup de main scenario where China occupied both the Spratly and the Paracel Islands.

So China launched a punitive invasion of Vietnam.  Their initial invasion came on three axes, each backed by a Group Army, with two aiming at Hanoi and one at Haiphong, as objectives.  The first followed the coastline, and made for Haiphong.  The second was a north-south advance along the Jiangzhou-Hanoi road.  The third was a longer west-east attack along the Hanghe-Hanoi road. 

I learned several things as I played this game out.  First, the PLA Group Army is a flexible, capable organization in the attack, particularly when it operates with air superiority.  It maneuvers well, even through difficult terrain, and its fires capabilities allow it a real advantage in meeting engagements and set-piece battles.  The problem it ran into is that the PAVN is a difficult enemy for it to handle.  PAVN formations are large and unwieldy—mostly leg infantry divisions—who are weak in the attack, but strong on defense.  This is made even more apparent when they were able to defend difficult terrain, like jungles and cities. 

Furthermore, the terrain made this a difficult fight.  Road networks are not terribly extensive, and the Chinese advanced was channeled along a narrow swathe of clear territory between two great jungles.  This allowed the PAVN a chance to defend in depth and play for time.  It was not easy for the PAVN; by Turn 13, it had only three divisions and two Armored Brigades left on the map.  The PAVN lost 14 Divisions, 5 Armored Brigades, and a regiment of Marines trying to hold off the Chinese advance.  They truly bled themselves white in defense of their homeland, playing for time and for their Allies to turn the tide.

The Chinese had a real chance to win the game.  They broke through concentric rings of Vietnamese defenses, and converged on Hanoi.  The fight for Hanoi was the critical focus of this game.  The Chinese struggled mightily to take the city.  They effectively used their airborne formations to help along the west-east drive on the capital, but it was very difficult for them to amass enough combat power to contend with the defensive qualities of the large PAVN divisions, particularly the oversized Hanoi Division.  They finally broke through, and were able to secure southern third of the city, but they could do no more, and were unable to secure an automatic victory. 

Somewhere during this brutal city fight, the tone of the war changed.  The Chinese overcommitted themselves to taking Hanoi, which became a meat grinder for the PLA.  Actually, urban combat was particularly tough for the PLA, and one of the stars of this game were the Vietnamese PSDF militia units, who severely slowed their advance, hung on as urban guerrillas, and prevented the PLA from being able to quickly mass enough combat power to take Hanoi.  The defense of key urban areas, like Thai Nguyen, Viet Tri, and Uong Bi, along with Hanoi, were reminiscent of fights for Hue or the drive on Saigon during a previous war in Vietnam….

As for the Allies, the reality is that once they get enough combat power amassed, China has a difficult time, especially as they were weakened by the brutal fight with the PAVN.  Taking the Spratlys and Paracels was very important for China, as it further delayed the Allies’ ability to converge forces on Vietnam.  The Chinese Marines waged effective, if forlorn efforts to defend the islands, but they delayed by multiple turns the arrival of the first wave of Western reinforcements.

Before talking about the Western powers, a word must be spoken of the very significant contributions made by the regional Allies, especially the Philippines and Thailand.  Their bases helped turn the tide, but their armed forces made real contributions to the fight.  The Allies initially wished to use the Philippines Marines to capture the Spratlys, but a DF-26 ended that dream, sinking their amphibious squadron with Marines embarked.  However, the Philippines Marines did successfully take the Paracels in an airmobile assault, backed by USN carrier aviation.  Their Brahmos cruise missiles also drew much attention early on from the Chinese.  The Thai contribution was significant, and its 2nd Army’s arrival in Vietnam was the first allied contingent to arrive in Vietnam.  It intervened in the fighting around Hanoi at a critical juncture and helped hold the line, even as its three large, but low quality divisions were destroyed.  The Royal Thai Air Force also helped hold the line until more Allied aircraft arrived, and one Thai Viper squadron still remained in the fight on Turn 13.

The first contribution the Western Allies made were of course at sea and in the air.  They helped roll back China’s forward positions in the Islands, and by Turn 13, had essentially wrecked the PLAN, including sinking both of its carriers.  The Chinese carrier killers were not war-winning weapons in this conflict.  They had some successes, in sinking the Philippines amphibious force and the French Carrier, but they never had the chance to knock out a US carrier, as they rarely were able to get point detections on them.

Allied airpower remains their most formidable capability, and as more aircraft arrived, the harder life became for China.  The Chinese gamely contested the air, but the combination of Allied fighters, and the ability to target the Chinese IADS (which included SOF and cruise missile strikes) gave the Allies a free hand over the battlespace, and when they could shift multi-role fighters to air-to-mud missions, really made China pay.

As Allied ground formations arrived, they faced a weakened PLA, if one that was still capable.  The flanking attack by the 1st Australian Division, supported by the airmobile insertion of the 82nd Airborne Division, was a major factor in the Allies effort to roll up the Chinese flank.  The attack northward toward Haiphong, and the eventual airmobile insertion the 101st Air Assault Division and a Marine MEU northeast of Uong Bi also made a difference.  The fight for Uong Bi, incidentally, was as fierce as the fight for Hanoi.  A third Allied drive aimed to relieve Hanoi, spearhead by the III MEF, French Marine Paratroopers, and some surging PAVN divisions, cracked China’s hold of the capital, and in concert with the Aussies and All Americans, drove the PLA across the Red River for good.

It did surprise me to a degree how successful these Allied attacks were.  The Allies had several key advantages, often in terms of air support, attack helicopter support, cyber support, and perhaps most importantly, troop quality, but the Chinese have appeared to catch up a bit, and the edge in troop quality wasn’t as pronounced as it seemed in other games.  In addition, the Allies often suffered disadvantages when attacking together with French or PAVN units.  The Allied success on the flanks probably sealed the end of the Chinese invasion, although the drive to relieve Chinese-occupied Hanoi by the USMC, PAVN, and the French Marine Paratroopers, shattered Beijing’s hopes for victory.

This leads to the most controversial aspect of the game.  China’s decision to use tactical nuclear weapons.  As the PLA faced defeat, the first nuclear strike was basically a last chance to win the game outright.  The rules have a stipulation that after China first uses nuclear weapons, each of the Western Allies needed to role a die to see if they withdraw from the war.  China was desperately hoping that the US would withdraw, so they vaporized a USMC MEU, and took their chances.  France did withdraw, but both the US and Commonwealth rolled low, and stayed in the fight.  The Allies did not initially respond with nuclear weapons, realizing that they had a major advantage in conventional forces, which likely would have ended in victory for them.  Instead, they targeted Chinese nuclear sites with SOF and TLAM.  This led the Chinese to “use them or lose them,” which I know (as pointed out to me in comments flies in the face of China’s no-first use doctrine).  Nevertheless, I always believe that realism and regime survival will prevail, and facing abject defeat and perhaps allied cross-border offensives into China, Beijing went with regime survival over principle.  They bet and we all lost.

So what stood out to me in this game?  The unique terrain for one, made this game truly interesting.  The true multi-domain nature of the fight, with significant play across all domains.  The defensive strength of the PAVN, and the almost obnoxious resilience of the PSDF militia.  The success of the Allies on the ground.  The USMC played a major role in the ground fight, but their formations clearly were not optimized for the lethality of this kind of fight.  Yet their high quality repeatedly allowed Allied attacks to succeed.  The US Army rapid reaction units were the only Army formations that made it to the fight (the 25th ID would have entered the front lines had turn 13 continued) but they did fairly well, particularly in concert with the redoubtable Aussies. 

And again, the outright lethality of the fight stood out.  The PLA lost nearly 40 Brigades, 25+ squadrons of aircraft, and almost the entire South Seas Fleet.  In addition to the aforementioned PAVN losses, the Allies lost 7 USMC battalions (half in the nuke strike), two squadrons of Marine aircraft, and three USAF squadrons.  Of the 6 BCTs that supported the fight, half were reduced in strength. Additionally, the Aussies lost a squadron of F-35s and a another of helicopters, the Thais lost three divisions and three fighter squadrons, the Malaysians three fighter squadrons, and the Philippines 4 Marine Battalions, an Amphibious squadron, and a fighter squadron.  All of this in a 13-turn game, or approximately 40 days of fighting.

Finally, the sheer insanity of believing that escalation can be controlled in a great power conflict is my enduring lesson.  What started out as a punitive operation transitioned into a sheer test of wills, which led to a wider conflict involving great powers.  The only way out, other than accepting defeat, involved a nuclear strike, in the “escalate to de-escalate” mold.  The great American troubadour Bruce Springsteen says “lay down your money and you play your part.”  Well China did just that, and their part was as a horseman of the Apocalypse.

Thanks so much for following along.  As always, I learned a great deal from all of your comments you shared with me along the way.  I’ll be cleaning the table and transitioning it to a Christmas present wrapping station, but will then will finally take on Next War: Korea.  And who knows, maybe Santa will find me a copy of Next War: India-Pakistan.  I guess it’s debatable if I’ve been naughty or nice…

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Previous Articles: 

China’s Red River Dance — Playing Next War: Vietnam (Part 1)

China’s Red River Dance — Playing Next War: Vietnam (Part 2)

China’s Red River Dance — Playing Next War: Vietnam (Part 3)

China’s Red River Dance — Playing Next War: Vietnam (Part 4)