Special Forces War - Part 1: The Green Berets

The Vietnam War and Wargaming

John Wayne in Green Berets, the movie. We can't miss it here, as wargaming is cinematic and narrative hobby as well.

The Vietnam War was long considered the first modern conflict where special operations forces played a major role. With a bit of hyperbole, we could call it the War of Special Forces. The United States used this conflict to define its future tactics and strategy for special operations, heavily relying on LL processes—Lessons Learned. Based on these experiences (and subsequent failures in the 1980s), the U.S. eventually established the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and built the necessary infrastructure for rapid expeditionary units. These specially trained units were capable of projecting American policy anywhere in the world at short notice. After operations in Grenada and Panama, this "Vietnam lesson" culminated in the 1991 Gulf War. Conversely, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan served as a swan song, exposing the limits of the entire concept, its overextension, and its excessive institutionalization. Today, the war in Ukraine is just as much of a game-changer as the Vietnam War was in its time.

By the way, many Lessons Learned documents are freely available with a little bit of "Google Fu." Quite often, they directly contradict the mainstream Facebook view of things. But back to the topic. This article will only scratch the surface of the issue; it is by no means intended to describe, analyze, and evaluate the deployment of Allied forces in Vietnam in detail. Instead, it will focus on the deployed units and briefly introduce the reader to what their "little wars" in Vietnam were actually about. It won't tell experts anything new, but it can point interested readers in the right direction. The tentative breakdown of the series is as follows:

What to expect

* Part One: Green Berets (CZ) (EN)

* Part Two: LRRP and Rangers (CZ)

* Part Three: USAF PJ, CCT, CSP, and SOS (CZ)

* Part Four: USMC Force Recon

Coming Soon:

* Men with Green Faces (Navy SEALs)

* MACV-SOG

* The Aussies and Others (SASR, NZSAS, AATTV, South Korean "Cobras" and "Panthers")

* What They Carried With Them

* A Wargaming Perspective

Despite a certain social taboo in the United States, the Vietnam War is a fascinating conflict for wargaming. You can play exactly the style you want—from large-scale conventional or unconventional clashes to intimate, small-team operations fighting for survival in the jungle. Furthermore, it is a battlefield completely dominated by terrain: from the swampy Mekong Delta and urban combat in Hué to the mountainous battlefields on the Laotian border.

Conventional tactics and strategy failed here, as the previous French colonial war had already shown. Even the Americans' new airmobile or mechanized operations did not always yield perfect results.

For players, special forces are therefore an incredibly interesting choice. Skirmish games of various scales, cooperative games, asymmetric and unbalanced conflicts—all of these are always engaging from a gaming perspective, and the Vietnam War offers an endless variety of options. From LRRP and MACV-SOG reconnaissance missions to CIDG patrols and the daring raid on Son Tay. On the flip side, NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and Viet Cong attacks during the Tet Offensive provide excellent scenarios for the opposing side. Additionally, the terrain is visually diverse and constantly changing. It is neither a monotonous desert nor a European battlefield. Its harshness and impact on soldiers have a massive effect on in-game friction, and there are rule systems that handle this beautifully.

Green Berets

It is impossible to start with anything other than the Green Berets. They operated in the Southeast Asia (SEA) theater even before the official mass commitment of American troops, and the main SFG forces did not withdraw until 1971. They formed the largest special forces contingent in the country; at one point, up to 3,000 soldiers from the Special Forces Groups were deployed there. However, only the 5th SFG (Airborne) was reassigned to Vietnam as an entire organic unit, while selected specialists and teams from the 1st and 7th SFG rotated on temporary missions under its command.

The Green Berets also commanded up to 80,000 members of the CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group), recruited primarily from the indigenous Montagnard mountain tribes and ethnic Nungs. They were also heavily involved in covert operations under the MACV-SOG banner.

The key element of their organization was the Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA)—the legendary 12-man A-Team. These squads formed the backbone of a network of up to 270 camps and bases across South Vietnam. Most were fortified villages in the wilderness, where the Green Berets looked after the local population (as part of psychological warfare and medical civic action) while building and training local CIDG militias for counterinsurgency operations against the Viet Cong. A standard A-Team included two officers (a Commander with the rank of Captain and his Executive Officer, the XO), two senior NCOs (an Operations Sergeant and an Intelligence Sergeant), and pairs of specialists: two weapons, two engineer, two medical, and two communications sergeants. They possessed a wide array of both light and heavy weapons.

Starting in 1964, SFG soldiers began forming and leading Mobile Strike Forces—popularly known as MIKE Forces. Initially composed mainly of fierce and loyal Nung clans, they served as an elite, airmobile, (very) rapid-reaction reserve to rescue besieged A-Teams or execute special offensive assignments.

South Vietnam was militarily divided into four zones, named after the army corps of the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) as I, II, III, and IV Corps. Additionally, the Capital Military District (CMD) fell under a specific status within III Corps. Each corps was assigned one C-Detachment (a company-level headquarters commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel). Underneath it served regional B-Detachments (area-level headquarters led by a Major). Only to these B-Detachments did several operational A-Teams (ODAs) report.

Organizationally, it looked like this: Detachment C-1 (Company A, 5th SFG) in I Corps had detachments B-11 through B-16 reporting to it. Detachment C-2 (Company B) in II Corps controlled the B-2X detachments, and the same logic applied to Company C (C-3) and Company D (C-4). The city of Nha Trang itself, which housed the main headquarters of the entire 5th SFG, did not have its own C-Detachment. However, special elite B-Detachments reported directly to it: B-50 (Project OMEGA), B-52 (Project DELTA), B-55 (National MIKE Force Operational Reserve), and B-56 (Project SIGMA).

Each regional C-Detachment (1 through 4) had its own MIKE Force unit at its disposal, commanded by a designated B-Detachment (e.g., B-16, B-20, B-36, B-40). The MIKE Force companies and platoons in the field were then led by American instructors from the A-Teams. As mentioned, the largest, B-West (B-55), featuring the National MIKE Force, functioned as a central strategic reserve reporting directly to the top command in Nha Trang. MIKE Forces operated as light airmobile infantry designed for immediate deployment and hard-hitting, but time-limited, strikes.

Projects DELTA, SIGMA, and OMEGA were highly classified, special-purpose reconnaissance programs working directly for the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), primarily within South Vietnam. Project DELTA effectively birthed modern American long-range reconnaissance tactics. Small teams consisting of two Green Berets and four indigenous fighters (either CIDG or South Vietnamese Special Forces—LLDB, Lực Lượng Đặc Biệt) conducted long-range recon behind enemy lines. While regular LRRP units answered to their parent commands, Detachment B-52 (DELTA) reported directly to MACV. It was this detachment that gave rise to the famous MACV Recondo School in Nha Trang, which trained the vast majority of scouts in Southeast Asia.

Dragon Models Green Berets by Ron Volstad

Detachment B-50 (OMEGA) operated in a similar fashion to DELTA, but instead of country-wide deployment, it was designated to support conventional field armies along the dangerous border regions with Laos and Cambodia. A large portion of its indigenous forces consisted of ethnic Cambodians. Project SIGMA (Detachment B-56), on the other hand, was composed predominantly of Nungs. These teams were earmarked to support the Capital Military Assistance Command (CMAC) in the immediate vicinity of Saigon (Capital Military District), where they specialized in pinpointing and neutralizing Viet Cong infrastructure.

For their heroism in Vietnam, they received a total of 18 Medals of Honor, representing approximately 10% of all these highest decorations awarded during the entire Vietnam conflict.If you are looking for a unit in wargaming that does not specialize in just a single type of scenario, the Green Berets are the ideal choice. In addition to classic COIN (Counter-Insurgency) operations, these teams had an incredibly broad scope of action in all types of terrain in Vietnam. They offer scenarios ranging from coordinated clearing operations in the swamps of the Mekong Delta to raids, long-range reconnaissance, and risky CSAR (Combat Search and Rescue) missions.