THE UNSUNG MOD - communist campaign?

[UKSubmariner 0]

It's about time we got a game from there perspective.. I'm sick to the back teeth of these gung-ho US 'Nam games doing the rounds these days!

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]bring about social justice for all,

Tell that to the rounded up civils during Tet...oops..social justice for all!

A communist campaign would be interesting.

[the_shadow 0]

Hell yeah, bring me both!!

[miles teg 1]

Quote[/b] ]1960's - war with US escalated from advisors to draftees.

yea they send in thousands of these kids to fight Vietnamese guys who've been at (guerilla) war some of them for 30+ years and expect them to fight and win with no objectives...

What have we learned from Vietnam? Dont let politicians run wars.

I don't think that was the only lesson because obviously we haven't learned much from the lessons of Vietnam as we are currently repeating many of the same mistakes in Iraq.  Propping up corrupt governments with sham elections and massive military power to try and quell an insurgency that has popular support. Meanwhile we try to train an Army and Police that generally has low morale because *most* don't believe in the government they fight for. The similarities are striking.  But that's for the off-topic section.  

Overall I think history has shown that the Vietnam War was a huge mistake period.  We lost it, and the Vietnamese are doing fine these days steadily heading towards democracy at their own pace.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Gollum1 0]

On topic, I always found it odd how there are so many war films (and now games) about Vietnam, yet 90% of them are from the perspective of the losing side, whereas the majority of war films and games are from the perspective of the winning side.

On the other hand, the US military was mostly superior in combat and on average inflicted many times more casualties on the VC/NVA than vice versa, having superior training and support and all, so playing as a Vietnamese wouldn't net you many 'kills' in the traditional action game sense (altough a different approach than standard FPS could be realistic and still enjoyable to play). The US won most of the battles but lost the war, and the battles are what games are all about...

Also, it's a lot easier for Western gamers to identify with Americans, being mostly the same race with a familiar culture and language. Not to mention catering to the huge American market.

[csj 0]

@ all

70% of US in Nam were volunteers

the average age was about 22 not f'in 19

and most ex vets I know have a great respect for their NV and very much the ARVN as ppl and their fighting ability.

It's just the governments that suck.

Drow is correct in his terminology of Gook and NO you wouldn't use it today as a ref to asians.

Quote[/b] ]The US won most of the battles but lost the war, and the battles are what games are all about...

interesting.

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Good concept 'Unsung' looking fwd to campaigns

[hellfish6 7]

My plea for the inclusion of a Vietnamese/VC/NVA campaign is this:

No other game has ever done a campaign from their perspective before, AFAIK. Now is your chance to show that you're not simply an average Vietnam mod team with good looking unit models. Show the world something - teach the world something - about how these guys were able to win and keep fighting despite such horrendous losses.

[philcommando 0]

A game is a 'kill em all' kind of experience but to re-enact a historical campaign would be a fantastic game in that not only does one get to 'play', one gets to 'learn' too, and perhaps thats why the appeal of ofp - we play and learn about the brutality and furtility of war and the sacrifice decisions we would have to make to survive or others to survive, training us to use a logic thot process for the moves we make which would realistically mirror the real life if we had been there.

Make no mistakes, each and every conflict is different in many ways, ideology, politics and motivation. In the Vietnam war, it must be noted that the NVA or Vietcong DID NOT conduct or allow guerilla warfare on american soil, unlike enemies of today, despite their civilians being bombed, chased out of their homes and settled behind fence, their industries in ruin.

The NVA had great respect for the american society and many considered the US constitution a gift of the gods to mankind for it speaks of freedom from tyranny and to live as humans and not as slaves for ruling foriegn or local powers.

Many times, the NVA and vietcongs refused to engage the US army, more because their fight is not with the US but with the ARVN of the corrupt and despotic Diem regime, becoming the 'illusive' army americans believed.

The role of 'adviosors' in the early years

---------------------------------------

Kennedy was an avid Ian Fleming fan and used the CIA and special forces to train the Arvn, mountain tribes -nung and montaganards to infiltrate North Vietnam to bomb their harbours to prevent russian supply and munitions factory.

In the south, civilians were rounded up and put behind fences -politically correctly called hamlets, but prisons nevertheless -uprooted from their ancestral homes - to prevent them from joining up with the vietcong and ruled by village heads who were affliated to the ruling despotic Diem regime and supported with honest american taxpayers money.

Housing and equipment supplied free to vietnamese ended up as stock for the village head who tax everything and grew even richer from the poor villagers. Those americans who spoke up about this evil were either silenced or sent home in disgrace for this is not what the administrators, both US and South Vietnam wanted the american public or president to hear.

Experience of the North Vietnamese Soldier

-----------------------------------------

In the early years, the freedom fighters were trained in russia for idealogy and fighting by the OSS during WWII. In the fight with the brutal french forces, puny sized asians learnt a trick or 2 from them about fighting and gained war experience from them. The group that kicked french out became the new leaders who organise the fight in the south then, but then, in war, no one lives forever. By 1966, most of these veterans died out and fresh new blood joined the fray.

These boys were not battle hardened or trained well, but the reason they fought well was because:-

1. they had a reason to - its their country who had been abused by foriegners who enslave their fathers.

2. they come from poor agarian societies and are not city bred folks, and know the jungle and can survive well on just rice or rat's meat and the occasional monsoon rains for water.

It should be noted that during the early years of the war, american soldiers were returned ASAP when captured but as the war dragged on, savagery begets savagery, all combatants became beasts in the name of survival, tit for tat.

However,in some of the villages, there were still some honour among boys forced to fight - the NVA/vietcong allowed the americans to rule the day with their patrols and air power, and the americans allowed the NVA/vietcong to rule the night - to go to the villages to educate the poor farmers. As long as each keeps a blind eye to each other, everyone lives and 'duty' performed.

Critical Memobarable Campaigns

-------------------------------

1. 'Advisor' secret wars - SF secret forays into North Vietnam

2. Westmoreland's Khe San 'Attrition' war to hold the mountain at the border of DMZ to prevent infiltration by the NVA to south vietnam, to kill as many NVA as possible, irregardless of the american boys who were trapped on the mountain with no resupply due to the bad weather.

3. Ia Drang valley - the sucidal first use of the brave air calvary onto an NVA mountain stronghold

4. Tet offensive - the NVA supported Vietcong unsuccessful upraising in major cities of south vietnam brokened by only a handful of sleeping US troops. US won the battle but truly lose the war here as it became a turning point in this war, american public opinion was agast with the administration for supporting a police state after finally learning the truth of the war.

I am no apologist for anyone. I neither hate nor love those who wilfully or unknowingly committed mistakes in the past for they acted on their beliefs at their time, believing they are right. I only hope we really do learn from the past and make our planet a safe home...earth is our home....and spare the boys and civilians. Every man woman and child have a right to live in freedom, freedom from hunger and fear.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Many times, the NVA and vietcongs refused to engage the US army, more because their fight is not with the US but with the ARVN of the corrupt and despotic Diem regime, becoming the 'illusive' army americans believed.

Maybe because the VC got their asses handed to them by US/ARVN during Tet/various "big" battles and the NVA (later on) was at a stalemate with them...

Quote[/b] ]2. Westmoreland's Khe San 'Attrition' war to hold the mountain at the border of DMZ to prevent infiltration by the NVA to south vietnam, to kill as many NVA as possible, irregardless of the american boys who were trapped on the mountain with no resupply due to the bad weather.

They were able to hold and inflicted heavy NVA/VC death and etc.  hmmm.. there could be a mission in which you have to assualt a Khe Shan-type base and see the horror of your follow soldiers getting killed in useless charges.

BTW, from the defense of Khe Sanh (1962-1968) about 720 Americans and 229 ARVN were killed (from various sources). The VC and NVA is unknown.

Quote[/b] ]

3. Ia Drang valley - the sucidal first use of the brave air calvary onto an NVA mountain stronghold

hmm...another mission..your a NVA/VC and think an Army or Marine (you choose) battalion is heading to their death against a NVA division..not the case...various squad on squad action...

Quote[/b] ]4. Tet offensive - the NVA supported Vietcong unsuccessful upraising in major cities of south vietnam brokened by only a handful of sleeping US troops. US won the battle but truly lose the war here as it became a turning point in this war, american public opinion was agast with the administration for supporting a police state after finally learning the truth of the war.

Tet...too easy for a mission...your undercover in a town and then you strike ...

Anyway, a communist would be interesting because it is the same thing like people will not a german campaign during World War II...something forbidden

[miles teg 1]

Um...I'm not sure I'd compare a communist Vietcong to a German Nazi from WWII.  But yeah both are taboo.  

I'm surprised we don't have any Vietnamese addon makers here.  I know we have some really talented Chinese (ROC Mod) and Japanese (BOH Mod) mod teams but sadly no Korean or Vietnamese teams.  

It would be cool to find a Vietnamese NVA/VC veteran of that war to use as an advisor.  The easy part is making simple missions based on historical facts.  The hard part would be to recreate the mindset of the NVA/VC soldier as all we usually hear is just the stereotypical  stuff in war movies which generally just show them as sneaky enemies and not really as human beings.  I would like missions showing a South Vietnamese farmer working in his fields with like an intro mission showing A-1 Skyraiders or F-4 Phantoms bombing his village and killing his family.  Then showing local Vietcong forces emerging from the forest after the bombing and asking him to join or him bycicling to a nearby VC village to sign up.

You would also need to show political officers quoting Karl Marx about the liberation of the people from the capitalist oppressors, ect... ect...    But also scenes showing quiet commraderie amongst fighting men (and women) around a campfire cooking rice.  Missions could also simulate the feeling of fear as a massive US Army Air Calvary force comes thundering into your valley in their Hueys dropping off a huge force of soldiers all around your village while you and your team must sneak past them and escape to fight another day.

Other missions could include sniper duels with the American sniper teams using a "hunt" script as you attempt to track down and kill each other.

There's a long list of excellent missions that could be made.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[PainDealer 0]

Anyway, a communist would be interesting because it is the same thing like people will not a german campaign during World War II...something forbidden

well the vietnamese were fighting for freedom and the germans fought to rule the whole world so there's a slight difference

[billybob2002 0]

Anyway, a communist would be interesting because it is the same thing like people will not a german campaign during World War II...something forbidden

well the vietnamese were fighting for freedom and the germans fought to rule the whole world so there's a slight difference

Not all germans were nazis and not all VC/NVA executed teachers and etc. during Tet (or out in the countryside) or ran torture camps (aka POW camps) for POWs. Also, it is forbidden because you would be killing americans in real war that happened. Operation Flashpoint does not count because it is a "fake" war.

Quote[/b] ]Missions could also simulate the feeling of fear as a massive US Army Air Calvary force comes thundering into your valley in their Hueys dropping off a huge force of soldiers all around your village while you and your team must sneak past them and escape to fight another day.

That is something like from Men of Valor. The mission in which you have a inbedded reporter and reports to the public that your squad burns down a innocent village but he does say it was a VC village that would had been reoccupied by them.

[philcommando 0]

The nazis were hell-bent on EXTERMINATING anyone who is not of blond hair and blue eyed of the aryan stock, world domination with them as the master race and the rest of us slaves. Thank heavens the new generation of germans are better.

The north vietnamese are no angels themselves, they taxed the villagers too, but watever money they collected, were for the war to free all of them and not into the pockets of some individuals. They, who had experienced the demeaning slavery of being colonised, only seek for self determination and freedom for all vietnamese to live as human and not as slaves to some whim and fancy local monarch.

Its a miracle that the last ship leaving vietnam did not sink with all that gold on the corrupted administrators fleeing the country!

[kerosene 0]

Quote[/b] ]bring about social justice for all,

Tell that to the rounded up civils during Tet...oops..social justice for all!

And the 40,000 civilians rounded up during the pheonix program by south vietnamese operating under C.I.A and U.S SF?  

Supporting a right wing dictatorship isnt the morally superior choice. I dont really buy into the domino effect, so I dont see the war as being as vital as preventing total war between the U.S and the communist block. North Korea was flooded with Chinese troops because the U.S/U.N didnt listen to some friendly advice. The U.S new the vietnam war was lost at least 5 years before they pulled troops out, but they prolonged the war, sacrificing lives to try and make a point to Russia and China.

I' d recomend picking up "the sorrow of war by Bao Ninh if you want to read something from the N.Vietnamese perspective.

http://www.amazon.com/exec....=507846

It averaged about 5 stars, check out the reader reviews.

 

Also there were plenty of ROK troops in Vietnam too, they'd make a nice addition.

Quote[/b] ]ps.I dont wanna play as a "gook" because unless you have Vietnamese sounding english voices it wont feel right, and atmosphere is what makes VIETNAM

pps.For those people who wanna learn about the NVA i suggest you read a book, this game is for killing them...  

Just say Vietnamese you prick, I hate that fucking word. I dont care what it did mean in the past, did U.S soldiers in Vietnam restrict their use of the word to describing North Vietnamese soldiers only? I doubt it.

[offtime 0]

there is so many nam games with only US campaigns so maybe we should just make VC one

[Placebo 28]

Let's not ruin a thread by allowing our tempers to slip.

Stick to defining people by NVA/VC/RVN etc. Not highly questionable slang which are essentially racial epithets. If someone does it don't bite back but report them to us and we'll deal with it.

[Placebo 28]

Offtime - I'm sure you don't want to be the first one banned.

[offtime 0]

Offtime - I'm sure you don't want to be the first one banned.

its not my objective ;)

just thought to add a little humour to this strange conversation ;)

[miles teg 1]

Hmm.... there's a thought...making a mission showing the terror of Operation Pheonix from the Vietcong side. Operation Pheonix was by the way based upon experiences learned from CIA supported anti-communist coup in Indonesia in which it is estimated that over a million people were slaughtered. Ya don't read about that usually in American university world history classes.

But I think making a VC based mission showing that experience would be a real eye opener. Basically a mission teaching a history lesson.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[kerosene 0]

It wasnt just Vietcong, it included "people with communist sympathies" and probably just people in the wrong place at the wrong tiime. Rape and torture as well as its infliction on relatives of the suspected were routine.

Im not trying to paint the NVA as paragons of moral virtue by comparison, I just think its debatable that they were much worse.

Also if you look at it as a proxy war between the powers as the only alternative to total war, shouldnt the failure of the U.S have had more visable ramifications? The region remained more or less as it was in terms of politics. - Vietanm, Laos were communist, Cambodia was barley a communist nation and Thailand, Indonesia and Phillipines didnt fall to the red menace in the wake of the defeat.

Vietnam kicked Chinas ass twice after the vietnam war and these defeats were in no small part responsible for the modernisation of the PLA.

[miles teg 1]

"They were commies so they were fit to kill and didn't matter whether they were civilians or not." That's basically the mentality during the entire cold war which is why America supported brutal dicatorships all over Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East and why we also looked the other way at the horrific slaughter of civilians in places like El Salvador.

Most Americans are blissfully ignorant of what happened during the Cold War. They only know that we won.

That's why I think its so important to show history from both sides of a conflict.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[mr reality 0]

Just say Vietnamese you prick, I hate that fucking word.  I dont care what it did mean in the past, did U.S soldiers in Vietnam restrict their use of the word to describing North Vietnamese soldiers only?  I doubt it.

Did you not notice the Comas around the word.It's a referance to what was the general term assosiated to the Vietnamese soldiers.If the word "gook" was racist i dont think the game "Vietcong" would of been allowed to use it.I would suggest you stay well clear of a Vietnam type campaign if your gonna get that touchy about it.That whole era is full of steriotypes,there wasn't this mad political correctness that there is today.War is hell buddy and if someone is going to recreate it as best as possible then you'd better stay well clear.

ps.Oh and calling me a prick is a real great way of showing your "maturity".....

[drow 0]

i guarantee youll hear "gook" said if you play our campaign,

so dont come if you cant take it...

no sissies allowed  

(edit - i just read back thru the thread now, please dont ban me for saying that Placebo it has context to what im saying)

[offtime 0]

Placebo will probably kick me out but i will do it anyway...

this time its not loop...

ppl, turn on your speakers

[miles teg 1]

i guarantee youll hear "gook" said if you play our campaign,

so dont come if you cant take it...

no sissies allowed  

(edit - i just read back thru the thread now, please dont ban me for saying that Placebo it has context to what im saying)

That's fu**ed up.  I'll steer clear of your mod in that case and stick with the SEB and independent Vietnam stuff.    I honestly don't think your mod team is capable of accurately portraying reality for the North Vietnamese/VietCong soldier with that kind of mentality.  

If I used that kind of rationale in my Middle East missions then I would call the Arab forces in my mod "sand niggers", "sand coons", "Towel Heads", "rag heads", "goat f**kers" and every other racist term that IN REALITY are used all the time by American forces in the Middle East.   But I won't do that cuz its just plain racist and its insulting to people of Middle Eastern descent just as the word "gook" is insulting to most people of Asian descent.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>