Dien Bien Phu From Critical Hit

Review by: Daniel Windham

On November 20, 1953, French paratroopers jumped into a remote valley in northwest Tonkin, near the Laotian border. They were there to build an air-supplied fortress and lure the Viet Minh into a fight the French expected to win. By March, General Giap had ringed the valley with artillery on the hills above it. The French had picked the bottom of a bowl.

The siege of Dien Bien Phu lasted 56 days, and it ended French rule in Indochina. Critical Hit’s Dien Bien Phu puts it on an ASL table. I’ve owned it twice now, the 2004 release and the 2016 edition, and I come at it as a newer player who loves Cold War history.

Getting It

This is the 2016 edition, an ASLComp module from Critical Hit. It’s a big update of a long-out-of-print game. Critical Hit sells it direct for $99.95, as a limited print run. As usual, the link is at the bottom of the article.

Contents:

• A large historical map of the Champs Elysees area, the “Five Hills”
• Three geomorphic boards, D1 to D3
• An overlay set
• Two full sheets of color, die-cut counters
• Color rules and a play aid
• 16 scenarios, including a campaign game

It isn’t a complete game, whatever the back of the box says. You’ll want the ASL Rulebook and a good-sized counter collection, and a few scenarios need boards from other modules.

Rules I’d Rewrite

Let’s start with the helicopters. The module gives you a full set of helicopter rules. Bernard Fall’s Hell in a Very Small Place and Martin Windrow’s The Last Valley both agree on what helicopters did at Dien Bien Phu. They flew out the wounded and the dead, and maybe brought in a few supplies. They didn’t carry troops, and they didn’t scout. I’d scrap them in the next printing.

The Viet Minh rules bother me more. They’re mostly treated as Russians, except for a couple of rules where they’re treated as Japanese. A new player has to pull out Rising Sun and remember which pieces apply. Worse, they can’t form multi-location fire groups. Ray Tapio called that his most controversial rule back in 2004, and it’s still here.

History doesn’t back it up. When the French pulled out of Cao Bang in 1950, the Viet Minh hit them on Route Coloniale 4 with ambush after ambush. Those ambushes had machine guns, mortars and radios, and they came close to costing France the whole war. That’s an army that can coordinate its fire.

The Map Is the Star

Mapping a battle more than 50 years old is tough. During the siege, even de Castries had to get updates from Hanoi on where his own trench lines ran. Even so, this module has one of the best maps of Dien Bien Phu I’ve ever seen.

I checked it against Windrow’s maps from The Last Valley, the best I know. Phony Mountain, Old Baldy, Champs Elysees and Eliane 4 are all where they should be. The French had to hold this ground. When it fell, the garrison fell with it.

The hexes are bigger than usual, and I think that’s great. You’ve got room in one hex to split a pinned stack from a broken one. That’s a real help for a new player’s memory, and your opponent can see what’s going on too. I’d love to see MMP try it.

The three geomorphic boards come as separate sheets, so you’ll tape them together yourself. I laminated mine. Next to the old 2004 D2 board, these are a huge step up. That old one was a real eyesore, with little triangles I never did figure out.

Paras, Legionnaires and the Viet Minh

Accuracy matters here as much as it does for World War II, so I checked the counters against Windrow’s Osprey book on the French Indochina War, with Mike Chappell’s plates. The French paratroopers are 6-4-8s in two-tone lizard camouflage. One counter art piece is straight out of Captain Bizard’s breakout from Huguette 6, sandbags and all. You’re going to roll pretty well with these guys.

The T’ai units wear plain French khaki and rate lower. They were great scouts and ambushers, but they didn’t do well stuck in a defense far from home. The regular French infantry are still in the old Free French color. MMP’s 2020 reprint went to blue for all French, and if Critical Hit follows, that’s fine with me.

The Viet Minh counters are a tan close to the Russians in Beyond Valor, and they stack together just fine. My one gripe is that the art shows AK-47s, which nobody carried in 1954. Critical Hit shares that art with its Hue and Ia Drang modules, so I’ll let it slide.

The ten M24 Chaffees that fought at Dien Bien Phu are here, too. Critical Hit’s armor used to follow its own Genesis 48 layout, but these use the standard ASL one. That’s a welcome change.

The Valley

Picture a valley about ten miles long, with the French strongpoints strung along the Nam Youm and the airstrip. This map shows the strongpoints, the main attacks, a short chronology and where each scenario sits. The Five Hills get their own inset, with an outline of where the Champs Elysees map falls. The numbers match the scenario table right under the map.

Blue markers are the fights where the French attack, and red ones are where the Viet Minh do. Under Old Baldy, By Land, Air, and Sea, and Circle the Wagons are DBP scenarios too. Those three came out later in Critical Hit magazine.

Castor and the Long Siege

Castor’s Opening Act should be scenario 1, if you ask me. It’s the paratroopers’ first drop into the valley on November 20, 1953, and it’s the scenario I’d hand a beginner. It’s six turns of infantry, leaders and machine guns, much like a Starter Kit scenario.

There’s a catch, though. It plays on board 38, which means Code of Bushido or Rising Sun. That’s around $200 I’m not willing to spend for one board. Too many scenarios here lean on outside boards, so the module is really built for experienced players.

The siege opened on March 13, 1954, when Béatrice fell in a single night. Gabrielle went two days later, and then the T’ai slipped away from Anne-Marie. Without those northern strongpoints, the Viet Minh guns closed the airstrip. From then on, everything came in by parachute, onto a drop zone that kept shrinking.

Most of the scenarios come from that stretch, from late March to the end. Bruno’s Flak Attack is Bigeard’s raid on the flak guns west of the base on March 28. Keeping Isabelle Fed sends the Legion south to keep the road open to Isabelle. In Escape from Huguette 6, Bizard’s men break out on Easter morning, wearing half-filled sandbags against the grenades.

Artillery is the big thing missing. Every author I read, Fall, Windrow, Logevall and Roy, writes about the American 105mm, used by both sides at Dien Bien Phu. Not one scenario includes it. Between the Starter Kits and the French ordnance, there are plenty of 105 counters out there, so I hope a future edition works it in.

The Five Hills

Champs Elysees, the campaign game, runs from March 30 to April 2. The French have to hold Champs Elysees, the hill they called Eliane 2, against wave after wave of Viet Minh. The scenarios on the same map run all the way to The Last Day, on May 7, hours before the cease-fire.

I’ve got a few complaints about the campaign game. There don’t seem to be any purchase options. By that point, every French reinforcement came in by parachute, yet there are no airdrop rules, even though the ASL Rulebook already covers them. The setup notes also say you’ll need your own counters or extra copies to play it. That should be on the box.

I’d also love a campaign for the last ten days. That’s when the pressure was highest. The French were fighting for time to reach the conference table at Geneva, and the Viet Minh were fighting to free their country.

Where to Buy

Critical Hit: ASLComp Dien Bien Phu 2016

Debriefing

Dien Bien Phu proves ASL can handle the wars after 1945, just like Forgotten War does for Korea. The map and the counters are excellent, and the history behind them is solid. Some of the rules and the campaign game need another pass.

If you study this war, buy it for the Five Hills map alone. If you’re newer, start with Castor’s Opening Act once you’ve got board 38. Then play a few scenarios, form your own opinion, and tell Critical Hit what you think. They listen, and that’s why the 2016 edition is so much better than the 2004 one. You can also see my takes on The Fight for Hue and the Ia Drang annual.

Academy Out!

GET TO THE CHOPPA…!!!

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