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I’ve mentioned this a couple of times on other posts, but I really wish someone would do a PC-game take on COIN at the operational level. No knock on CS, but a lot of Vietnam War games seem to me to focus on the tactical battles side, when that alone doesn’t really account for why insurgencies triumph or fail. It feels apiece with the same tunnel-vision that prioritised kill ratios and body counts as a proxy for ‘success’.

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At the risk of seriously overstepping my amateur knowledge, I’ve given the question some thought. I didn’t want to be the kind of poster who just criticizes without offering any solutions!

I’d love to try a COIN wargame that:

1. Featured modeling of the human element on the ‘ground’. Named village elders / local commanders with mechanics governing influence, initiative, popularity etc. Dilemmas about whether to back an unpopular but loyal local leader vs a charismatic wild-card as likely to funnel money to the insurgents

2. Firepower asymmetry. COIN forces usually have major advantages over insurgents, outside of ambushes (perhaps a special insurgent Op?) but this ties to

3. Reliance on various forms of intelligence. Human intel, recon ops, captured informants, without which insurgent main bases can’t be targeted.

4. Mechanics to incentivize ‘presence’ ops, checkpoints, provincial offices, ‘post-kilometric’ outposts (like the French PK system) in order to build local influence, which in turn provides…

5. Targets for insurgents to hit and fired COIN forces to defend

6. Supply system: logistics networks for COIN forces (vulnerable to ambush), and local plus overland / river supply for insurgents (vulnerable to disruption, or the New Model Hamlet approach in Vietnam / Malaya)

7. COIN forces constrained by political considerations. The war won or lost based on a combination of local and domestic political support, rather than (just) destruction of enemy capabilities

The question mark for me would be how far a developer would want to go in representing the messiness of reprisals and ‘police action’. Events not rising to the level of outright atrocities like My Lai, but ‘sanctioned’ forms of brutality. Villages demolished or moved as punishment for an ambush, police sweeps picking up local citizens, insurgent terror ops, assassinations.

I imagine the Vietnam War especially would be a huge undertaking because of how it also merges big-unit warfare (especially in the French period / post ‘73)