Dien Bien Phu

May 7th, 1954 - the guns fell silent as the last organized resistance in the fortified camp of Dien Bien Phu came to an end. The loss of Dien Bien Phu struck a death knell for the French effort to retain control of their former colony of Indochina. For the Viet Minh it was a long sought victory over significant French forces and heralded an end to this first phase of their war of liberation from their imperial masters. The war had begun 8 years previously in the wake of World War II and would end 21 long years later with the fall of Saigon in 1975. Dien Bien Phu covers the period of 1946 - 1954 when a polyglot force of Moroccans, Senegalese, Algerians, Legionnaires, Vietnamese, Thos and others under the auspices of the French sought to retain France's hold on Indochina and were opposed by the nationalist communist forces of the Viet Minh.

Dien Bien Phu conjures up many images for the average wargamer - a bloody, muddy siege, the failure of a colonial empire to hold onto it's possessions in the aftermath of World War II, the Legion Etrangere holding positions to the end, paratroopers dropping into a doomed situation, the list goes on. However, the French Indochina War was much more than that. In the Legion tradition, small outposts and their defense were a fixture throughout the war. There were riverine assaults, a tactic that would bloom in the American War 10+ years later. Aggressive paradrops were a regular feature before the development of the heliborne assault. There were convoys and endless patrols. In this latest edition to the Squad Battles series you will get to experience all of these situations and more.

Dien Bien Phu features:

• 70 stand alone scenarios and 7 campaigns to choose from
• A wide sampling of actions from this conflict
• 20 unique maps ranging in size from 780 hexes to 71,400 hexes providing ample ground for scenario designers to create their own actions
• Engine changes include:
   • Support for rolling Barrages has been added.
   • Added ability to give random probability to "withdraws" defined in a scenario.
   • Altered the A/I scripts dialog within the editor to facilitate the creation of A/I scripts.
   • Multiple A/I enhancements for movement, targeting and assaults.
   • Added Hull Down feature, set in the scenario editor for armor. Fire from the ground through the three front hex sides of a hull down vehicle is reduced by half. Hull down is lost if the vehicle turns or moves.

The game also has the standard scenario, OOB, parameter, database & sub-map editors included with the game. Play modes include A/I, Hot Seat, PBEM, LAN & Internet play.

Minimum Requirements

• 1 GHz Pentium CPU
• 256 MB RAM
• 300 MB Hard Drive
• Microsoft Windows 98/2K/XP/Vista operating system
• Microsoft DirectX 9.0+