90+ Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap buys 100 copies of "Vallee De La Morte", a board game recreation of the battle of Dien Bien Phu There actually are 2 competing board game recreations of the epic 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu which was (by the French):

""....an attempt to interdict the enemy's rear area, to stop the flow of supplies and reinforcements, to establish a redoubt in the enemy's rear and disrupt his lines," says Douglas Johnson, research professor at the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute. "The enemy could then be lured into a killing ground."....Hoping to draw Ho Chi Minh's guerrillas into a classic battle, the French began to build up their garrison at Dien Bien Phu..." General Giap - who led the Vietcong forces in that battle, prefers "Vallee De La Morte". Such games are played with large multicolored paper maps broken up into hexagonal grids, with cardboard pieces representing military units. The rules can be quite complex and some wargames ( such as Drang Nach Osten) have thousands of pieces and take thousands of hours to play (sometimes longer than the actual wars they simulate). More on wargaming.
posted by troutfishing on Apr 26, 2004 - 26 comments