Grunt: Tactical Combat in Vietnam, 1965

Grunt, Company Commander in Viet-Nam, appears to be the first commercial squad level wargame. The rules cover areas such as U.S. air strikes, Medevac evacuation by helicopter of U.S. casualties, 'body count' victory points, NLF ambushes and booby traps. It was first printed as a magazine game in Strategy & Tactics magazine #26. SPI said: "This game is unique in many ways. It uses a combat system in which the defensive value of a unit depends on the terrain the defender is in ... The game provides for true hidden movement for one player (the guerillas.) A wide selection of scenarios and Orders of Battle are provided." In 1975 SPI released John Young's design Search & Destroy, a heavily revised version of the Grunt game system. Search & Destroy successfully fleshed out the concepts introduced in Grunt, and benefitted from the increases in design and graphics that SPI saw from the early to mid seventies.