This one has roughly two battalions of NKPA attacking from 2 sides while a smaller US force holds the town and hills to the north. NKPA has a single goal, take out 12 steps of US troops. Nothing about taking ground or having surviving numbers. I set up the US with two stacks of infantry and 1 HMG to hold the town, forcing anything stopping on the bridges to take the adjacent fire shot before being able to assault. Since the river is minor and wont stop anything for long, I spaced out the defence along the hill, keeping in woods when possible but digging in one INF and the RR where they could form the shoulder of western and northern defences, lining up the rest in the woods on the southern shoulders of the level 2 hill. NKPA formed two battalion forces with the commander and a poor level Kommisar leading the force to cross the river while the other force , lead by the Major, came in from the north end. US forces became decapitated early as NKPA forces survived crossing the bridges and entered assault, but the surviving troops held them there and the NKPA beat themselves on the thin line of troops in town. The northern assault force fared no better, managing to inflict the only 2 step losses the US suffered while bleeding themselves dry trying to close for assaults. Superior US arty did a lot of damage while NKPA guns only disrupted some troops for a few turns. Both sids opted to use their air power early on, and the very first NKPA aircraft came but didnt make out anything to shoot at, while US air support pounded the NKPA commander and his hex for 3 turns, keeping them pinned and unable to influence combat for some time. In the end, NKPA had only managed the 2 steps and the US commander lost to their own 20 steps, 1 Cpt and 1 LT lost. Big US win.

The tile of this AAR comes from a quote of my unit commander while I was in Korea as a scout jeep driver. Just before he lead our scout platton on an assault of a fortified position. Yep, the bodies would have been ours that day.

Korean War: Pusan Perimeter, scenario #27: The Push for Taejon

I saw and read a few AARs from this scenario before I played it and it looks difficult for the North Koreans to win, so I took the challenge. The Americans setup on the far hill mass on the southeast corner of the map, pretty much supporting one another. The NKPA entered the map from the far western edge of the map using the terrain as cover. Their only objective is to eliminate 12 or more American steps and the Americans win if not with only 14 turns. Both sides have a nice off-board artillery and three turns of air-support. Nice because there are not many scenarios in the series where the North Koreans get to use their airplane counters.

The American simple dug-in and waited for the North Koreans to approach and use their assets when they had the opportunity. The North Koreans maneuvered safely through the forest and hill terrain until their forces were ready for the jump-off attack. Thankful for the NKPA, they had the higher morale at 8/6 against the Americans 7/6 morale in this scenario, which they needed for all the assault combat.

The combat was fast and furious! During the air-attacks both sides delivered to their opponent, the NKPA attacks were more successful with two major hit compare to the Americans one major hit. Also, the NKPA dice rolls in assaults combat was hot and on three different assaults they rolled twelves scoring 2X all three times, counting for 6 steps. By the end of turn 12, the NKPA had eliminated 12 steps for a victory, so I didn’t play turn 13. At this point the Americans had lost 12 steps and 3 leaders, while the NKPA lost 10 steps and 2 leaders. The North Koreans had just enough off-board artillery, of 38 point value when combine to disrupt dug-n American units before assaulting them and the Americans with 60 points total of off-board artillery had some luck but mostly rolled poorly.

I think this scenario favors the Americans about 80% of the time and maybe the victory conditions should be changed to eliminating only 8 American steps but with hot dice rolls the North Koreans were able to win as is, so more plays are in order to see what, or if it should be changed.