Jay Townsend has previously written an AAR on this scenario, and I could almost take his AAR word for word in the way I played the scenario. The North Korean objectives are to inflict at least 15 step losses on the Americans and/or to clear one of the 2 north-south roads. Doing 1 is a minor victory, doing both is a major victory. Since I'm playing the battle game, clearing one of the north-south roads is required for the North Koreans to win, so that put extra emphasis on that achievement.

This is a night scenario with 2 hex visibility for the entire game, although the US does have the ability to fire star shells. In my play, this was only of limited usefulness, as the North Koreans eventually engaged on a broad front and very few units were more than 2 hexes away from the enemy.

The US has to defend both roads, while the North Koreans have the ability to concentrate forces on one road. This is what I did, sending the bulk of the North Koreans down the western map, and reserving about 10 or 12 INF platoons to the eastern map, on the opposite side of the gorge from the Americans. I didn't expect them to be able to clear the road here, however their very presence meant the US had to leave a significant force to make sure they didn't somehow achieve that objective.

Leadership for the Americans was mostly uninspired, although there were a couple of good leaders, while the North Koreans benefited from some decent draws, including an 11-1-2 leader.

On the western map, I put about half the forces, including HMGS as a forward defense, with a strong force protecting the villages and mortars towards the rear. This may have been a mistake, consolidating one stronger line might have made more sense.

The North Koreans came in waves, getting shot up to some extent, however a given unit can only fire opportunity fire twice, and when 3 stacks approach, that means 2 of them get through. And with the -1 column modifier for night firing, even adjacent shots weren't as deadly. This allowed the North Koreans to close with the front line and take their own close range shots. With the Americans only having 7/6 morale, even M results were dangerous, and while the Americans had to take time to try to recover from disruption and demoralization, the North Koreans could constantly feed in new troops. By about turn 10 the American front line had collapsed. In addition, with some of the Americans tied up in assaults, more North Koreans infiltrated through and started threatening the US mortars, effectively taking them out of the battle.

To the east, the North Koreans started outflanking the American positions, and eventually holed up in the gorge. The Americans had to strip some troops to help with the deteriorating situation in the west, and the others couldn't see the North Koreans in the gorge so they dug in and awaited them. However, the North Koreans kept going farther south and also got into the rear areas.

With the combined efforts, the North Koreans had essentially surrounded the US forces, and the battle became a swirling, confused melee. The US lost about 6 leaders in this one, several to X results and rolling low, and several to capture. The US had lost 15 steps by about turn 16, so the North Koreans had their minor victory...but they still needed to clear a road. The efforts to the east were going slowly, as expected, and even after the US stripped most of their eastern troops out, they still had one strong stack dug in at the crossroads as a last resort. To the west, the villages held out (I accidentally treated them as towns for 1/2 the game) as did one stack far to the south. The North Koreans eventually surrounded the villages to keep them from interfering on the road (and killed several units that had nowhere to rout) and finally, on turn 24, pushed the last US troops off the north-south road and stay alive in the battle game (the Allies have won 3 scenarios there, the North Koreans 2, with 2 to go).

This scenario was a lot of fun, lots of decisions for both sides. I think it's a tough one for the Americans to win, as in order to defend the roads, they will take casualties, especially because the North Koreans don't care about casualties, and because there are so many North Koreans. Wave after wave of them crashed against the US, and while they took losses, they kept coming and eventually wore down the Americans.

Recommended.