Korean War: Pusan Perimeter, scenario #16: Task Force Smith

I decided this would be my second scenario, one because it is probably the better known engagement, it gets American units involved for their first action and it’s just a cool scenario. On paper you think the Americans won’t standup very well but when you look at the interesting victory conditions you see there are a lot of choices to be made: points for eliminated steps, points for undemoralized American steps still on the map, points for NKPA tanks steps that exit the south edge of the map.

I setup the Americans dug-in in a blocking formation but mostly around or in the town hexes and the hill terrain covering the enemy’s approaches. The NKPA player has two groups of units that enter the map; the first group consists of all T34/85 tanks on turn one and the second mostly infantry both on foot and trucks or GAZ67 mounted and another half step of T34/85s but do not enter until turn 12. The Americans defend with a mixed bunch of Infantry and support weapons including a 105mm artillery unit, 75mm RR, 4.2-inch, and 2.36-inch Bazookas. All this in 18 turns!

I moved the 10 steps of NKPA steps on to the map but decided they would be better to just get exit points but did engage some forward element American Infantry disrupting one unit before find a gap in the American lines and heading south, losing one step to the American 75mm RR gun which rolled high on the dice. This took about eight turns, now I still had 4 turns to kill before the next group of NKPA entered the map, as I chose to exit my NKPA tanks early. This gave me the chance to reorganize my American lines and recover my disrupted Infantry unit which took all four turns by the way, as the American morale is only 7/5.

The next much larger group of NKPA Infantry entered the map on turn 12 and has only 7 turns left to do as much damage a possible the American lines. They moved in as close as they could but took heavy casualties before they got close enough to use their direct fire or assault. The NPKA also has off-board artillery support but they rolled terrible with their dice except one or two times. The Half step of T34/85 tanks from the second group also managed to exit south taking the same path as the tank before it, even with a Bazooka team chasing it.

In the end, much to my surprise, as I wasn’t keeping track of the points, I added them up: The Americans lost 6 steps, the NKPA lost 9 steps, the NKPA exited 10 steps and the Americans had 16 undemoralized steps still on the map. The totals were 16 points for the NKPA and 25 points for the Americans, a Major American Victory!

This scenario rocks, as there are many different strategies and setups to make it interesting, which in turn mean many different outcomes. In hindsight I should not have exited all my T34/85s from the map so early, yes they are easy points you don’t want to lose in combat but they should have stuck around and softened up the American positions a bit, so when their Infantry arrived they would not have been met with a hail of bullets. Maybe I freaked out when a 2.36 Bazooka Team assaulted a passing T34/85 but I shouldn’t have as the bazooka team was destroyed. But this goes to show you, these scenarios can have a different outcome then historically and a player can do worst or better than the Generals of the past. This scenario I feel will have a lot of replay value and may even become a PG classic but only time will tell.

Disclaimer: I know I said I wouldn't rank any of my own design material a 4 for fairness from now on but this one I felt was way too good and I made an exception and gave this classic a 5.