Korean War: Pusan Perimeter, scenario #23: Nightmare on the Kum River

Ok this scenario has a little bit of everything: boats, cavalry, planes and tanks that can’t cross the blown bridges to name a few and American, ROK & NKPA are all involved in this one. The intricate setups, entry of units & reinforcements makes this a fascinating scenario.

The North Koreans have setup north of the river on map 94 and can only cross the river by loading boats and the T34/85s cannot cross the river in this scenario, so they only provide support or protection for the boats. The NKPA also have a few units which have already crossed the river the night before and can enter either map on the east or west edge, if the Americans didn’t have enough to worry about and not forgetting the NKPA have air-strikes on any three turns. The American forces have two setup groups; one composed of infantry setup south of the river on map 94 and the other force of mostly artillery, mortar and a few HMG units, setup anywhere on map 95. They ROK Cavalry come on as unexpected reinforcements about halfway through the game. The key victory is eliminate enemy units with the NKPA getting 5 points each for every eliminated American 105mm Artillery unit as well, so the Americans must take care of these units.

I couldn’t decide on the best setup for the American forward units, if they should go after the NKPA boats or pull back and defend the Artillery? So I set them up spread out to attack loaded boats which really wasn’t a good idea, at least not staying long enough to get caught up in combat, which mine did. The North Koreans overcame the American forward positions and head south for the artillery. At one point the ROK Cavalry came on board to take away major victory from the NKPA by knocking out a few step and downgrading the NKPA victory to a minor one, as the Americans lost all three 105mm units.

In viewing this scenario, the Americans should have only setup a leader or two forward to spot for artillery fire on the NPKA boats and the rest should have pulled back to protect the artillery and this would have played out differently I believe but what a fun scenario to play!