The Korean War Series Project!

[JayTownsend]

I posted all three: Korean War: Counter-Attack bonus/variant scenarios all in one place, over on BGG and CSW. And they are also in the above postings.

* Additional Canadian (3 Scenarios)

* Reservoir Battles (1 scenario)

* Helicopter/MASH (1 scenario)

They should add some additional fun for those of you interested in adding to your Counter-Attack joy.

[JayTownsend]

Chinese Small arms.

Interesting, I have been reading still more books on the Korean War, not for games but more for enjoyment and found some interesting sources on Chinese small arms. After the first night’s battle on Fox Hill from the book: The Last Stand of Fox Company, on page 130 and a few other pages, the Marines went out and recovered weapons and ammo from the Chinese dead that stacked up in front of their perimeter, as they were running out of ammunition themselves. They found: Thompson submachine guns, Russian burp guns, Japanese automatic rifles, British Lee-Enfields and Stens, American Springfields, khukri knives use by the Ghurka Infantry, to name a few. A lot of American equipment that was shipped to the Chiang Kai-shek by the boatloads in WWII and to the Chinese Civil War. Also 9-mm Luger pistols and some type of Belgians sniper rifles were found.

In other books they also mention Russian and Japanese bolt-action rifles and carbine rifles, Tokarev 7.62mm Semiautomatic Rifle, similar to the US BAR. Towards of the war, while on the offensive, the Chinese would carry mostly the Submachine Gun 7.62 PPSh 41 Burp Gun and grenades. Of course the 14.5mm Antitank Rifle but used a lot for long range snipping. They also had a wide variety of Machines but I’ll stick with the small arms for this posting. Interesting stuff!

[zaarin7]

Historically from 1900 forwards China ordered arms from just about every exporter there was. Then there were arms left by everybody who was there from the Boxer rebellion forwards. Then there was the support for Mao's communists and the Nationalists from the 1920's to after W W II. There was also a lot of domestic production of small arms before those areas were overrun by either the Japanese or the communists.

[JayTownsend]

Small AAR:

Korean War: Variant Scenario: The Reservoir Scenario!

Not wanting to wait for the Korean War: Intervention game I created this variant scenario from the Korean War: Counter-Attack and Kursk South Flank games. They were the best fit to use the Soviet Guard counters from and since I had two set of South Flank counters, the original thin laser counters and the newer die-cut counters, I now keep one set in the Counter-Attack box, to represent Chinese units for playtesting and variant scenario play.

The American Marines setup up on map 113 but decide to defend only one 60 meter hill hex, to concentrate their defenses in one tight circle around one major hill hex instead of two. The Major Leader counter situated on the center could then activate every adjacent hex around the 60 meter hex in one activation. The Chinese rolled a two on the dice on their first activation, so they entered on the west side of both maps instead on the north side of map 115.

The U.S. Marines are all dug-in, so I only put a few dug-in markers as a reminder, so not to clog up the map. The Chinese loses don’t matter so they surround the Marine hill defenses like the Little Big Horn but the Marines have the elevation and dug-in advantage as well as some off-board artillery and nice dice rolls to stem the Chinese horde. Only the weaker south side perimeter of the Marines line budges a little bit. The Chinese loses I didn’t keep track of, as they didn’t matter in the victory conditions and were large but the Marines lost only 6 steps; 2 x 81mm, 1 x Jeeps .50 cal, 2 x INF, 1 x 75RR gun and 1 x LT and kept passion of the 60 meter hill for a clear American victory.

Ok now I got that carving/fix out of my system somewhat!

[JayTownsend]

The Korean War Update.

When I first started the Korean War Project for Mike/Avalanche Press, Mike wanted 3 games and one or two supplements. So I came up with Pusan Perimeter, Counter-Attack and Intervention plus one supplement called Allies. I had to keep them in the parameter of 352 counters and 4-8 maps and 70 scenarios or less for each game. No easy chore when you consider that this series could have been a 1000 scenarios and many more counters.

Pusan Perimeter and Counter-Attack are now published and are very nice products in the Panzer Grenadier series. With Intervention, Mike wanted to add more Reservoir and ROK scenarios. But with already 67 scenarios I guess he wants to split the game into two games. Out of my 67 scenario submitted for Intervention, I already had 13 Reservoir scenarios mixed into the mix including one of the introductory scenarios. Currently the Reservoir scenarios are named: (Fox Hill Encirclement, Blocking the way to Chosin Reservoir, After Midnight, How Hill, Battles of the Chosin Reservoir Begin: Yudam-in, Reservoir The Rescue Attempt, East of the Reservoir, Task Force Faith, Task Force Drysdale & Hell Fire Valley, The Death of Task Force Faith, To Fox Hill, First Phase Withdrawal, Second Phase Withdrawal. Those are my 13 Reservoir scenarios. There were also a total of 14 scenarios with South Koreans (ROK) unit in them in the Intervention scenario mix. I had to have a sprinkling of Turkish, French and British units to make some of the major scenarios work but many of those nationalities will appear in later supplements. But out for 67 scenario I felt it was a nice mix to cover pretty much the whole rest of the Korean War in the Intervention game.

I even just recently resubmitted the Intervention game after reading more accounts on it, trying to beef up the Chinese attacking forces, adding a British Royal Marine Commandos platoon counters and LT COL Drysdale and a few other corrections. But if Avalanche Press still decides to spilt the game, I am sure they will do a good job of it, if need be.

I shouldn’t mention this but maybe it will encourage more gamers to join the Gold-Club. Mike also mentioned in the Gold Club letter this to look forward to, downloaded Chinese counters:

Premium Content
We’re sort of overloaded in layout right at the moment, but sometime soon we’ll bring out the year’s first new Premium Content item, some scenarios by Jay Townsend for Korean War: Counter Attack featuring the Canadians from Maple Leaf Brigade and new Chinese Communist Forces pieces in a download. It’s a nice preview for future Korean War games, and some extra use for your Canadians.



Anyway, I know it will be nice teaser to get these real Chinese counters until the day and year that the Interventions game or games are finally in print.

Counter-Attack is available now and Pusan Perimeter will be back in stock next week, both with die-cut counters this time around. Join the Gold-Club and you can also get the Chinese download in about a month or so, I am told from the Premium Content.

That is my update on the Korean War project for now.

[JayTownsend]

In my obsession of the Korean War, I have now read:

US Army: South of Naktong, North to the Yalu
US Army: Ebb and Flow
US Army: Truce Tent and Fighting Front
The Last Stand of Fox Company
Give Me Tomorrow
From Pusan to Panmunjom
The Coldest Winter
Colder Than Hell
The Korean War 1950-1953
US Army Forces in the Korean War 1950-53
Armour of the Korean War 1950-53
East of Chosin
The Forgotten War
This Kind of War
The Frozen Chosen
Breakout
(Two I am still in the process of reading).

[JayTownsend]

With that said, I think General MacArthur and General Almond might be two of the worst Generals in American military history.

[plloyd1010]

I don't know much about Almond, but I at least give MacArthur credit for the capacity to learn. His performance and failure from the Philippines seems to have been taken to heart when it came to later plans. That said, I was never much impressed with his peer-to-peer arrogance and I think his inferiority complex sometimes clouded his outlook. He did understand the operational situation better than Bradley, who was head of the Joint Chiefs at the time.

[JayTownsend]

Cross posting from CSW:

The book The Coldest Winter really puts the hammer to MacArthur. He really scarified his men for his ego and personal desired to be President/God. The troops of the Korean War paid a heavy price for his ego! Even back in the early Philippine campaign of 1941-42 in my opinion, he abandone his men. What kind of General deserts his men, President order or not! MacArthur was borderline crazy and was still trying to please his controlling Mother late in life.

General Almond was nothing more than racist and a poor general that blamed his troops for his failures.

[JayTownsend]

The book The Frozen Chosen the author doesn't think too highly of Bradley either.

From text: And despite his Hollywood-like reprisal after World War II, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar Bradley, was not noted for his great battlefield talents either. Bradley was the Army general sitting in Spa, Belgium, 200 miles from his forward units, playing a game of bridge when the Germans counterattacked in the Ardennes Forest in December 1944, perpetrating the worst defeat and more casualties on American forces than in any other single World War II battle and this after Bradley and others had been warned by frontline intelligence about clear signs of a German attack but, in their comfortable ignorance, chose to ignore the intelligence.

Maybe a bit hard on Bradley by this author but after reading The Coldest Winter and a number of other books, I will never again think too highly of General MacArthur!