Korean War: Counter-Attack, scenario #9: The Underwater Bridges

Dang, this was a bloody scenario. The North Koreans have setup two underwater bridges the night before and can move freely back and forth between the two side of the river but they don’t need to, just defend the two bridges and keep 12 or more steps on the east side of the river. The North Koreans in fact setup all of their Infantry, two layers of dug-in Infantry type units; INF, SMG, HMG and ATRs on the east side of the river. Their 120mm & 82mm Mortars are setup on the west side of the river with a direct view of the approaching American forces and the North Korean 122mm & 76.2mm artillery is setup on the west side of the river and well but tucked safely behind some hills to keep out of harm’s way of the American off-board artillery, with a strength of 3 x 18 or 54 points, The NKPA have a COL with nice combat modifier and since the North Koreans artillery is setup adjacent can combine fire for a total of 48 plus 1 for the Leaders modifier, so now at a 49 strength.

All the victory conditions are about the North Koreans keeping 12 or more steps on the east side of the river on map #112, casualties don’t mater, so it’s a bloody scenario. The Americans have a pretty good force and nice off-board but only 20 turns to get the NKPA below 12 steps on the east side of the river and if they can get at the underwater bridges they can lower the North Korean morale for units on the east side but getting through two layer of defensive lines stack against each other is a tall order.

The U.S. Army decided to use their numbers and frontally assaults the North Korean line with everything they have but one small taskforce in the south, with 1 x ENG, 1 x INF, 1 x RR57mm, 1 x Jeep and 2 Leaders will try and cross the river south with the engineers help and go after that unspotted NKPA artillery.

The mass American frontal assault starts out very poorly, they are hit with 49 points of on-board NKPA artillery with a 2 dice roll taking out two steps of Infantry followed another bad event of other American units pulling adjacent to two stacks of North Korean units, consisting of 2 x SMG, 1 x INF, 1 x HMG and one of the NKPA better Lieutenants with a combat modifier and anther dice roll of 2 against 24 points of adjacent fire causing the Americans which had three combat units in this stack to lose 3 steps and one leader. I should have started over but that is combat, you never know.

The Americans must have drawn the worst Lieutenant counters possible with 3 out of 4 of them with a morale of 7. The Americans end around move only managed to suppress some of the hidden NKPA artillery for a few turns but not until turn 10 or 11 but it recovered the attacking force was too small and suppressed themselves. The main American assault ended very poorly and after 14 turns I pulled the plus, as the American had lost 13 steps to the North Koreans 6 steps and more importantly the North Koreans still had 31 steps on the east side of the river and many of the American’s remaining steps were demoralized or disrupted and with only 6 turns left, they didn’t stand a chance in Hell of getting the NKPA steps below 12 on the east side of the river.

My strategy for the American side was pretty bad, assuming I could mass attack in strength but my overall strategy as the North Korean side was pretty good but their initial hot dice rolls really set the tone for this scenario. I think a little more patience on the Americans side and little less luck on the NKPA side might have paid-off but still a very tough one for the Americans to overcome. Not the outcome I was hoping for on the 4th of July but still a great tribute to the American service members who sacrificed so much through many conflicts to keep our country safe!