Korean War: Counter-Attack, scenario #44: Highway to Seoul

I thought to myself, there is no way the North Koreans could beat dug-in Marines but I remember it is about the victory conditions of eliminating four steps for a victory and they didn’t have to run blindly into the Marine lines as they did historically. But with that said, I setup my Marines on the outlining town hexes and adjacent terrain in a defensive line with great hopes of an easy victory.

The North Koreans have read the history books and decide not to repeat it, sending their Infantry units forward just over a cresting hill overlooking the Marine positions and send the two platoons of T34/85 tank flanking, as not to run head on into dug-in M26 Pershing tanks. The Marines roll awful against the closing NKPA Infantry units and they are able to pull pretty much adjacent to the Marine lines with little damage and their leadership not caring about their casualties in the first place only the Marines casualties matter to them. The luck was favoring the North Koreans, as this is the only scenario with NKPA airpower, one strike but a IL-10 with a 2 AT dice roll factor is what was drawn and used against the American M26 tanks, hitting it with one six dice roll, destroy one Pershing step and demoralizing the other. Not a great start for my Marines.

As the NKPA continued with the hot dice, the two T34/85 units pulled adjacent to dug-in Marines Infantry, destroying an assaulting Bazooka Team and activating first on the next turn to roll an 11 on the dice against adjacent dug-in Marine Infantry, destroying one step. Across the line, assaults and adjacent combat was happening and the yes the NKPA were taking some licks and step loses but the American took a couple more as well giving the NKPA a victory by turn 12, where I stopped play, as it didn’t matter how many steps the North Korean lost at this point, they had already won the scenario, very much to my surprise but with five American steps lost, there was no denying it. I certainly want to replay this one as the NKPA dice rolls early on and the rarest of air-strikes gave them the early advantage.

Interesting side note, my Introduction and Conclusion are a little different to the published version:

Introduction: During the advance so far the 5th and 1st Marines had followed the Inch’on-Seoul highway with the 5th Marines on the north side and the 1st Marines on south side. The 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines occupied a position commanding the Seoul highway. In the forward position at about 0600, D Company saw the dim outlines of enemy tanks and infantry, with some Infantry riding on the tanks. The enemy force moved within 75 yards before the Marines open up on them.

Conclusion:

The North Korean force never saw the Marines until it was too late. Rockets from a bazooka set one tank on fire and the Pershing tanks and recoilless rifles destroyed five more T34s. Over 200 N.K. infantry were also killed out of an estimated 250. Later in the day, from General Smith’s command post to the 2nd Battalion 5th Marines positions were twelve destroyed T34 tanks which seemed to the Marines as a good omen for the future.

On a side note, Yak planes made bombing runs on the Rochester lying in the Lnch’on harbor causing minor damage and three casualties with one plane being shot down out of two.

But Mike does a better job writing the published version, so I have no complaints!

Background and Setup: This one pits the Norks against US Marines, which is bad enough for the NKPA but their victory conditions also require that they eliminate at least four US steps, so flanking and hiding is out of the question. The plan is for the troops to stick together and try to pick off some isolated units for the win. I keep the two T34s together, with the plan that a couple hits on the M26 will get the win for the North. The Marines have their customary great leaders and dig in astride the road in front of town, with open kill zones in front and on the flanks.

Recap: The NKPA crests the hill in front of town and heads for the south flank of the US line. They survive the rush and put in a couple assaults, and it looks like the plan might work. But then Marine firepower takes over—the M26 catches the T34s on the main road and wipes out one and takes out half of the other. Meanwhile the Marine infantry and HMGs cut the North troops to pieces. Having lost 3/4 of their tanks, a captain, the Kommissar, and the bulk of the ground troops, the remaining NKPA stagger back over the hill and call it a day. Oh, and the air strike completely missed the target hex.

Analysis: a short, quick fight that the Commies can win if they get a couple lucky shots. In my play through they did not and were shot off the board. Marines are like a cheat code in PG, and they lived up to their reputation in this one.

I particularly enjoy the theme of Mc Arthur's counterattack and landing at Incheon, west of Seoul. We had already played the "Beaches of Wolmi-do" landing scenario and I kept an eye on the rest... The "Highway to Seoul" is quite a disappointment. The set-up does not seem to have any sense historically. The small US Marines force is supposed to be watching over the Incheon-Seoul highway to prevent the North Koreans to attack the bridgehead at Incheon. Map 111 clearly represents Incheon... There's nothing there like a large building up US force, no trucks, no tanks, nobody ... except for the small blocking US force that has to set up there instead of map 114. Normally, the Marines should have set up on the western hill of board 114 trying to prevent North Koreans from controlling the road and/or exiting through the west road hex of board 114 (thereby threatening Incheon). It was not to be. Victory conditions are ... strange enough and do not mention the road itself; they are all about making US casualties (the NKs need to eliminate 4 American steps to win). It has no sense. Furthermore, play of the scenario was pretty one-sided because the NK player needs to be quite lucky to assault such powerful Marines (dug in or defending in town!). And if the NKs do not succeed early enough, the Marines can quietly, progressively retreat in successive town hexes of Incheon until the game is over. Missed.

Author	treadasaurusrex (United States)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	United States
Participants	Tambu
Play Date	2024-05-25
Language	English
Scenario	KWCA044

This was an overlong, 3-session play=through with the fearsome & quick-thinking Tambu as the NORK commander. I won the coin toss and luckily played overwhelming US side, We probably should have picked another one for our first Korean War scenario as this example was an unbalanced, poorly-designed dog in our humble opinion that barely merits a rating of 2 from me - mostly because it was fun to play with a challenging opponent.

Others have reviews it in detail, but we found that it is virtually impossible for the NORK side to win this one-sided scramble. Save this one for SOLO play only. Beginning with the strange, and not very realistic, set up instructions, to the odd victory conditions, this was a disappointing ride to play in shared mode.