Korean War AA3, part 3

We will launch the  main assault through the Uijongbu corridor. Two infantry divisions supported by tanks are poised for the attack. I have to operations left so I can activate both. The 4th Division and the 107 Tank regiment will break the ROK units and the 3rd Division supported by the 109th Tank regiment will race to Seoul.

4th Division will activate first. We will do again a normal attack, both with tank and air support.

Because tanks are involved we will have to perform a tank combat procedure. A KPA tank regiment has a tank value of 8, the ROKA 1st Regiment an anti-tank value of 1. 8 to 1.

With 0 as result... no effect again.  but this is just for the armor combat.

The normal combat will be 6 to 1 in clear terrain and with +1 for the KPA air support.

5+1=6. The results is D2, the defender must lose two steps. With the 1st regiment having only 1 step it is completely destroyed

The victorious KPA units can now enter the hex without expending Action points, instead it will use the 2nd action point to launch a new attack on the second stack of ROKA units.

Again tank and airpower will be committed.

This time the armor combat ration will be 8 to 2, 4 to 1 because 2 ROKA units are defending each one with an AT value of 1.

 3...+2 on the final die roll, and +1 for air. No bad terrain stopping our KPA blitz.

12 to 4 become 3 to1 in clear terrain.

I got a 3 modified to 6.

D1 result. 1 ROKA step will be eliminated. In this case the 9th regiment.

The 4th division is now fatigued.

Now as my last KPA operation I will activate the 3rd Division with the 109th Tank Regiment.

I will spend one point to give them a tactical movement action.

Now... I cannot end a movement action with more than 1 infantry division or three infantry regiments/brigade in the same hex, so just moving south on the road is not possible. I will have to use the broken country (dark green) on the east of the road. To put myself where I want and then use the last action point to launch a normal combat against the 3rd ROKA regiment.

In my previous combat example I have forgot (due to the loopsided combat) to mention the fact that friendly units adjacent to attacked enemy units participate in the combat. Now both the 3rd and 4th KPA divisions with their attached tank regiments. Air power will not be used, I will keep it for another attack.

Armor combat is 16 to 1...

8 on the die... +4 bonus to the combat die.

Combat ratio is 18 (12 + 6 the fatigued 4th division is less effective) to 2 for 9 to 1 in clear terrain with +4 bonus.

2 modified to 6... DR2 result. It meant 2 step eliminated and the defender forced to retreat. Because the defender has only 1 step the unit will simply be destroyed with no need to retreat. Another ROKA regiment overwhelmed.

 The KPA first operation of the war, after a lousy start in the east has cleared a path toward seoul. Yet the fact that the defense of the two combined ROK infantry regiments has required two attacks meant that Seoul has not been immediately attacked. How the ROK army will exploit the situation will be the topic of the next post.

Now what is a step? Military units usually comprises lot of people and equipment so you cannot kill them outright except in the most extreme situations. To represent the progressive reduction of combat effectiveness you use steps. In The Korean War divisions have three steps, regiments, equivalent to one third of a division, only one. The game uses divisions as the basic units. Regiments serve to specific purposes. In the first turn they represent the scattered deployment of the South Korean Army, later they allow US units to arrive piecemeal and also to cover more ground both in the defense of the Pusan perimeter and in the push into North Korea. 

On a secondary note, while the attack plan has been inspired by the real KPA invasion I have modiefied it a bit to show how a wargame can be used to explore alternatives approach using the feedback of what, at least in this case, is a solid combat and logistic model. If we examined the action of the 3^rd and 4^th Divisions  it is a quite effective reproduction of the initial moves of the KPA. The use of T-34 tanks against an unprepared ROKA defense and units lacking  effective anti-tank weaponry (represented by the 1 AT factor), allowed the KPA to overrun several ROKA defensive positions. In our little example  the 3 regiments of the 1^st ROKA division were deployed in depth to force the northerners to lose time and “steam”. Yet the use of tanks (in the game providing the modifier) allowed the North Koreans to effectively overcome the defensive positions. Also note the importance of the Uijongbu corridor. It is clear and flat terrain representing an ideal avenue for an attacking army.  Moving in the more hill terrain on the two sides  would have delayed the north Koreans and tank would have been less effective (as we will see soon in the game).