CM: Korea?

[Rokko]

Is something like this ever going to happen? I never understood why the 1950-1953 Korean conflict is so unpopular, maybe because it didn't have such a great impact on civilian life even back in the day.

But from a military view it always strikes me as amazingly interesting.

Essentially it appears to me as sort of much like the Eastern Front with UN troops as Germans and North Koreans and Chinese as Soviets on a smaller scale. For instance Frozen Chosin to me sounds very much like the winter battles in 1941-1942. Mostly the same equipment as in WW2 with a few more modern toys. Also, WW2-era Marines would be a debut to the CM series

The strategic situation having been highly fluid (considering the entire country was fought over like what? 3 times?) it would make great for some great offensive and defensive scenarios for BOTH sides. I am by no means an expert on that war, but it appears to be quit managable from game developing standpoint. Relatively confined in terms of terrain and force involved (US Army, USMC, CPLA, KPLA + other UN forces and South Koreans that could be delivered in modules). Technological advances don't seem to have played such big role and were definately not as important as in WW2. I don't know about organizational changes during those three years, although only the first two might be really interesting for a tactical war game.

The most important question, off course, is, how much interest is there in such a game and if it would be profitable.

[$Pec5]

I would certainly play that game.

[verulam]

Yes I would as well. As long as we had a Gangnam Style mod as well.

[mjkerner]

Count me in, but it will be a "few" years if at all.

[togi]

Count me in because of brave Turkish soldiers will be coming in this game.

[verulam]

I used to work with a chap who was a Royal Marine in Korea. They had a Turkish unit beside them. The Reds could not move them even when they drove tanks over them. He thought they were the hardest troops in Korea and he had been at the Choisin reservoir as well.

[Seedorf81]

Count me in because of brave Turkish soldiers will be coming in this game.

There was a Dutch battalion, too.

When stationed in Germany in the early eighties I saw a CIB (Combat Infantry Badge) on my captain's uniform. At first I couldn't understand, because how would a Dutch soldier get a CIB? Well, he'd been fighting in Korea.

[LukeFF]

I never understood why the 1950-1953 Korean conflict is so unpopular, maybe because it didn't have such a great impact on civilian life even back in the day.

More likely that it happened so relatively soon after WWII and was followed by the Vietnam conflict.

[Rokko]

Well it wasnt exsctly followed by the Vietnam conflict at least when we are talking about American intervention. And it was my understanding that the fighting in Korea didnt affect the public back home (in the US) nearly as much as WW2 or Vietnam did.

Also the faact that it was so inconclusive and that it wasnt all shining victories contributes to its unpopularity today.

[Sequoia]

I don't think Battlefront has anything against doing Korea. Once Bagration is done (with all its modules to the end of the war in May '45), it would probably be easier for them to do then a France 1940 game. But just look at what else they have on their plate already announced.

1. CMFI:Gustav Line.

2. CMBN: Market-Garden and at least one CMBN Battlepack.

3. Ostfront '44 Bagation (and modules).

4. CMSF II: NATO vs Russia (and modules).

5. CMX2 Battle of Bulge Game (and modules).

6 Three more Ostfront Games (and modules).

This is all going to take years of development. I think our best hope for a Korea game is if a third party took it on as one did Afghanistan.

[LukeFF]

Well it wasn't exactly followed by the Vietnam conflict at least when we are talking about American intervention.

:confused:

My whole point was that, in the history of America, the Korean war was totally overshadowed by the events of WWII and Vietnam.

[chris talpas]

The Canadians were there too. 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricias received a Presidential Unit Citation for their action at Kapyong.

[Michael Emrys]

The strategic situation having been highly fluid (considering the entire country was fought over like what? 3 times?)...

Depends on what you mean by "whole country". In the summer of 1950 the NKA drove from the 38th. parallel to the Pusan perimeter. That's about half the length of the country. Then in the autumn, the UN drove them all the way back to the Yalu. That was the only campaign that went the full length of the country. After the Chinese entered the fray, they drove the UN south to just below the 38th. parallel. After the UN forces were reinforced and reorganized, they were able to push back to just north of the 38th. And that was pretty much the end of the war of movement. After that, some terrain features changed hands back and forth, but no major movements.

Michael

[$Pec5]

Korea would be a great game. So many different units. Great terrain. Interesting equipment upgrades...

[arpella72]

I'm not very interested in a CM game about Korea.More or less in the same stuff than WWII.

I would prefer a CM game about the 1967 Six Days War or/and 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and Arab countries.There were an interesting mix of WWII era tanks like the T-34/85,IS-3 and a upgraded version of the sherman(the supersherman) and T-55,Centurion and M-48 patton tanks.What's more,the Israeli mechanized infantry operated M3 halftracks.Fierce and bloody battles took place in these conflicts and some big tank battles.

[Childress]

I'm not very interested in a CM game about Korea.More or less in the same stuff than WWII.

I would prefer a CM game about the 1967 Six Days War or/and 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and Arab countries.

Sounds great. But Battlefront will never stick their fingers in that hornet's nest. They don't want to end up like Salmon Rushdie.

I'd buy any of their games except anything to do with the Pacific or Vietnam: slogs through jungles against often invisible enemies. And very few tanks..

[Sublime]

Childress I think if you read into either settings you disapprove of you'd find plenty of tactical situations that offer a lot of variety and exciting situations. In the Pacific you have jungles, you also have Iwo Jima, and Okinawa which has all kinds of different terrain. The Phillipines also offer terrain thats different than jungles, including large cities that were fought over.

Vietnam is the same. Yes there'd be a lot of jungle combat - but there'd be other types of terrain and situations as well. Shoot - a CMx2 size game could be made just about the fighting in Hue in 1968. You'd have door to door fighting and all sorts of other stuff. Both wars did actually feature tanks as well. Granted in the Pacific it was very one sided with few appearances by Japanese armor. Vietnam had very few as well - but there were still a handful of situations that could be represented like the attack on the SF camp with PT 76s, the failed N Vietnamese Offensive in 72 (which had armor) and successful 75 offensive which had armor as well.

Vietnam covering the French/Vietnamese would be great too - there'd be a lot of variety of combat units. To be honest the more I think about Vietnam the more it seems it'd play to CMs strengths as the great majority of battles were small unit firefights that CM represents best.. Not to say I dont see your point though, I pine for the Ost Front most of all. And to be fair to the thread title I think CM:Korea would be the ideal setting to move from WW2 from. It'd also go a long way to appease the NATO vs Warsaw Pact addicts as you'd be able to match US/Soviet equipment and whatnot.

[Rokko]

I'm not very interested in a CM game about Korea.More or less in the same stuff than WWII.

I would prefer a CM game about the 1967 Six Days War or/and 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and Arab countries.There were an interesting mix of WWII era tanks like the T-34/85,IS-3 and a upgraded version of the sherman(the supersherman) and T-55,Centurion and M-48 patton tanks.What's more,the Israeli mechanized infantry operated M3 halftracks.Fierce and bloody battles took place in these conflicts and some big tank battles.

Yes the equipment wouldn't be too different (which would make development easier btw considering most of the stuff will be already present in Normandy/Eastern Front) but the array of different tactical situations is just amazing.

Human wave attacks against American firepower in frozen terrain, rugged hillsides like in Sicily/Italy, desperate battles of cut off American forces, etc.

[General Jack Ripper]

Q: Combat Mission: Korea?

A: YES!

[Georgie]

I don't know which Russian tanks were used in Korea but it would be interesting to see how the late war US tanks stacked up against them.

[MG TOW]

I don't know which Russian tanks were used in Korea but it would be interesting to see how the late war US tanks stacked up against them.

UN tanks did horrible at first. The majority of them for some reason were m24 chaffees and shermans vs T34. The T-34 reigned supreme.

Weren't many Pershings to begin with in the conflict, and they had reliability issues, their use was suspended. And the Pattons came much later.

[mjkerner]

I need to backtrack a bit. I would like to see CM:PTO first. Then CM:Indochina, CM:'Nam and CM:Korea in no particular order.

BFC won't be looking at doing any of these any time soon, if at all, but there is hope for a 3rd party developer to contract to do them, I suppose.

[Georgie]

UN tanks did horrible at first. The majority of them for some reason were m24 chaffees and shermans vs T34. The T-34 reigned supreme.

Weren't many Pershings to begin with in the conflict, and they had reliability issues, their use was suspended. And the Pattons came much later.

I remember reading a book, cant remember the name right now, and it was about the US Marine Corps use of the Pershing in Korea and according to the book they did quit well with them against the T 34s. I remember one passage in the book where the crew of one of the Pershings was inspecting a knocked out T34 after a battle and they found that the 90mm of the Pershing had gone completely through the T34 from front to rear.

[Vanir Ausf B]

UN tanks did horrible at first. The majority of them for some reason were m24 chaffees and shermans vs T34. The T-34 reigned supreme.

Weren't many Pershings to begin with in the conflict, and they had reliability issues, their use was suspended. And the Pattons came much later.

Good discussion here:

http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000016.html

WO 342/1 Tank and anti-tank warfare: tanks; battle performance and tactics 1951 Feb - 1953 Sept

There's quite a lot of interesting information on the M26 Pershing & M46 Patton in WO 342/1 Tank and anti-tank warfare: tanks; battle performance and tactics 1951 Feb - 1953 Sept, notably in Notes on Armour by E.D. Strong dated 16th June 1951. I don't think that Hunnicutt had access to this material (not mentioned either in the book or bibliography), not least because it was still classified until 1990, so I thought it was worth describing at some length.

Several points stand out immediately:

1. The 90mm M3 gun was inferior to the 20pdr but more than capable of taking out T-34/85's at all combat ranges (usually less than 500m in Korea).

2. Mechanical unreliability was a major problem, for example in the period 8th April 1951 to 8 June 1951, 31 M26 Pershings were lost due to mechanical failure out of a total strength of 88 - a 35% loss rate, in comparison to 8 combat losses in the same period. The M46 appears no better, with 67 mechanical failures in the same period out of a total strength of 188 - a 36% loss rate, in comparison to 30 combat losses. By comparison the M4A3 had a 20% mechanical loss rate.

Going into a little more detail during the month of May 1951, one M46 equipped battalion reported the following maintenance jobs:

3 transmissions replaced

40 defective oil cooler fans

27 bad magnetic clutches

9 broken final drives

6 faulty control differentials

plus numerous jobs tackled by the Battalion maintenance platoon (the other jobs were done by dedicated maintenance units in the rear).

3. Mobility was poor in comparison to the T-34/85 & the M4A3, the M46 appears to have had especially poor cross country performance due to power loss in the transmission & relatively high ground pressure at 13.3psi.

4. Both the M26 & M46 were gas guzzlers, in Korea on an average road march the following fuel consumption was found:

Tanks Gasoline consumption

(Gallons per mile)

M24 1.5

M4A3 2.5

M26 3.0

M46 4.5

The report notes that with a UN tank strength of approx 1200 in Korea, and an estimated mileage of 25 miles per tank per day, the difference in gasoline consumption between a hypothetical use of M4A3 & M46 tanks alone would be 60,000 gallons excess per day for M46 tanks, or 1,800,000 gallons per month. The M46 in Korea was therefore something of a logistical nightmare.

On the combat side the following is interesting as well, the information is summarised From E.D. Strong's Distribution of Hits by AP projectiles on UN Tanks in Korea found in WO 342/1 Tank and anti-tank warfare: tanks; battle performance and tactics 1951 Feb - 1953 Sept:

During the period July 1st - Sept 20th 1951, 40 UN tanks were penetrated by AP projectiles fired by T.34 tanks mounting 85mm guns, self-propelled 76mm guns, and 45mm, 57mm, & 76mm anti-tank guns. All these tanks were American, since British armour did not engage enemy tanks or anti-tank guns during this period. The tanks studied were the M24 Chaffee, the M4A3 Sherman, the M26 Pershing, & the M46 Patton.

Distribution of Hits:

Hits Penetration

Front Turret 8 2

Front Hull 12 4

Side Turret 7 4

Side Hull 27 22

Rear 3 3

Unknown 5 5

Total 62 40

Of the 57 hits whose position are known, 20 (35%) were on the front of the tank, 34 (60%) were on the sides, and 3 (5%) on the rear. This agrees roughly with observations made from a very much bigger sample in WWII, which indicated that 40% of all hits were on the front surfaces.

Of the 40 tanks penetrated, 16 were hit in tank to tank combat with enemy T.34's, & 24 were hit by anti-tank guns. The relative effectiveness of American tanks is illustrated by the relative numbers knocked out in actual combat with T.34's:

Type No. Destroyed No. T34's destroyed

M24 5 1

M4A3 7 24

M26 3 31

M46 1 18

Also worth noting the numbers of tanks penetrated by anti-tank guns was:

M24: 2

M4A3: 13

M26: 4

M46: 2

However, a better indication of the effectiveness of the tank's armour is given by the ratio of hits penetrating to hits sustained:

Type Hits sustained Hits penetrating % penetrating

M24 11 10 91

M4A3 30 20 67

M26 14 7 50

M46 7 3 43

The report concludes that:

1. Despite the small number of tanks hit by AP projectiles, Korean experience indicates that the distribution of hits on various parts of the tank armour was roughly the same as WWII.

2. The effectiveness of heavier frontal armour on tanks is illustrated by the fact that only 30% of hits on the front caused penetration, wheras 76% of hits on the side penetrated.

3. Although M24 light tanks were not a match for Russian built T34's, US medium tanks destroyed T34's as a rate of approximately seven for every US tank destroyed by them. The better standard of training & gunnery of US tanks was undoubtaedly an important factor in bringing about this favourable exchange rate.

[Sublime]

Georgie - I know T-34/85s and IS-2's were used and fought US tanks. They also engaged British Centurion tanks. Apparently the Centurion was more than a match, as were US heavy tanks. The late war US tanks such as Sherman 76s and Chaffees had trouble. There was an episode on Military Channel's Greatest Tank Battles about Korea. The British reference comes from a book on the British stand on the Imjim River.