We Couldn't Kill The T-34s

[Head Mahone]

Did you guys catch the History Channel’s Modern Marvels show on the Tank last night? The part that really caught my eye was that American armor was once again out-classed! They showed our tanks on ramps shooting in to the sky (nothing more than mobile artillery). Then when it was time to do some tank killin, they said we couldn't do it! The show said when the Koreans and Chinese rolled that T-34 in; we had nothing to knock it out with.

It’s hard to believe that our military leaders continuously failed to get the point, time and time again! And it’s a shame the ones that knew better couldn't get the point across. Boy how things have changed though...

-Head

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"I don't need my junkie friends all knockin' at my door. I just wanna do an old time waltz with a buxom Irish whore!"

-Shane MacGowan

[This message has been edited by Head Mahone (edited 03-09-2001).]

[Wilhammer]

Truman oversaw a massive disarmament, so fast it actually destroyed our preparedness. We were essentially hiding behind our Nuclear shield. For a brief time, they thought there would be no chance of a conventional war.

So, when they deployed to Korea, the first thing they did was send anybody they coulld get their hands on, and most were poorly trained, worse equipped occupation soldiers.

We eventually got bigger bazookas, lots of planes, and Sherman Easy 8s (nearly all recovered from Pacific battlefields and rebuilt by Japan, thus fooming the nucleus of a huge automitive industry) and the various flavors of Pattons and Pershings.

It is shocking how similar the initial NK drive was tothe Blitz on France. The ROK simply had no way, will or means to deal with tanks, and the releiving Allied force was forced into a very tight spot.

[flakwagen]

I think they were referring to our old anti-tank weapons as opposed to tank vs. tank warfare. A lot of equipment used in Korea was left over from WW2. Heck, even some of the food was left over from WW2.

After WW2 the world had a military inventory surplus of epic proportions. Unfortunately the U.S. chose to keep using a few things that were obsolete by the time Korea rolled around.

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[Freak]

Thanks goodness for the Abrams!!!

Oh and...do we have any T-95's left for the battlefield? 155mm gun ya know, and she wieghed over 100 tons...

[Dan Robertson]

The ROK forces in Korea were lacking in weapon to fight in general, when the T34's rolled South they had problems stopping them.

The US shipped M4 shermans, M26 and M46 tanks to Korea. Tank crews prefered the M4 as it was more relible and could climb the hill and paddie fields better.

In actual combat all allied tanks post superior kill/loss ratios, compared to thee T34. American tanks were fighting suing much superior sights and the HVAP round they fired could easily penetrate the T34.

The only other allied tank of note was the British Centurian which totally out classed any othe vehicle there gaining kills at over 3000meters.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Were the first U.S. units that intervened in Korea, unprepared to face the enemy in nearly every respect? Yes. Does this include inadequate AT ability? Certainly. Was this a principle failing, the main cause of their defeats, or a lasting characteristic of the Korean war? Not at all.

TF Smith lost 1 gun, many trucks and jeeps, and ~25 men to 33 tanks that drove through them. 5 of the tanks were immobilized or KO'ed. 2 by 105-HEAT, 3 by track hits 105-HE then abandoned. 75mm RR and 60mm Zooks scored numerous hits without apparent effect. The heavy losses came in the pullout, after infantry had flanked them, and the cause of the losses was mostly MG fire.

Within a week, Mac asked for 3 medium and 1 heavy tank battalions, and a few days later revised this upward to 4 heavy tank battalions. Front commanders made urgent requests for 105mm HEAT and 3.5" zooks (aka Shrecks). 900 of the new zooks were airlifted to the theater in July and August. AT mine production was started in Japan and the first delivery of 3000 AT mines made within 3 weeks of TF Smith. 26 July a ship sailed from 'Frisco with 80 tanks aboard. 3 Pershings were sent from Japan but broke down, 14 were sent from Hawaii with one regiment, and a battalion of WW-II era Sherman 76s was assembled in Japan, all in the first month.

Over the course of July, U.S. and ROK took out T-34s in a number of incidents, with 105mm HEAT, 60mm zooks, the first use of 3.5" zooks before the end of the month, and by air attack with 5" rockets. These accounted for 21 tanks in 4 different fights. A month after TF Smith, 1st Cav destroyed 19 tanks in one fight, air support and ground fire by artillery, and tank fire from Chaffees contributing. All told, the NKs lost at least 45 tanks to U.S. forces in combat in the month of July, ~1/3rd of their force, and probably more like 2/3rds overall, with the ROKs and the air force in rear areas getting the balance.

The U.S. forces were not losing tanks in tank-to-tank combat at this time. The U.S. did lose tanks, but they are cases of abandonment after roads were cut, or after mechanical failures. Tanks on both sides were too thin on the ground to encounter each other often. Mostly, each side's tanks supported against enemy infantry, the NKs making better use of theirs to cut roads and the like.

But the main edge the NKs had in the early war period was superior infantry tactics, experience, and conditioning. The U.S. operated in too road-bound a fashion, while the NKs moved through the high ground and easily cut roads behind U.S. forces, over and over again, or outflanked U.S. positions. The NKs were officered and cadred by veterans of the wars in China, who not only knew their business but understood the terrain.

Rough, hilly terrain with a limited road net, made for quite different tactics and relationships than the wide open flatlands of Europe, or the beaches and jungles of Pacific islands. U.S. commanders lacked the experience, and U.S. recruits lacked the stamina and wind, for the required off-road "mountain infantry" style maneuvering, that mattered the most. The Chinese still had a definite edge in this respect even at the end of the first year. They were much better at it than the NK had been, and the NK had been better at it than the U.S.

Even in the case of TF Smith, the tanks driving through had not forced retreat or destroyed the defenders. The infantry was stripped off of them in the process and they were buttoned, while the crews were not very experienced. They fired a few rounds and drove on, without cutting the TF's eventual retreat routes. But a solid battalion of infantry on high ground behind one flank, both forced a withdrawl, and heavily cut it up with MG fire, when it was attempted.

The U.S. lost 6,000 causalties in the first month, most of them from the 24th infantry division which was cut off in the above fashion. 900 of these were confirmed PWs, plus 500 missing, and nearly 1900 were KIA. ROK losses in this period were an order of magnitude larger, around 70,000 or nearly a full "turnover" of their original force. They carried most of the weight of the mostly infantry fight, but their fielded force was dwindling, while the U.S. force was building up as formations reached Japan or Pusan. NK lost 58,000 casualties in this period, or about 3/4ths what the UN forces lost. They also lost ~2/3rd of their original tanks, with estimates on those left, counting a trickle of replacements, between 40 and 70 AFVs.

There is a noticable dicotomy in the "wars" going on in this period, U.S. and ROK. The U.S. forces were more heavily engaged along the roads and blocking the major transport links, while the ROKs were holding or failing to hold, more of the hills between them. This reflects the greater motorization of the U.S. forces and differences in tactics. The U.S. took out ~50% of the tanks the NKs lost, but bore less than 1/10th of the infantry fighting. At the Pusan perimeter, this changed, and the U.S. forces got up into the hills too.

By 6th August, the U.S. had a battalion of Pershings, another of Sherman 76s in theater, along with the Chaffee battalions in each infantry division (3 were in theater). There is no question of being outweighed in armor by then. The enemy armor (SU-76s, not just T-34s) was still able to inflict considerable loss on occasion, when it hit places were U.S. tanks weren't around. But the NKs no longer had any kind of armor edge. They were down to maneuvering in penny packets of 3-6 AFVs. These platoons were used to spearhead infantry attacks, raid artillery positions when they got through on the high ground, and the like. Neither they nor the Chinese ever got an armor edge at any later stage of the war, either. That was over by August.

If you want more historical detail, look here -

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/korea/20-2-1/toc.htm

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

I realized after the previous that I may be assuming too much about knowledge of the opposing force mixes, before the U.S. intervened in strength.

The NK army had 150 T-34/85s at the time of the invasion. They also had around 120 SU-76 open-topped self-propelled guns - Marders in CM terms. And they had a large artillery arm on standard Russian lines, with 122mm howitzer, 76mm howitzer, 45mm AT, plus 120mm and 82mm mortars.

The entire "armored" compliment of the South Korean army was a single "cavalry" battalion in U.S. terms - 9 M-8 and 18 M-20 armored cars, as scout vehicles. They had 90 105mm pack howitzers, 140 37mm towed antitank guns, a reasonable number of 81mm and 60mm mortars, and plenty of ordinary U.S. WW II era bazookas.

In artillery the ROKs were outgunned 3 to 1, in infantry strength outnumbered only about 4 to 3, and in armor it was a division's worth of tanks and TDs vs. practically nothing. The ROKs were also green, while many of the NKs were veterans of the wars in China.

To give an idea what happened to the first U.S. units put into combat against the NKs, TF Smith (2 infantry companies plus an artillery battery) had the following heavy equipment on the day it was overrun.

5 105mm howitzer (total HEAT - 6 rounds)

2 75mm recoilless rifles

2 4.2" mortars

4 60mm mortars

4 .50 cal MGs

10 bazookas (60mm, WW II US type)

With about 500 men, 400 of them infantry and the balance in the artillery battery. What attacked them was 36 T-34/85s, comprising about 1/4th of the tanks in the entire NK army, plus at least a regiment of infantry.

[This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 03-09-2001).]

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by flakwagen:

A lot of equipment used in Korea was left over from WW2. Heck, even some of the food was left over from WW2.

Apparently the same was true in Viet Nam. Hackworth's book About Face relates how he had to cancel Thanksgiving for his battalion one year when the turkeys turned out to date from 1945, over twenty years earlier.

Michael

[jake bullet]

Originally posted by Freak:

Thanks goodness for the Abrams!!!

AND THE CHALENGER 2

[von Lucke]

Anyone who's been to Korea can tell you that the terrain is not armor friendly. It is all up-and-down vertical ridges of hills slicing across the peninsula like a series of frozen waves. Most of the main North/South road-net is heavily mined and/or booby-trapped (things like 20ton reinforced concrete blocks suspended on pillars over narrow roads where they pass through even narrower cuts in the hills).

In 1950 the road-net was mostly non-paved or non-existant, which after the initial build-up and Blitzkrieg by the NKPA armor, probably contributed to their not deploying armor in any numbers. Korea was an almost straight-up infantry fight from beginning to end.

[ADAman]

The mountains to the east are certainly like that but there is a corridor down the west where tanks can certainly go. I was stationed there for 13 months in the early 70's so I can't compare it with the early 50's other than to say they probably didn't move a lot of mountains between the two dates.

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Air Defense: Shoot 'em down, sort 'em out on the ground (AKA - if it flies, it dies)

[gunnergoz]

The first US tanks to mix it up in Korea were M-24's. Not the tank to go chasing after the likes of T-34/85's in 1944, when they first came out, any more than in 1950 when the "police action" happened. We had the armor in inventory to handle the T-34/85's, i.e. the M-26/M-46 and soon the M-47 series, but they were not present. So the failure was one of policy and employment, not technology.

See'in it on TV don't necessarily make it so...But TV don't sell well without scandal and scapegoat.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

One fellow said the first U.S. tanks in Korea were the M-24s Chaffees, and that is correct. But they did not have much occasion to clash with T-34s. About the only exception is the 24th Infantry division's fight, which I will cover below.

Another fellow said that a few mines could cover the roads, and notes how heavily fortified the place is today. True on both counts. But there wasn't a single AT mine in the country when the NK attacked. The first to reach the country were hastily built in Japan and arrived at Pusan on 18 July (3000 of them).

The same fellow speculates that the NKs didn't "commit" too much armor because of the terrain. Well, actually the NKs committed every tank they had, they just only had 150 of them, plus 120 SU-76s. And they got very few replacements, essentially just vehicles sent forward from maintenance, perhaps 20 all told.

If you meant the Russians didn't give them more because of the terrain, it is possible. But I doubt it. One armored division against none probably seemed like plenty. And the NK crews proved not terribly well trained in armored warfare. They were good infantry fighters. And the Russians did not expect the U.S. to defend the place (long story, but well established as true). The ROKs alone would have (or, did) collapsed before 150 T-34s, so the Russian aid decisions were perfectly sensible.

Another fellow explains the clear "tankable" western corridor, and that too is correct. From the border to south of the capital, the NKs were able to "blitz", with the tanks punching holes and the infantry marching through them and mopping up.

There are a series of locations at which eastern turns can be made, to eventually reach Pusan in the far southeast corner of the penisula. These turn-offs can reached from the open western plain. But Pusan cannot. The longest route around the coast is the lowest ground, but it includes several river blocks and closer to Pusan, ridge blocks as well. More direct routes have to slant across the central hills southeastward, or come down the thin strip of lowland on the eastern coast.

TF Smith was trying to block the entry points to some of these turn-offs. But being less than a battalion of light infantry, with modest artillery support, against divisional columns with armor, this was ridiculously optimistic.

The NK were being constantly underestimated in the early period, and the results they were getting vs. the ROKs were put down to the ROKs being ineffective, instead of the NKs being effective. It would prove an expensive mistake.

The 24th division fought the largest blocking fight against the NKs while the odds were still against the UN forces, and before better armor and AT weapons reached the theater. It got cut up pretty badly. But the way it got cut up, was not M-24s fighting tank duels with T-34s and losing, followed by armored breakthrough and "collapse".

What happened instead is the U.S. block was bypassed, not by the NK armor, but by its infantry. The U.S. were defending a town and roadblocks around it. They were thinking that denying the road-net to the enemy would stop him. It flat didn't. The NKs just went around, through the hills, and cut the roads behind the Americans with infantry.

There were not yet sufficient forces for anything like continuous fronts. Hilly terrain requires more troops per bit of space, to truly deny ground to the enemy. LOSes are broken up. There are many draws up there. Troops in one valley are isolated from anyone 1-2 ridges away, especially if they move road-bound.

The U.S. forces were green and not used to the terrain, and they stayed on the valley floors, or on the ridges only where roads crossed them. They then found NK roadblocks in their own rear. They often pulled out as a result, and often got shot up doing so, in ambushes down the roads. Or they abandoned their vehicles to escape overland through the hills, but this being a desperate measure, they lost all formation and cohesion in the process.

The 24th had this done to it. The NK tanks were used on them, to spearhead infantry attacks when they were already cut off, and to push through in places and raid rear area troops and spread confusion. But the actual surrounding was done the old fashioned way, by flanking with infantry through the hills. And that proved decisive, since the 24th did not have anything like the men to blast its way through the NK infantry up on hills, in depth.

In this fighting, one hears reports like "company B lost 7 M24s, abandoned when the road was cut. The men escaped on foot". Or that 4 others got out, with help from artillery or air when running the road-blocks. What one does not hear is "lost 7 M24s in tank duels with T-34/85s". Why would the NKs risk their tanks, which could do so much for them, when they could "kill" U.S. tanks with a roadblock and some 45mm ATGs? Shoot one or two, the rest will not even try.

There were some armor vs. armor skirmishs in Korea, but they mostly occurred in the fighting around the Pusan perimeter, after the breakthrough period. By then, the U.S. had far more armor on the field than the NKs ever did. The fights were penny-packet affairs, a company against a platoon at the largest. And the U.S. quickly had the upper hand in that aspect of the fighting.

What one hears from this period, is affairs like company C, with 4 Sherman 76 leading, pushes down this road. They have a few firefights and do well. Then the airforce calls them, and tells them the road has been cut behind them in half-a-dozen places and is just swarming with NK infantry. Oops. Back they come, losing 2 tanks to ATG fire in the process - or occasionally they abandon the vehicles to move over the hills.

Until the U.S. learned that pushing down a road just did not work in Korea, and moving two infantry columns down the ridges on either side of the road *did* work, this repeated over and over. And the U.S. armor edge therefore did not mean much, until later, when the infantry was better at its part of the job.

The NKs understood this from the begining, and whenever their columns were stopped, they fought on the hills to turn a flank. That helped to keep their armor moving, regardless of terrain. But they still ran out of armor (no replacements), and too much U.S. armor showed up. So they rocked for a month or so, then fizzled.

For what it is worth.

[Hilltopper]

That's funny, my dad said he never saw a north Korean. He saw plenty of Chinese however.

[kford]

ADAMan,

You're thinking of the Chorwon Valley in the "iron triangle". It practically runs straight to Seoul. The US 2nd I.D. pretty much has been sitting on it since the armistice. That is some good picture taking country though...

Thanks,

Kevin

Originally posted by ADAman:

The mountains to the east are certainly like that but there is a corridor down the west where tanks can certainly go. I was stationed there for 13 months in the early 70's so I can't compare it with the early 50's other than to say they probably didn't move a lot of mountains between the two dates.

[Hakko Ichiu]

From Jason Cawley:

And the Russians did not expect the U.S. to defend the place (long story, but well established as true).

I'm not sure it's such a long story. We told them as much a few months before the NK invasion by declaring the Korean Peninsula to be outside our sphere of influence. Stalin therefore assumed that he could do as he pleased.

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Ethan

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"We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech." -- Dr. Kathleen Dixon, Director of Women's Studies, Bowling Green State University

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

The long story part is that only the Sec State said it, and he said something more or less like it, and it was not clear whether the NKs had already made the decision to attack, or whether they even needed or asked for a green light from Stalin, etc.

The point of my "long story" comment, is that despite all the twists and turns of the scholarly histories on the subject since, the surface impression that you describe, was indeed what happened. What is the part about philosophers making simple things complex? LOL.

As for the "never saw a NK" comment, the NKs were beaten by the end of 1950. UN forces made it all the way to the Chinese border. Then the Chinese intervened, and knocked us back out of North Korea again. By mid 1951 they had been stopped too, and the front mostly stabilized. The war continued for another year and a half while both sides talked at the conference table. From about November 1950 on, the communist forces were overwhelmingly Chinese, with only modest NK forces supplimenting them.

Incidentally, some of the NKs in the original push, were Korean nationals who had fought in the war in China or Manchuria, in the Communist army, during WW II. And they did have some Chinese officers, even in the summer of 1950. But Chinese troops as such, came in on a moderate scale in November, and after the UN (foolishly) kept going anyway, intervened in force in December 1950.