AARs, Pershings vs. T-34/85s in Korea

[JasonC]

Some I've read recently. All happened at night. They are of interest mostly because they show the importance of first shot, the tendency for the losing side to not get off any effective shots, overkill of some while others escape, blind fire, etc. There is also a miss at point blank range (after a shift to acquire a new target), WP fired at an open topped vehicle, massive use of 90mm HVAP aka no special ammo limits to speak of, and other local color.

The time was fall of 1950, at the Pusan perimeter. The Russian tanks are North Korean T-34/85s, the SP gun mentioned is an SU-76. The US tanks are all Pershings.

The five M26’s of the 3d Plat were on the road somewhat to the rear and in column about 15 yd apart. It was now 2200 and quite dark. As the 1st Plat lead tank moved slowly forward, the men inside could hear the clanking of several enemy tanks, about 550 yd away, as they approached around a bend. Then they stopped. The lead T34 opened fire. Its first round was 25 yd short. The second hit a small vehicle on the road between the opposing forces and set it on fire. The blaze revealed a column of five T34’s, with the lead tank about three hundred yards from the forward M26. Some troops were in the ditches behind them. (The 27th Inf report states that enemy troops were following in vehicles, perhaps further behind.) With their guns and machine guns, two more of the T34’s opened fire on the M26’s to the rear and on the friendly MSR. Perhaps the two advanced M26’s were hidden by the trees. The leading M26 opened fire on the foremost T34 (I/7). According to the M26’s gunner (acting as platoon leader), the first round (HE) hit the front plate of the enemy tank. Expenditure of five rounds of HVAP then killed it, one round passing all the way through. As the M26’s in the stream bed opened up, the four surviving T34’s turned and retreated, and the enemy foot soldiers dispersed.

During the night, the enemy continued to probe with infantry and tanks but did not reach the positions of the friendly tank company. The M26’s of the 1st Plat fired blindly, and both enemy and friendly artillery were active. At one point, a T34 supposedly abandoned among some houses off the road approximately five hundred yards away (Singi-Soi-ri)opened fire on the M26’s of the 1st Plat with half a dozen rounds. They missed but were coming closer when the enemy tank was silenced by a hit on its left side by a 3.5-in. bazooka round fired from its left front.

The next enemy attack came late on 20 August. It was pitch dark, and the leader of the 3d Plat stated that his gun was aimed by estimating the location of the road. Again the approach of enemy armor was reported by the infantry before the clanking was heard. This time, the M26 fired first and missed. The enemy tank replied and also missed, and then turned around and retreated as the M26 fired several more times.

The enemy tanks could be tracked by their noise. Enemy infantry had removed a first line of US AT mines strewn across the road. Now the leading T34 stopped at the second line, and some fifty yards from the leading M26. Three vehicles piled up behind it. The order came to fire. The first round from the leading M26 hit the leading T34 (J/ 61) abreast of the driver. At the same time, the, bazooka scored a hit. The tank did not burn. Following the plan, the M26 shifted fire to the second T34 as rapidly as possible. The first round of HVAP missed, but the second hit this T34 (H/5) onthe right front slope and went through the side, bogie, and track into the ground. The third enemy vehicle, an SP gun (K/ 8), had been firing up the draw toward Kumwhadong . The gun now traversed and. fired the only shot at the friendly tanks. It hit the ground, and the leading M26 set the SP gun on fire with its fourth shot, a WP rd. Shifting fire back to the first T34, it expended the remainder of the original 9 rd in its ready rack. Three additional M26’s opened fire, and the leading T34 started to burn. The fourth enemy vehicle, a T34, turned and escaped.

[junk2drive]

Someday we might have a WEGO game that allows this action to be recreated.

[rune]

Hmm this makes me think... I know it is said tactical air destroyed a lot of the North Korean Armour...are there any studies on this? Basically T34s and WWII Vintage Corsairs and Muystangs with some jets and Skyraiders occasionally. Be interesting to see the claimed kills of tanks and compare it to what wa found...might be a little better documented then WWII was.

Rune

[junk2drive]

My basic understanding is that it didn't take long for the NK/CC to figure out that their visible units didn't last long and they switched tactics to masses of troops.

[JasonC]

rune - the after action detailed analysis the AF conducted did show that US air took out a meaningful portion of the North Korean armor. Most of it on one occasion, actually, when they swarmed a large vehicle column stopped by a blown bridge. Half the air to ground armor kills of the war seemed to have occurred on that one occasion, which involved hundreds of planes for hours.

The effective air to ground weapon that accounted for most of the kills was napalm. Pilots thought their rockets and strafing were more effective than they actually were - particularly the rockets. They did not rate the napalm very highly against tanks. But the operations researchers picking over the battlefields afterward found that napalm caused a large majority of the air to ground kills.

The North Koreans had very limited amounts of armor. Only a handful was left at the Pusan perimeter. The causes of loss throughout the summer and early fall were US air especially napalm, mines, 3.5 inch bazookas once they reached the theater, artillery especially 105mm firing HEAT direct, and a modest number by the first tanks to reach the theater. In the Pusan fighting, the remaining NK armor was lost in dribs and drabs, largely to tanks.

[JasonC]

In re "tactics of massed troops", I don't think it is accurate. The early successes the NKs had were mostly due to sound infantry tactics. Before the Pusan perimeter stand, the UN forces did not have a continuous line, nor adequate forces to man one across the very rugged hill country covering most of the width of the penisula.

UN forces defended in the valley bottoms to block the roads. The NKs then fixed with one echelon and sent the remainder around a flank through the hills, beyond immediate contact. They got onto hills behind the UN positions overlooking the roads through which the UN forces had to withdraw. UN forces then withdrew through them, losing heavily.

If they didn't, the NKs pushed additional roadblocks farther away from the UN stand, slipped additional forces around them, and bypassed. Whole units were cut off and destroyed that way. Once cut off they were subjected to heavy concentric infantry attack etc.

What happened at the Pusan perimeter is the UN line shortened, and UN forces in theater rose, to the point where something approaching a continuous line became possible, up in the hills rather than just in the valleys. That led to a period of rather savage hill fighting, in which the UN forces enjoyed superior supporting arms. Better arty, air, armor, resupply, etc. And the numbers were by then equal. Losses were not, the NKs losing 2 as heavily as the UN forces at that point. (Which was still much better than the communist side average for the war as a whole, mind).

That attrited them down to the point where they were not a serious threat to the perimeter anymore. Remember, they had no Chinese numbers at that point. They were fielding very green formations, half of them recently impressed southerners from the occupied portion of the country, a third northern conscripts with limited training. A cadre of the Chinese trained veterans they had started the war with were left, but only a fraction.

Then the US turned their flank with the Inchon landing and that was about it for the NKs. They were never effective for the rest of the war. The Chinese did all the heavy lifting after that. (Very late, after the Chinese retook the north and got them a recruit base back again, they reconstituted forces sufficient to hold quiter sectors etc. But it remained a Chinese run war).

As for the tactics their infantry used when facing continuous lines in hill country, they are accurately called human wave tactics but people have a hopelessly false view of what that means. It does not mean massed humanity vs. machineguns and registered artillery, which would simply fail instantly.

Instead it means their defensive deployments were 2 up 1 back, from company level up to division. And on the attack, the deployments were columns of the subunits, aka "1 up, 3 deep". It was entirely normal for a regiment to attack on a frontage of a single company.

Those companies were often quite small, 80 men or so, and rarely more than 120. They fought in skirmish lines, and functional details with grenades, SMGs, overwatching MGs. They preferred night attacks and would approach by stealth to within 20 yards of UN positions, then open the fight with grenades. The SMGs were one tier behind the grenade men.

Then company after company employing these tactics would hit the same area, slightly different locations or right where the last one was. The attacked subunits risked running out of ammunition before defeating some late wave of the attack. If a subunit were overrun, the follow on waves exploited farther into the position and lapped around units left and right, trying to pin them into position (not letting them get away, in other words, as opposed to trying to dislodge them) as others went deep.

That is what human waves meant. It meant being attacked 10 times in one night in company strength, by grenade and SMG infiltrators. They used their companies like ammo, always having replacement streams reconstituting the ones burnt out in previous attacks. They fought until only cadres remained, then topped off with recruits and were "shot off" again.

But there were no endless masses involved. As the wags put it, "how many hordes are there in a Chinese platoon?" Because a few of those were what actually probed, at any one time.

[Guest Mike]

Somewhere at home I've got a facsimile of a USAF report from 1950-ish on the "effectiveness" of rockets vs T34's - or more accurately the accuracey - IIRC the results were much the same reported for WW2 in other recetn threads on AT aircraft - some single-figure hit % assuming you fired all 6 rockets as a salvo (2 x 3-tube launchers).

I'm impressed by this AAR:

1/ they miss more often than my tankers do in any version of CM, and

2/ the tanks turn around to retreat!!

Obviously those reports can't be too accurate!!

[rune]

JasonC,

Thank you, was interesting reading about the amrour. I found a couple accounts of aircraft bombing the armour out at night because the tanks were moving with their lights on.

Thanks again!

Rune

[JasonC]

Rune - glad it was useful. Here is a selection from the US military history (S. Nakong, N. Yalu, Chapter 7) on the air strike incidents, spread over the 9th and 10th of July, north of the town of Chonui.

"In mid-afternoon (of 9 July), Capt. Charles R. Alkire, in command at the forward blocking position at Chonui, saw eleven tanks and an estimated 200-300 enemy infantry move into view to his front. He called for an air strike which came in a few minutes later. Artillery also took the tanks under observed fire. Five of the eleven tanks reportedly were burning at 1650. Enemy infantry in Chonui came under 4.2-inch mortar and artillery fire. Observers could see them running from house to house. The men on the low ridge east of Chonui saw columns of black smoke rise beyond the hills to the northwest and assumed that the planes and artillery fire had hit targets there.

"Aerial observers later reported that twelve vehicles, including tanks, were burning just north of Chonui. At dusk another air report stated that of about 200 vehicles on the road from P'yongt'aek to Chonui approximately 100 were destroyed or burning. The third and fourth tactical air control parties to operate in the Korean War (Air Force personnel) directed the strikes at Chonui.

"(Captured North Koreans said later this aerial and artillery action destroyed twenty of their tanks north of Chonui).

"On the afternoon of 10 July American air power had one of its great moments in the Korean War. Late in the afternoon, a flight of jet F-80 planes dropped down through the overcast at P'yongt'aek, twenty-five air miles north of Chonui, and found a large convoy of tanks and vehicles stopped bumper to bumper on the north side of a destroyed bridge. Upon receiving a report of this discovery, the Fifth Air Force rushed every available plane to the scene-B-26's, F-80's, and F-82's-in a massive air strike. Observers of the strike reported that it destroyed 38 tanks, 7 half-track vehicles, 117 trucks, and a large number of enemy soldiers.

"This report undoubtedly exaggerated unintentionally the amount of enemy equipment actually destroyed. But this strike, and that of the previous afternoon near Chonui, probably resulted in the greatest destruction of enemy armor of any single action in the war."

When considering the reported numbers, it must be understood the North Koreans had 150 tanks (all T-34/85s) total in the entire theater, at the start of the campaign. 120 in their single armor division, and 30 in one additional independent armor regiment. Reinforcements were small, low two digits at best.

This case was clearly an outlier. Mostly, air was lucky to take out an occasional tank, in dribs and drabs. But when a whole stopped column is found stuck at a blown bridge, and half the air force (the FEAF had 1000 planes) is scrambled to hit that column for hours, you can do serious damage.

[BARMAN1950]

Jason, what a great article on the earlier (and later) days of the Korean war. I got there in July of '50 with the 29th Infantry Regt. It was a "Bastard" regt from Okinawa. We were pretty well wiped out in our first few battles at Annui & Hadong near Chinju just prior to the formation of the "Pusan Parameter". Our two Bn's later (Sept) became the 3rd Bn's of the 35th & 27th Regts of the 25th ID. An interesting note was that the first tanks deployed on the US side were M-24's not a good tank to fight the T34-85's that the gooks had. Later (in August) the Marines came in with M26's and the Army got M4A3 -Easy 8's. Also we did not get the 3.5 inch Bazookas until (I think) late July or August. Much of the ammo that we had for the 2.36" bazookas were duds.

You are correct as to Chinese tactics, as I remember them. Although it should be mentioned that most of the earlier Chinese successes were against the ROK units (at least in the 8th Army sectors) The Chinks would roll back the ROK lines thereby exposing the flanks and rear of US units. The most notable example that I can think of was the travail of the 2nd Infantry Div, at Kuni Re.

Again Jason, a great history lessson!