Hexsides and Hand Grenades

Well, here we are at the final posting about my long playthrough of "The Korean War".  It took exactly two weeks for me to play due to time constraints and my own scatterbrained method of playing on again and off again but I finally made it to the end.  If you've followed this blog for any amount of time, you'll probably notice that I usually play a lot of shorter games that can be completed in a single day or an evening so the fact that I stuck to this to the bitter end says a lot about how much I enjoyed it. Last we left off, it was turn 10 and the Chinese had been pushing down south every turn and the UN was making a desperate bid to slow them down long enough to bring in reinforcements and secure what was left of the UN-held cities.  The UN landed a division of Marines in Incheon and they retook Seoul from the Chinese.  It was a temporary setback for the enemy.  With an advantage in numbers, the Chinese flanked the UN defenders on the south side of the Han River

After four hard months of bitter winter fighting in the barren hills and frozen rivers of Korea, so much had happened yet so little had changed.  Much to the UN commanders' chagrin, a limited Chinese intervention in November of 1950 led shortly afterwards to a full intervention in December.  At first, the UN units just north of the 38th parallel had barely managed to stem the flow of eight Chinese divisions hellbent on a drive towards Seoul.  With the arrival of 16 more divisions in the following month, all bets were off and the Americans were forced to pull back towards the south in a doomed bid to preserve Seoul from the onslaught of angry Chinese who were funneling down the west coast of the peninsula straight towards them.  It was all just fingers in the dike as the Chinese flicked aside regiments on the road running from Pyongyang towards the Han River. UN commanders escalated their intervention level in January and the first trickle of UN reinforcements arrived in the form

Part 1 is here Part 2 is here At the beginning of turn 6, the map of Korea resembled something like a UN commander's dream.  A pitiful North Korean division sat huddled up towards the south bank of the Han Estuary near Incheon.  Out of supply range and with only a garrison in the city to the south, there was little hope it could last out much longer against the massive UN forces arriving near Seoul just to the east. The road north from Seoul to Pyongyang lay nearly wide open with only a single lonely division to prepare a desperate defense against the vengeful American, ROK, and Nationalist Chinese that were surely on the way in short order. The UN player, now on the offense, loosened the rules of engagement for UN aircraft from level 1 to 2.  This allowed the American B26 Invaders to ruthlesssly pound the provinces just north of the 38th parallel.  Although the Soviets complained loudly about the ongoing "American aggression" in its state media organs, diplomatic ch

Well, crazy stuff happened in turn 5.  Things started off with four NK divisions on the southwest side of the peninsula.  Two NK divisions were skulking around the outskirts of Kumchon, which was held by an ROK division and reinforced by a nearby US Army regiment.  Northwest along that road lay Taejon with another NK division.  Two US Marine divisions newly landed in Hannae were further to the west. The NK player placed their depot along the road, midway between Taejon and Kumchon, hoping this would help keep the units defending Taejon from being overrun by Marines while simultaneously supporting the attack on Kumchon. Sorry, map is rotated.  North is to the right, etc. The UN threw a 2 point depot in Kunsan, a fortified and strongly held position along the west coast near where the Marines had landed in the previous turn.  Another 1 point depot was placed in Pusan to support the considerable numbers of US troops that had just broken out of the perimeter.   The supply ro

Here we are after the end of turn 3 in the full campaign game of Victory Games' The Korean War.   I just started this game today and it will be on the dining table either until the bitter end or until my wife gets fed up with it.  Apologies if my updates cut short. Campaign Game - End of turn 3 So far the game has been extremely close.  Bad luck for the UN started on turn 2 when the North Koreans captured Seoul in the first action phase and then took Taegu unopposed in the second.   This was due to some real poor UN planning for the defense around Pusan.  Also, the UN player had decided to try and hang on to the cities in the west rather than pull ROK forces back further towards the southern end of the peninsula and help defend the roads.  By the end of turn 2, the North Korean player had a choice:  try and make a run for Pusan and win an immediate victory if captured OR try to take the cities on the west and grab everything but Pusan and win a military victory. ROK reg

The first truly huge battle of the Korean War took place in both August and September of 1950 as UN troops were rushed to the southern tip of the Korean peninsula near the port of Pusan.  They fought a narrowly won battle to keep the last vestiges of South Korea from being completely overrun by the invading North Korean troops, who had been winning a series of easy victories against the poorly equipped and undermanned Republic of Korea (ROK) defenses.  As the Americans began to commit to the war in earnest by mid-summer, troops, men, and supplies from the US Far East Command began to make their presence known through several pitched engagements that went poorly for them at first.  By early August, the UN made what could have been its final stand as roughly 100,000 North Koreans faced off against nearly 140,000 American and ROK troops to decide the fate of the Korean peninsula. In my most recent playthrough of Victory Games' The Korean War, the UN found itself in a very similar s