After the mauling it received during the fall of Taejon, the 24th Infantry Division was relieved on 22 July by the 1st Cavalry Division, which became responsible for blocking the Korean People's Army's drive down the main Taejon-Taegu corridor to Pusan. The 24th's men retreated through the First Team's ranks as the newly-arrived cavalrymen moved to their defensive positions. After 5 years of occupation duty in Japan, the First Team was hardly in fighting shape. Each of its three regiments had only two battalions, and neither the troops nor the officers possessed the physical conditioning required for extended combat. Nonetheless, Lieutenant General Walton Walker provided division commander General Hobart "Hap" Gay with fresh orders: "Protect Yongdong. Remember, there are no friendly troops behind you. You must keep your own back door open. You can live without food, but you cannot last long without ammunition, and unless the Yongdong-Taegu road is kept open you will soon be without ammunition."
Attacker: North Korean (7th Regiment, 3rd Division)
Defender: American (1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment and 92nd AA Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division)
As the North Koreans, I used a massed push up the center through the light woods. Took too long to make progress towards the first VC building. Ended up with a lot of US prisoners and despite losing two T-34s (one to a BAZ 50, and the other to a long range 37L shot from the rearmost level two hill!), I had sufficient CVP for that part of the VC. Just didn't allow myself enough time to take the buildings - and exiting MMC on foot was totally out of the question. In our debriefing, Chuck and I both believe that you load up a HS on each T-34 and run for the exit. Then worry about the CVPs and ignore the two buildings altogether. Fun scenario, as always with a Shelling design, with multiple replay possibilities. Would be a good tournament scenario as it played reasonably fast.
2022-04-04
(A) Indy Lagu
vs
Rob Oler
North Korean win
I attacked with the North Koreans right up the middle of the board.
Rob's US had a fairly up front defence. It thought it might have been a
bit too up front, but the US really has no choice. We wondered if the US
tried to stand in place a _bit_ too long.
Eventually, the 6ML US melted in front of the mass of NK squads. The US
halftracks are deadly (24FP and 20FP), and the NK must be wary of them.
The US lost both BAZ 50 by turn 3: one from an X11, and another from a CC.
We wonder if the US should keep their BAZ back, since once they are gone, the
NK T34/85 can roam at will.
This is another _excellent_ Pete Shelling design. The KW terrain (particularly
light woods) takes a bit of getting used to.
I'd put this one on my must play list.
2022-04-02
(A) John Garlic
vs
Burnie Fox
American win
[Imported from ROAR]
2022-03-05
(A) Rich Weiley
vs
Dave Wilson
North Korean win
AP178 Walker's Orders. March Paddington Bearz, diced for sides and I got the attacking KPA. My opponent set to defend the victory buildings quite heavily but left the board 3 village undefended, covered only by what turned out to be the Meatchopper in 3W5 and the HMG way back in 3DD2. So I decided to attack down board 3 aiming for the exit and hoping pick up enough CVP along the way to satisfy the second victory condition.
By turn 2 I had eliminated the meatchopper for the loss of two squads. Turn 2 and 3 saw a seesawing battle around the T1/U1/V1 buildings and the Y3 crossroads where I was able to capture one of the US bazookas. On turn 4 I slipped a platoon across the north south road at Y2. On turn 5 I was able to break the HMG squad and a timely cower from the MMG squad allowed my lead platoon to get across Hill 498 and set themselves up to exit. The second halftrack repositioned in a vain attempt to interdict my exit but it was unsupported and fell victim to a rampaging T34 giving me what I thought was a comfortable edged in CVPs.
However the game wasn't quite finished and a number of small skirmishes had to be resolved back in the village as bypassed Americans tried to police up broken KPA stragglers to deny me the CVP objective. Fortunately I was able to race some good order units back to safeguard most of the brokies and a couple of other US units were tied up in inconclusive melees. So with two tanks exited and about points of infantry exited and what ended up being as comfortable CVP lead I was able to claim the win.
This was a good scenario. I think my opponent erred in not defending the forward edge of the board 3 village as that definitely allowed me to make good progress on the first two turns. Nevertheless around turn 3 and 4 I was I worried I would not have enough time to exit and was too committed to board 3 to make any serious effort to change objectives and threaten the buildings.
Fortunately the US was always a little off balance from their over commitment to defending board 17z and never quite got enough troops into position to interfere with my exiting unit (although the cower on the MMG shot when he threatened to put a firelane down across Hill 498 was definitely a big break for me).
