Despite the technological advances of the past forty years, the North Korean Army is prepared for nothing more than a typical 1944- era Soviet-style offensive: mass every available asset; attack, attack, attack; and continue to move forward toward the geographic objectives until supply or enemy resistance forces a halt to the operation. "Patience. Patience. Again, patience". A soldier of 1st ROK Army stands guard on the east coast with a .50 cal. machinegun What makes this situation interesting is the combination of the restricting terrain of the Korean Peninsula and number of decades which the North (and South) Koreans have had to prepare for this event. North Korea Obviously, the burden of attack lies with you. The South Korean border forces are mandated by the rules, so you will be able to study their p ositions accurately. You have some flexibility in where and with what you will hit the MDL, but much of your choice is limited by terrain. Take time in preparing your attack - your real-life counterparts in Pongyang have done so. Prepare your assault and regular corps with balanced forces so that you can take full advantage of combined arms and weapons effectiveness. It is critical to your chances of success that you deploy your commando units carefully. Commandos need no supplies and may, therefore, be employed in very forward positions without loss of combat power or mobility. Commando units that have successfully infilitrated the MDL are destroyed if required to retreat as a result of combat when they are stacked with an infiltrated South Korean unit, so plan on supporting those units with effective force. There are only a few hexsides where the riverine commando unit may be employed find them. There are key road hexes where your paracommanclos and deep- penetrations can combine to seal off significant portions of the enemy's defenses from supply - study them. There are many distant locations which may invite sea-borne commandos to come and distract the enemy's focus from events closer to the front and possibly garner victory points - analyze them. Basically, you have two-and-a-half options for your assault. The first is to try to smash directly through to Seoul across the open plains of western Korea. This has the benefit of being the shortest distance (therefore the smallest number of problems with regard to friendly supply) and - except for a couple of pesky rivers - the least amount of defensible terrain. This approach also the greatest concentration of enemy units, inexhaustable enemy supply bases, restricted channels of maneuver, and minimal terrain defense against counterattacks. The second option is to attack toward the middle of the peninsula and seek to drive to a point south of Seoul before turning west. This approach is somewhat indirect, possesses three or four threatening avenues of advance once the MDL is breached, and can provide the ability to take advantage of any confusion or misdeployment on the part of enemy forces in the area of Seoul. The downsides of this focus of operations are: combat through areas of heavy defensive terrain; constricted friendly supply lines, and the need to allocate a significant portion of friendly combat forces to apply and maintain pressure on the enemy forces north of Seoul. The half option is whether it is beneficial to create a diversion by breaching the MDL in the east and attempting a drive down the coast road toward Pusan. It is a sideshow which may split the enemy's defensive efforts, but it should not detract you from understanding that Seoul is the key to victory. Whatever option or balance between options is chosen, the overall operation procedure will be generally the same: every possible unit must make its combat power felt on the invasion turn. Where possible, enemy units should be placed out of supply to reduce their defense by half and impair their ability to react once their turn comes around. Hitting these units with chemical attacks will reduce their defense to one-quarter. Having an infiltrated commando unit in the hex with such a unit will usually be fatal to it as the commando unit is not subject to the combat diminuation of the MDL and eliminates the attacked unit's ability to retreat or be rebuilt. Remember that your assault corps headquarters will be the primary targets for the enemy's air power, so make full use of their chemical weapons attack capabilities on each and every turn they continue to survive. South Korea There is little you can do until the invasion turn has slammed into your front-line defenses, torn up your regular divisions, and - hopefully - given you good indications of the enemy's operational strategy. Soldier of 1st ROK Army stands guard on east coast with .50 cal machine gun. The enemy must seek to destroy your units in order to occupy as much space as possible in the shortest amount of time. You will win by successfully trading space for time. Provided that you have sufficient units to fill the necessary spaces, time will be your ally because time will bring successive applications of air power, a weapon with the ability to literally vacuum enemy forces off the map. Apply your air power first to the enemy's assault corps headquarters. They have the ability to launch chemical attacks. The effectiveness of those attacks does not decrease during the course of the game. This is not a reflection on the South Korean Army, but rather an abstraction of the C31 functions of those headquarters. After headquarters, air points should be applied to targets of opportunity where the erosion of the enemy's combat power may best be realized. While your operations must be reactive to the enemy's moves, your general strategy must include the following: hold the MDL wherever possible for as long as possible because of its defensive benefits; strive to maintain rearward communication routes to provide retreat lanes so that destroyed units may be rebuilt; seek to place units in mutually-supporting positions which will channel the enemy's movement - remember there is no zone of control so a vacant hex in the wrong place can be a highway for enemy units; most importantly, attack only when and where you absolutely must. Carrying the war into the north is possible, but remember that the MDL works both ways and that your helicopters have reduced capacity north of it. Special forces units, though, if placed in key hexes at the proper moments, can deprive the most robust enemy combat of its supply. Patience. Patience. Again, Patience. Read Fabius. Read Clausewitz. The enemy must carry the battle to you in order to win. All you need to do is respond to the enemy's focus with an understanding of the balance between time and space and victory. When you decide that an attack is necessary, make sure that it is a thumping good one. (Several playtests were decided by a lack of South Korean forces due to attacking rather than defensive casualties.) Is This Game Balanced? Yes, with the following caution. The level of success of the North Korean attack on the invasion turn is absolutely at the heart of the balance of the game. That success has literally only one measure: the number of South Korean semi-motorized divisions which are permanently destroyed. The game may go to either side with any other factor -terrain gained or lost, South Korean divisions sent to rebuild on the turn record, number of air points rolled up over the course of the game -but it is the number of units available to the South Koreans which defines their ability to maintain a presence in the contest. In general, if the North Koreans do not remove at least 7 South Korean divisions on the invasion turn, you may as well reset the game as they will not be able to batter their way anywhere. If the North Koreans take out more than 12 South Korean divisions, then concepts like the Pusan Perimeter and Fortress Seoul may well come into play and the South Koreans must look to the help of the US for the extra forces needed to tip the scales of victory in their direction. One playtester, having his die-rolls leave him facing an alert, angry, and almost full-strength South Korean Army for the third time in a weekend noted: "Maybe that's why this war hasn't been fought yet." Back to Table of Contents: CounterAttack # 4 To CounterAttack List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by Pacific Rim Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com