Korea (SPI), Steven Bucey (January 30, 2004)

Last night at the CABS meeting Gary talked me into playing that SPI
Korea he's been posting the pretty pictures on my blog at Consimworld. I
took the North Koreans and we did the Invasion scenario. This covers the
period of the initial NK invasion to the UN counter-attack that drove
back to the Chinese border. 

Out game didn't quite work out historically. Gary may post some pictures
later. I got very bogged down trying to take the critical rail junction
Seoul. This rail junction MUST be taken for the NK to make any southward
progress, as NK supply from the north is traced via the single rail line
that goes through Seoul. If you look at post 97 (Jan 21, 2004) you'll
see the initial setup. Note the South Korean 3-3 infantry regiment on
the rail line just north of Seoul? On turn one I surrounded it and
attacked it at 10-1 odds. 

I lost that battle. 

The next turn I managed to kill it, but on turn two any units south and
east of that point were basicly out of supply for a couple more turns,
long enough for Gary to put up a good fight for Seoul. Taking advantage
of the fluid ZOC, I managed to infiltrate quite a few units past that
point so that by the time his reinforcements started to build I had
units 6-8 hexes south of Seoul, but by that time he had built enough of
a line that my forward progress was basically stopped and from that
point onwards I was forced over to the defensive. The units I did get
south, being out of supply, could do little to the very few SK units
they encountered, attacks of 3/1 and 2/1 being more likely to hurt the
attacker than the defender. 

I DID give Gary a coronary at one point when I managed to slip a couple
of mech regiments around his left flank and got ADJACENT to Pusan. With
a movement factor of 8 (when in supply) they can cover a lot of ground.
If it had another 1/2 a movement point more and Gary would have been in
serious trouble. As it was, it only delayed him, but it was fun to watch
his reaction. 

Using cunning defensive tactics I managed to make it very painful for
Gary to push back to and recapture Seoul. He was able to do this with
the aid of a well placed Paratroop landing on the single rail line from
Seoul to the north, making it all but impossible for me to continue to
hold the line (more on that paratrooper later). I was thus forced to
abandon Seoul around turn 11. Had I held onto it I would have pulled a
marginal victory. From that point I was fighting to avoid giving Gary
more than a Marginal victory, namely having a NK unit south of the 38th
parallel. Again, through cunning defensive tactics I was ultimately able
to do just that, so that on the end of the scenario I had a couple of
units hiding on just south of that line in the spit of land on the far
west portion of the peninsula. 

I'm not sure what to think about this one. It's a fairly simple game and
Gary was able to teach it to me quickly, and I think I did well for my
first time out, particularly against Gary. However, I really don't like
the CRT. 

If you look at the pictures above, you'll note that the typical North or
South Korean regiment is a 3 combat strength. Almost every hex is rough,
doubling the defender's strength. There are 3 CRT (the defender can
choose between them), with the mostly likely used one being the Mobile
battle table (I think that is what it is called). Unless you get above
3-1 odds there is a significant chance that the attacker could lose the
battle, and there is a 1/6 chance that the attacker will lose all the
way out to the max odds of 1/10. Thus, to make a decent odds attack
against a single regiment in the rough the attacker needs to bring at
least 5 regiments to the fight. 

Now, when the US units get involved, any loses against the NK are
doubled, so a failed roll at 10/1 odds would cause the NK 2 step
losses!!! 

So, recall that paratroop unit that Gary dropped on my rail line? Even
had I the units to guard the line with units/zoc (fat chance, as he
could drop anywhere on the map), this unit has a 5 combat strength.
Doubled in the rough it would require 5 divisions!!! to make a realistic
attempt to dislodged. Because he was able to provide 12 points of naval
gun fire for defensive support to this unit it would have effectively
taken nearly every division I had on the board to attack it. 

It wasn't going to happen. 

That same problem basically meant that during my defensive portion of
the battle, after the US started showing up in force, that I really had
no chance for local counter-attacks and had to simple try to form a line
and hope he rolled badly on his attacks. This he did in several cases,
but I was never able to do more than react to his flanking movements and
straight up assaults that managed to roll a D2 result (causing me 4 step
losses). The affect didn't really work for me. 

My cunning defensive tactics? Each turn the NK player gets a supply
unit. These things are road/rail bound and very slow. Basically, I
rarely had a use for them -- I never got them south of Seoul before he
was able to start his counter attack because of the Seoul bottle neck.
However, they DO have a defense factor of 1 and a ZOC, so suddenly they
became my roadblocks!!! In fact, Gary probably lost 6 steps, some of
them US units, to attacks trying to clear these staunch warrior supply
units since even at 10/1 you recall there is a chance he might lose a
battle, and I figure they are what let me hold on as long as I did. 

Eh.