55 Years Ago Today
 

This week marks the 55th anniversary of the massive Chinese intervention into the Korean War. Over a quarter million troops had entered North Korea and unleashed a furious firestorm of attacks against the UN 8th Army and 10th Corps.

Caught in the middle of it all with as many four divisions beginning to surround them, The US Marine 1st Division, along with US Army, South Korean and other allied elements on the eastern edge of North Korea in the area of the Changjin (or Chosin) Reservoir found themselves immersed in a sea of enemy soldiers!

And thus began the heroic retreat which came to be know as the "Attack in another Direction."

In honor of that event and those heroic moments, I and the Wild Team will present to you beginning this weekend two scenarios depicting a small part of this epic fight. They are called "At Their Finest" and deal with the taking and holding of East Hill, a key position near Hagaru that controlled the traffic and movement on the MSR (Main Supply Route). It had to be taken and held while Hagaru was evacuated.

Mao Tse Tung later commented that had he known how tough the US Marines would be, he would have sent a lot more troops to deal with them than were deployed there.

The first scenario is a large one, depicting the capture of the hill on December 5th, 1950. The second one is smaller, based on the Marine "fireteam" concept, a holding action, which took place early the next morning (December 6th, 1950).

The Wild Team and I wanted to do something in remembrance of the many brave men who fought and those who gave their all in that struggle. Look for the first one next weekend.

Wild Bill

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Looking forward to these. You know I enjoyed your other series in SPWAW.

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

I just finished reading the biography of Chesty Puller. It was he who led the rearguard in that retreat. What those folks went through was incredible. I'm looking forward to these scenarios.

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Incredible is the word! Thanks gentlemen. I look forward also to their being made available to our esteemed gaming friends.

WB

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Awaiting the weekend (somewhere near Port Said). Can't wait to get back to Korea.

Trip

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Get outa Dodge, Trip! You've done your job there. Time to move further east...and from the heat of the southern Mediterranean to the frigid mountains of Korea.

Get that winter gear ready and your Garand.

Wild Bill

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

WB, how about making some Korean War campaign? Korea 1950 campaign from SP2 into WinMBT's engine? Or something else (from British/Turkish/South Korean/someone else's viewpoint) for example?

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

WBW,

Got stuck somewhere in Africa (someplace called Stanleyville). Came away with a draw after some hard fighting. Damned Simbas! Trying for a flight or freighter out. Heard there are some chopper flights to a place called X-Ray, what ever that is. Sounds fun. See ya soon.

Trip

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Thanks, guys! Yes, Korea is appearing even now. I want to do a mini-campaign on the British Glosters at the Imjin River soon. Now that is a bloody saga that needs to be portrayed.

Marine and Army units at Chosin are coming out now. One is already out and two more are coming.

Wild Bill

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

WBW.

Dumb question, new to this forum. Where is the campaign?

Also who is or where is the "Wild Team"?

Best Regards~
Don

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Hey Dlazov! Welcome!

The Wild Team is similar to the old "Wild Bill's Raiders." Its a group of guys who work with me testing and improving the scenarios I usually do and they also do on occasion.

They are a fine group of men and they mean a lot to me.

The campaign is at the Wargamer and click on this to find it

http://www.wargamer.com/gamesdepot/

Here at the Depot you'll find one download with an automatic installer (it works great) that will load the campaign where you tell it to.

Or you can download the plain zip file and install it yourself. Simply load the unzipped files into the \Campaigns subdirectory of SPMBT.

Look forward to hearing more from you.

Wild Bill

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Morning Bill,

Thanks for the welcome and the web link. I remeber your old group it was a fine group. Does your new group have a web site?

I looked at the web site and did not see your campaign. I did see the one on the Carrabeen though. I was looking for your Korea 1st Marine campaign you mentioned in the first post, but can not find it.

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Actually it is not a campaign but three separate scenarios. The first is a single man unit confrontation with the Chinese, attempting to escort the remnants of TF Faith back to friendly lines.

http://www.wargamer.com/gamesdepot/details.asp?sid=4163

This will take you to the download.

The only campaign done to date with SPMBT is the CC one.

WB

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

And a fine one at that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Bill thanks.

BTW My fav scenario to-date is your "Jerico Road" its quite a blast. I creamed the first time, and I lost mightly the second time (had to go to work was in a hurry and rushed it). It a good one to also test my full screen settings in (for some reason in Windowed mode the game runs fine, but in Full screen mode its sluggish as heck).

Bill do you think you will do a Korean campaign? That would be very nice. That has always been a weakness for the SP Camo games (a strong lack of user created campaigns) another idea of a user created campaign could be "Isreal Darkly" from say 56-73 or something.

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

There are two I would like to do.

One is the saga of Tom Dolvin's 89th Tank Battalion its first year in Korea.

The second one would be on the Marine withdrawal from the Chosin.

A possible third would be the Gloster Battalion of the COmmonwealth Force during the Chinese Spring campaign of 1951. The Commonwealth Brigade even received a US Presidential Citation for its valor. They truly saved the day. Now I'm inspired. This is the one I'll do first.

Yes, we need more on Korea, Dlazov, and I'll try to acommodate you! Thanks for the suggestion.

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

As to Jericho Road, I'm always partially personally to the smaller scenarios, be it infantry and armor.

This one is full of action and the smile of the gods of war plays a role here as well as skill tempered with daring.

You can win big or lose big, based on what you do and how well you shoot.

Don't you hate it when you can't miss but do, thus leaving you open to return fire in a precarious position? ARGH!

WB

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Disregard...I'm sleepy! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Bill,

Those 3 campaigns would be most excellent. They don't have to be huge either. Before I lost all of my work (I had collect over 785 scenarios for SPWAW and 56 Campaigns) I created for SPWW2 3 campaigns. One was based on the GD at Kursk and it was rather huge (about 4k in points). The other two were really nice. One was based on the Viking at Kursk, but all the Germans had was one Tank Company. The other campaign was based on one Infantry company, both got really nice reviews from a play-tester.

So to make things simpler on your self and the player, my suggestions would be to make them about a company or reinforced company level. Managable and personal and fun as well.

One of the other really nice things about the SP Camo games are that as the designer you can make campaigns that the user cannot buy stuff, thereby forcing him to accept the pre-bought force (similar to actually serving in the Armed Forces) most commanders do not have the luxury of "purchasing" there forces.

Any how a company level recreation of the 89th TB or the CW MB would be very neat. I never heard of the CW MB in 51.

Best Regards~
Don.

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Don, while you were out WB did a Korean War series for SPWAW. 8 scens IIRC. At wargamer.com's Games Depot. All are WBW quality. I made a flag mod for use with modswapper.
Hopefully WB can convert them to WSPMBT.

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

That is a possibility. I think nearly all of them would work well. The only one I would have to modify a lot would be the first one, TF Smith. I don't think I could get those tanks to move straight across the map and off the edge.

I'll give it some thought. Thanks, my friend.

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

junk2drive,

Thanks for the tip. Is the graphics there as well? (Modswapper is really nice.)

Re: 55 Years Ago Today
 

Both at the wargamer's games depot and at SPWAW Depot forums. CC and NK Flags Mod.