Wild Coincidence

[jivemi]

This is an AAR about Scenario #242—The Fruit Factory by Ulf Lundstrom. It takes the PoV of a ROK Army battalion commander, Lt Colonel Park. Dates and names have been changed to support an altered historical view.

---Spoiler Alert---

1020 hours June 25, 2017. Lieutenant Colonel Park Chung Li stood outside his reserve mech infantry battalion's TOC, puffing on a cigarette while surveying his troops in the assembly area, a flat patch of land behind a couple of hills, two-and-a-half kilometers east of his main objective, the Kosan Gun Fruit Factory. They were about 30 “klicks” south and inland of Wonsan, a North Korean port city on the peninsula’s eastern side, and 60 north of the DMZ.

It was only two weeks since South Korea, provoked by the North’s missile launches, cross-border artillery barrages, special forces attacks on southern targets (for which they always claimed innocence), and other bellicose behavior by its “Supreme Leader,” Kim Jong Un, had finally declared war. While ROK and US Air Force jets paralyzed or incinerated Nokor’s transport and communications, elite Sokor assault divisions had punched holes through the DMZ on either side of the peninsula and raced north. As they did so, military officers in Pyongyang staged a coup against the regime, sparking a general revolt throughout the country. Defecting enemy units either surrendered or fought battles against Communist die-hards, who retreated into the hills in a hopeless attempt to regroup and continue the war.

That was mind-blowing in itself. Just as bizarre, even surreal, was that he found himself participating in a most peculiar existential experience. Because when he’d received his orders barely 18 hours before, he realized that he was being commanded to do what he’d already done several times before, with much the same order of battle, in a tactical computer wargame called Steel Panthers Main Battle Tank (or SPMBT for short). With uncanny prescience a human designer had created a scenario in which Park was now the real-life commander. He didn’t know how to describe it; was it Fate, a Cosmic Joke, or just plain old wild coincidence? It reminded him of the philosopher who’d been dreaming he was a butterfly, and when he awoke he wasn’t sure if he was man or butterfly. It was weird, but at the same time it felt good.

His facility with English had led to this preternatural situation. He’d been introduced to the game by some American friends while serving as a KATUSA at the US Eighth Army Headquarters in Seoul. What made SPMBT so engrossing was how it mimicked combat in such minute detail. Individual infantry squads, armored units like tanks and other AFVs, anti-tank guns and anti-tank guided missiles, mortar and artillery units, and so on, behaved much like their counterparts on actual battlefields. It even accommodated close air support and corresponding anti-air capability, including radar-guided conventional flak and surface-to-air missiles. Each infantry unit, vehicle, artillery piece, or aircraft was integrated into a carefully balanced combined-arms system which allowed the human player to control digital soldiers and weapon systems while fighting historical battles, or hypothetical scenarios of either past or future (one of which just happened to anticipate Park's present situation) in the post-WW II era.

It wasn’t a perfect “simulation” since it was turn-based, with sequential fire and movement. In that context certain practical concessions had to be made. Skirmishes or battles were shorter than in real life, since directing just a company-sized force in a supposedly hour-long engagement might take twice that long to play out in real time. Park suspected that direct fire-- especially from small arms at short range--was more lethal in order to achieve faster combat resolutions. (Yet others vehemently disagreed; wargamers were a contentious lot. Fortunately the game allowed the user to set parameters—in this case “infantry toughness”—to suit their fancy.) Command control was most unrealistic, since it provided a bird’s-eye view of the battlefield and the ability to almost instantly determine the status of, and give orders to, any unit (except those routed or retreating) in one’s forces.

Despite these compromises it was remarkable how closely tactics and results in SPMBT mirrored reality. Combined-arms forces of certain sizes were matched against each other in three basic types of battle: meeting engagements of relatively equal forces, and advances/delays or assaults/defenses where attackers almost always had superiority of numbers and firepower. Success or failure depended largely on how well the human player(s)--there was e-mail competition too!—utilized basic concepts such as fire and maneuver, achieving superiority at the point(s) of attack, using tanks mainly as infantry support (their breakout role of shooting up soft targets in the enemy’s rear areas usually didn’t happen until later stages of a battle, if at all), employing preparatory artillery or rocket barrages to stun defenders, suppressing enemy fire before advancing, deception (including smokescreens), and so on. Charging impetuously across open terrain would invariably result in defeat, while moving cautiously through or behind cover to locate enemy positions before committing forces to combat usually held the key to success.

1040 hours. Park’s reverie was broken by the deep roar of diesel engines as his maneuver force of two mechanized infantry companies (F&L)—each with a platoon of engineers attached—and a tank company (C) of twelve upgraded M48 Pattons began their oblique approach to the first objective, a road junction one-and-a-half kilometer to the southwest. Meanwhile his six self-propelled 81mm mortar tubes and three of 107mm prepared to fire their smokeshells, as did four attached sections of 155 and 205mm artillery several kilometers away. He wanted to time it so the smokescreens would be laid just before his forces came within sight and range of the enemy.

There were also six F-4E Phantoms circling to the northeast, under control of the FO, SGT Lee, but—

WHAM!! There was a sudden explosion several hundred meters south. He could see that one of E Platoon’s tanks had been targeted by a well-concealed enemy who hadn’t been spotted by his patrols, and had found LOS between the two hills which had hidden the battalion during assembly. CPT Park Jong Pil, whose command tank was the only one with smoke rounds, immediately fired one off to conceal the intended victim. Apparently the enemy had been spotted in turn, for several tanks proceeded to position themselves behind the smoke, using their thermal scopes (lucky the enemy didn’t have any!) to see through it and blast away with their main guns until the target—a 100mm SP Gun--was hit and destroyed. CPT Park fired a couple more smoke rounds to make sure there was no more unwelcome interference as L Company continued its southwest maneuver along the southern hill, trailed by the tanks of E Platoon, C Company's vanguard.

F Company meanwhile moved south behind the northern hill and prepared to move forward into the gap after smoke was laid. Then it too would also move southwest. The plan was for both mechanized companies to emerge from the smokescreen and blocking terrain just west of the southern hill, more or less abreast and along the road running south from the first objective. (Park recalled that he’d never won this scenario in the game after several attempts, and best as he could remember he’d run into difficulties by committing his forces into orchards north of the first objective. He had no intention of making the same mistake three or four times; twice was bad enough.)

1105 hours. First contact. L Company moves toward the road in its sector and comes under fire. Nobody can see where it’s coming from so they wait for backup. F Company takes position just east of the road further north without drawing fire. A few minutes later more of L Company arrives and they move forward again, taking fire as before but this time they spot two dug-in infantry sections and shoot back. As F Company moves across the road it too is targeted and begins taking casualties from small arms fire. Artillery is called down on spotted or suspected enemy positions.

In the heat of action 2LT Lee orders G Platoon to seize the intersection. After CPL Um’s squad gets pinned down by fire from one of the buildings Lee tries it with his own, since other squads are too far away and already engaged. He too fails, but SGT Kim, commanding one of the platoon’s tracked APCs, hearing Lee’s order and disregarding strict instructions to avoid independent action, moves forward but hits a mine. Another APC under SGT Choi succeeds, but is immediately destroyed by an unseen enemy. Both crews bail out, but there are casualties; much blood has been shed for one road junction, and there are still four objectives to go.


(To be continued)