Korean Hamburger Hill - Marines vs. USSR 1950 PBEM

[Shan]

The first PBEM game for both opponents - smithc63 and me - turned out to be a long, bloody fight with a surprising result! We decided to play Marines vs. USSR on the Korean peninsula - so far, so good.

I normally prefer quantity over quality, and I like to use armeored units, but for my first battle I decided to use some 1950s Soviet strategy - meaning: 2 companies of 'cannon-fodder' reservists for the initial contact, and an Elite naval infantry company + support units , which were to be committed only after achieving contact with the enemy main force. I also had a company of T-54s with only 2 platoons - they proved to be the battle-winner! Finally, I had an anti-tank reserve of a platoon SU-100s and a 3 85mm guns.

The whole force would have strong artillery support - a battalion 152mm, a section 180mm and a battery of on-map Katyushas + ammo trucks. I did not waste my purchase points on air strikes, assuming the Americans would have air superiority, and quite frankly out of experience I thought I don't want these Shturmoviks bomb my own troops ;-).

The initial bombardment along the whole front line showed at least 3 burning trucks and a destroyed mortar.

On the first pic you can see my tanks + anti-tank guns near the central objective, waiting for an enemy push...

[Shan]

Unfortunately I cannot add the pics into my post as I don't have a homepage or webspace to load them from - the game, however, proceeded as follows: I let the two reservist companies and some scouts advance on the objextives and provided overwatch with the tanks + guns. My infantry in the south was out in the open, when the enemy approached with lots of armored vehicles, including some Pershing tanks! He dismounted his Marines (13 men per squad - mine only had 8!), immediately sealed off the southern objective (on a hill with lots of forest), and my tanks had no FoV of the area! So I deployed some of them to the south and ordered a huge artillery barrage. I hoped to be able to cover my infantry with the tanks on time and/or rach the safer forest - but the Marines ran into some of my squads with their tanks and SPAA guns... it was a bloody fight, and some of my squads were routed, but the enemy also had losses, and around half of that company reached the forest intact, while the rest continued to block the enemy tanks and pop smoke.

In the center, my tanks took an overwatch position and destroyed some enemy scouts and the first Pershing tanks with surprising ease at long range! The enemy commander complained a lot... but that's war! At the same time, the second company advanced under sover through a dense forest and took the other two objectives. The north of the map was a vast flat area, so I decided to keep a tank platoon there to watch out. Later, it was able to cross a river and when it became clear that the enemy has no forces at all in the north, the platoon started to flank the enemy forces.

The result was quite surprising - I only lost one A/T gun, as well as a T-34 flamethrower at close range, plus some scouts, and had a T-54 was immobilized... but usually the Pershing's shells would just bouce off my tanks! My infantry in the south, however, was seriously pinned down by very precise enemy artillery. Some air strikes bombed both sides of the front, but didn't do any damage on my side. The infantry finally got into some close quarter fighting with the Marines, but they had been decimated by my artillery so in th end no side was able to advance. I finally managed to kill all the Pershings without losses and mop up the armored vehicles. My plan was to keep the southern hill under heavy fire and attack it with the Elit company - one platoon would be carried to the flank by the SU-100s to speed up things. A screenshot by my opponent showed me later that I'd have run into an ambush of some still-intact Marines - but it didnt get that far - we decided to stop this engagement, as my enemy had no more real fighting-capable units left.

My conclusion: Even though it's not my style to use some poor infantrymen as cannon-fodder, it proved to be quite effective, and overall my losses were surprisingly light.