Korean Conflict - 1950 to 1971

Greetings all, noob here so please be kind.

I'm working up an alternate timeline concerning the conflicts in Southeast Asia during the 1950s to 1970s. The POD from our accepted-acknowledged waking world is the Korean Conflict continuing well past the three year duration as history records such.

The primary factor behind the prolonged engagement between the forces of North and South Korea, and their respective outside supporters, is a limited escalation of the weapons utilized on the battlefield.

In this scenario the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics abstains from direct involvement or support of North Korea, this role falls solely upon China to provide materials, weapons and troops to the conflict.

Taking a more 'pro-active' stance, the USSR offers it's military resources to the United Nations to 'quarantine' the hostilities to the Korean Peninsula and blockade shipments of prohibited items from entering use in said action.

With an 'Iron Ceiling' now in place, the skies over the battlefields are empty of combat support aircraft, strategic bombers or airborne troop delivery. Said hard-top also limiting reconnaissance, material resupply and personnel evacuation.

The battlefields now resembled more the No Man's Lands of WWI since neither side could field heavy armor or mechanized forces in large numbers. Seemingly endless tracks of land now carved into maze-like trenches and hardened redoubts have bogged the engagements to almost personal combat replacing swift movements of battalion-sized campaigns.

With such combat entering a more 'personal' level of contact, swords and pole-arms are becoming more common with both armies, small arms still available but infrequent resupply of ammunition and always in limited amounts have restricted such weapons to a 'last-resort' status.
 

Pangur

Donor
Hi and welcome to the site. I am somewhat puzzled about your idea. It seems to break down to this


  • The USSR not only does not support NK it imposes a blockade
  • The PRC does support NK
  • You seem to imply that the UN forces are still involved


If I have that right then the PRC will have next to nothing to give NK, virtually all PRC equipment was Soviet - example, the MIG-15. If you still have the UN forces in the mix then NK will be crushed. The UN forces will have no fear of a global war against the Sovs to hold them back. Heck , the NK would not be in a position to even kick the war off.



If you want a long drawn out ground war then just maybe if the arms blockade is UN enforced and no UN military on the ground then you might get what you after and even then the Korean war would have to be an on again off again exercise. Even then I have no idea how you could keep war going, what do they use for money to buy arms?
 
Hello Pangur, thank you for the kind welcome.

Again my concept is rough at best but let me try and refine such a bit.

I'm seeing the PRC supporting NK with economic and material aid, the USA throwing in behind SK with such.

The USSR has taken a position of referee-enforcer for the UN in 'isolating' the conflict to the Korean Peninsula, no UN troops are involved in actual combat in said theater. Naval vessels with UN personnel do patrol off the waters surrounding the KP but more as monitors than active combatants.

I'm seeing this as a protracted near-stalemate of limited armaments than the campaigns of the 1950, 1960s and 1970s in Southeast Asia that are more proxy clashes by super-powers than 'tribal-regional conflicts.
 

Pangur

Donor
If you keep UN involvement to naval patrols then you might get able to construct your long war. However you still have to find a way for the PRC to be able to support NK with out any support from the USSR. By suggestion would be see how you can get a decent sized arms industry in PRC quickly - for example what rifles do they make?
 
Would they be a wide mix of weapons with different calibers or not so large a mix?

I'm not sure. I know the Germans were doing some stuff in the 20s and 30s to help Chinese military industry and organization, but how much of it carried over to 1949, and how much this was augmented by development originating in other countries, I don't know.
 
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