There was some talk of spreading radioactive material out along the border that way Chinese troops couldn't pass through. It never happened because it was obviously a stupid idea. But yeah, it didn't involve nukes and it has nothing to do with why he got fired.
Patton in Korea/MacArthur in the White House
- Thread starter BiteNibbleChomp
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The Chinese had limited motorization, and ability to rapidly move supplies forward. However, their scale of supply was far less then the American Army, they just got by on much less. They had far greater cross country mobility then the road bound Americans. Yes during the initial stages of action they had little conventional artillery, but made very effective use of mortars, which were more mobile then American towed field guns. The length of the line in Korea left a division defending a front of 15-20 miles. In that situation the UN had no divisions in strategic reserve, so they couldn't use hammer & Anvil tactics.
Ridgeway, and Van Fleet had to advance by forming a continues front, and using superior firepower to push forward. Their constant worry was the Chinese finding gaps in the line, and infiltrating into the UN rear. When the Chinese did achieve breakthroughs 8th Army had to scramble to form reserves to plug the gaps, and wipeout the infiltrators. Unlike WWII there were never any large scale encirclements in the Korean War. The UN simply lacked the reserves to fight battles of envelopment.
All great stuff but we're referring to this TL. The unit placement during the initial phase of the Chinese advance meant it was difficult for 8th Army to put together a successful sweeping counter attack.
Ittl they have a significant gap between forward units and the MLR which means you're going to have a far better chance of regaining the initiative. Also the divisional, corps and army level artillery will be able to give a far better account of themselves I think this time around.
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I'm honoured, thanks for the kind words!
Re maps, here's the Walker Line, marked in purple. ROK forces at this point are roughly halfway between that line and the Chinese border (I haven't worked it out in detail because it's really not important to the story).
Geography up there is basically just mountains - here's the area near the Chosin and Pujon Reservoirs from the more detailed map I've been using behind the scenes (that file is way too big to put up here) - scale is about 1 inch = 10 miles.
Not exactly the sort of place where big flanking moves are possible (black roads are really dirt tracks about 15ft wide, the red ones are maybe 20ft wide).
He does sound pretty cool, but I probably won't be able to include him unfortunately. I've already got a bit of a list of names that I wanted to include but don't really have the space for (Patton's poem only has 24 stanzas, and I don't want updates getting much longer than they already are or it just drags things out). Plus he didn't make it to Korea until Feb 51 or so, which might be a bit late....
In short, Mac wouldn't shut up about using Chiang's forces against Red China, which Truman really didn't want to do, and then criticised his policy in a letter that made it to the House of Reps, hence the sacking. Nukes had nothing to do with it.
- BNC
Rivercat893
Banned
Well the UN and ROK forces are this point are likely going to win the Korean War in TTL. A unified, pro-American Korea will prove to be a bulwark against communism and the same treatment is likely to extend to Vietnam.I'm honoured, thanks for the kind words!
Re maps, here's the Walker Line, marked in purple. ROK forces at this point are roughly halfway between that line and the Chinese border (I haven't worked it out in detail because it's really not important to the story).
View attachment 609385
Geography up there is basically just mountains - here's the area near the Chosin and Pujon Reservoirs from the more detailed map I've been using behind the scenes (that file is way too big to put up here) - scale is about 1 inch = 10 miles.
View attachment 609384
Not exactly the sort of place where big flanking moves are possible (black roads are really dirt tracks about 15ft wide, the red ones are maybe 20ft wide).
He does sound pretty cool, but I probably won't be able to include him unfortunately. I've already got a bit of a list of names that I wanted to include but don't really have the space for (Patton's poem only has 24 stanzas, and I don't want updates getting much longer than they already are or it just drags things out). Plus he didn't make it to Korea until Feb 51 or so, which might be a bit late....
In short, Mac wouldn't shut up about using Chiang's forces against Red China, which Truman really didn't want to do, and then criticised his policy in a letter that made it to the House of Reps, hence the sacking. Nukes had nothing to do with it.
- BNC
I wonder if there are any pods that would convince Truman to use chiangs force. Maby if dewey was president instead?
Yeah we're looking at either a fully unified Korea or a rump NK that barely holds sliver of the north.
Rivercat893
Banned
Probably the former will Patton not dying of illness and teaming up with MacArthur to take down the communists. Cold War politics are also fundamentally changed a bit with American troops near the doorstep of China and the Soviet Union.
I would bet on the latter. Mao will never accept an "imperialist puppet" on his doorstep. A rump communist Korea as a buffer zone would be the minimum he would tolerate.
Are you speaking in from Moas view or the view of the Korean people?
Rivercat893
Banned
Since Patton didn't die of illness and participated in the Korean War, there won't be a North Korea, and Kim il-Sung will either be living in exile in the USSR or captured and executed by American and South Korean authorities.
I don't think a unified, Western aligned Korea was ever in the cards once the ChiComs intervened. It would require absolute failure in Korea, renewed Chinese civil war and MouseDung being overthrown to bring it about IMO.
I wonder what will happen in the Vietnam War. Will Vietnam reunify under one government, similar to OTL. Or, a Vietnam divided?
Would the United States even become involved. Showing the flag was successful here. The mentalities resulting in the United States fingering, then hugging a tar baby won't be present. Meanwhile the Vietnamese Workers' Party (southern grouping) will eventually become fucking pissed off with being murdered by an incompetent Catholic lickspittle.
Why not choose to intervene in the Phillipines, or years of living dangerously, or Thailand. So many places to expend those munitions.
TBF if they can push China back over the Yalu and keep them there then Mao won't have a choice TBH. Either he accepts defeat or he fully commits to the war in which case your looking at things spiraling out of control till the Soviets intervene and then WW3 starts up.
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