Thanks everyone for the feedback re Truman's peace proposal... I've amended it to just be a simple 50mi DMZ, which shouldn't annoy Congress too much
Ike was the centrist candidate, just as he was in the OTL. He'd still be the odds on favorite for the GOP.
If he runs... He wasn't especially keen about doing so IOTL. ITTL there's still another two whole years before the election, plenty of time for butterflies to flap their wings
Respectfully though I have enjoyed the story telling of this TL I think the military side has been unrealistic. The NKPA was grossly underestimated. Patton's ordering of a stand at Taejon would've ended in total disaster, not a victory. The Battle of Taejon wasn't anywhere near an even fight. The fact the NKPA took heavy casualties doesn't prove the Americans could've won the battle by staying, and fighting it out. The Americans were beaten hands down. The deficiencies of the American, and ROK Armies couldn't be corrected by Patton "kicking butt" in the timescale in the story. It took months of hard fighting, and reorganization for 8th Army to get into any kind of fighting shape. Just saying the UN advance is only a week ahead of OTL schedule doesn't resemble reality. There were to many intervening events, and actions that had to happen to get there, that didn't occur in this TL.
The defeat of the Chinese Army was just too simple. The Chinese were far too strong, and resilient to be so easily beaten. Just deducing that Chinese offensives were short sharp actions, because of logistical limitations, so could be quickly dealt with by well timed counter punches is over simplistic. Your taking a tactic, and extrapolating it into a strategy. Even in 1953 the Chinese could smash holes in the line, that were difficult, and costly to plug. In 1953 the Americans, and ROK's were at a much higher standard then they were at the beginning of 1951. Fighting the Chinese was a massive grinding battle, especially after they brought their artillery into action. Even under better generals then Patton there was no simple trick to beat the Chinese. Chinese manpower, and Soviet weapons constituted a very formidable force that strained the resources of the United States, and their allies.
I'm going to start off by saying that this is, above all else, meant to be a story much more than an in-depth analysis of the Korean War, and my focus has always been on the character of General Patton more than about what individual units are doing, or whether B Company could hold this hill at that time, or anything else of that sort. It's why I haven't included maps (at least in the main story) and why half the POVs are in Patton's HQ - honestly I'm not that interested in the nitty gritty of where the units are. A year's reading about Patton and about how the war was fought under Walker convinced me that Patton could do a better job, and for story/character purposes it is much more interesting to look at Patton making a significant difference to the war, even going so far as the Yalu... Walker (and MacArthur) made enough easily-avoided mistakes that I believe a better commander (such as Patton, although I'll throw Ridgway in there too) could have won the war by the spring of 1951. Some, such as yourself, may disagree with me, and that's fine. It's just that if you don't believe the war can be won, nothing I write is likely to convince you otherwise. We've had 40+ pages at this point (and Taejon in particular has been debated long enough, I think). For the purposes of the 'alternate' history, a UN convincingly winning scenario is much more interesting than just "OTL but moved north a bit and with more swear words out of Patton's mouth", which because of geography is really the only other option. If you feel that stretches plausibility, well I doubt TTL is the worst offender out there!
Besides, technically the POD for this is in 1945, so if it makes things easier, just assume that the US did a better job of training the troops in 8th Army between 1946-50 and had more and better stuff ready to go when Korea flares up. ITTL lots of people have Patton's book* which they probably didn't IOTL - maybe this has an impact?
Re the Chinese, I think I detailed this in a post recently, the TLDR is that Patton only gives a convincing thumping to the Chinese in one sector of the front (Iwon-Hyesanjin), where he concentrated a major spearhead and the Chinese only had a small force. Everywhere else, particularly in the west, the Chinese have only been pushed back a little bit... the situation much closer to a 1951/2 battle than OTL Oct/Nov 1950. They're hardly "easily beaten".
* = Patton's book ITTL is assumed to be similar to
War as I Knew It, in particular it still includes his recommendations for how to build an effective army that make up a huge part of the appendices - although I've also assumed he does a fair bit of complaining about Ike as well. Regarding a lot of the soldiers having a copy, this is based off the OTL Mexican War, where something like one in three or one in two American soldiers going into Mexico brought with them a copy of
The History of the Conquest of Mexico by William H. Prescott, which was published in 1843 and describes the Spanish defeat of the Aztecs.
- BNC