Brother versus Brother – North and South Korean Forces in Bolt Action – Korea

By Matt Sakrekoff

“At 0830 a staff officer of the 7th Division radioed the ROK Minister of Defense in Seoul: “We are under general attack and heavy artillery fire near the parallel. The enemy has already seized his initial objectives. We require immediate reinforcements. Our reserve is engaged.”

In one of the many dramatic passages from the seminal book on the Korean War, This Kind of War by T.R. Fehrenbach sets the tone of the shocking attack by North Korea across the 38th parallel and the desperate defense by Republic of Korea (ROK) forces. Warlord Games has done a credible job in re-creating the historical organization and tactics for both the Korean Peoples Army (KPA) and the ROK military. Both sides used equipment, organization, and tactics from their respective major supporting international power, e.g. the Soviet Union and the United States.

The army lists and period selectors in this book generally follow the historical organization and equipment of North and South Korean forces during the 1950-1953 Korean War, with only a few exceptions.

In addition, the Special Rules for the North and South Korean forces are unique from each other and bring a twist to the employment of units that would otherwise mirror forces organized under Soviet or U.S. doctrine. Want to model a force based on a KPA break-through division? The new rules cover that.

Want to model a ROK marine unit during the bitter trench warfare typical of the latter period of the war? The rules cover that as well. Historically, the Korean War was an infantryman’s war and both the army lists and period selectors do that justice in this regard.

Army Lists
During the Korean War, the KPA were generally equipped with older Soviet, People Republic of China, captured Japanese, and captured Chinese Nationalist weapons. The army lists in this book favor the Soviet artillery doctrine and a KPA player has access to the Soviet heavy mortars and artillery of the period as well as the Katyusha truck-mounted rocket launcher.

This is a favorite among some Soviet force Bolt Action players, as it is a highly mobile and deadly source of indirect fire. Although not affecting the gameplay, it is interesting to note that many of the KPA miniatures depicted in this book carry what appear to be Russian SKS rifles. I have never heard of the KPA using this rifle during the Korean War and some light research indicated that the Russians themselves did not have that many produced and so it is unlikely these weapons would have been provided to the KPA. Still, I think this is a mild difference and as previously mentioned, does not affect gameplay.

Historically, the ROK military forces had a hodge-podge of equipment. Although the ROK divisions along the 38th parallel at the beginning of the Korean War had U.S. provided small arms, like the M-1 Garand and .30 caliber medium machineguns, the ROK forces fighting the communist guerillas further South had war-weary Japanese small arms and equipment.

The ROK forces also did not have access to a lot of armor support in the early part of the Korean War. Although this changed as U.S. war materiel poured in as the war progressed, this book does provide the ROK forces to some of the most advanced tanks early in the period selectors. This means that a ROK reinforced platoon can include an M-26 Pershing or M-46 Patton heavy tank on the board with their 90mm guns as early the defense of Pusan. Although this may be a dubious historical representation of the availability of this equipment, it does give a ROK player powerful armor support when facing of any KPA armor threat, like the T-34/85.

Partisan units are available to both the KPA and ROK players. These units have the “Superior Fieldcraft” bonus allowing them to treat rough terrain and obstacles as open ground for movement purposes as well as a couple other bonuses that make them very mobile infantry units with the same power and morale as other infantry units.

Period Selectors
The new book defines three distinct periods in the Korean War as follows. The Early War period is June 1950 to December 1950, the Mid War period is December 1950 to June 1951, and the Late War period is from June 1951 to July 1953.

There are five period selectors for both the KPA and ROK forces. The platoons you can create for historical scenarios for the KPA are: Invasion; Assault of Pusan/Defense of the 38th Parallel; Defense of Inchon/Defending the 38th Parallel; Chinese Offensives – through Spring 1951; and July 1951 through 1953.

Conversely, the platoons you can model for the ROK forces are: Invasion; Defense of Pusan/Advance Across the 38th Parallel; Inchon Landing/Crossing of the 38th Parallel; Chinese Offensive and the UN Counter Offensive – Spring 1951; and July 1951 through 1953. The period selectors are slightly reworded to reflect the role either the KPA or ROK forces played during this period.

These period selectors do a good job modeling the Korean War where the first two-thirds of the war were distinct in the general maneuver of forces back and forth across the Korean peninsula and the last third of the war a slow grinding trench conflict more reminiscent of the First World War than the era of atom bombs.

This is important as your equipment choices do vary with each historical period for both the KPA and the ROK forces. For example, the availability of tank types for a KPA force degrades in the defense of Inchon period selector to only the SU-76 and Katyusha versus all the other period selectors where T-34/85 tanks are available.

The same is also true for sniper teams. One of the differences between the KPA and the ROK forces is the ability of ROK forces to take up to two sniper teams for all four-period selectors versus one sniper team for the KPA forces in all but one period selector.

Special Rules
The KPA Special Rules give a player several advantages. Some of these will be familiar to those who play Soviet forces. The first KPA Special Rule is “Chosun’gul” (Author Note: In my limited knowledge of the Korean language, Chosun’gul is the North Korean word for the Korean alphabet. In South Korea the word is Hangul. The reference in this rule book implies this is the name North Korea uses for the “Fatherland Liberation War” e.g. the Korean War as it is known elsewhere. However, I have not found information to support this translation.)

 

This special rule allows all KPA infantry, artillery, and headquarters units to re-roll a failed morale test and apply the second result. This will make KPA units that much harder to eliminate on the board and difficult to root out from stubborn defensive positions or halt an infantry advance.

The second KPA Special Rule is “Quantity Has a Quality All of It’s Own” and allows a player to include a free 10-man strong inexperienced infantry squad and doesn’t count against the platoon total. This inexperienced squad can be more than just fodder given the other KPA rules allowing for re-rolling of morale tests and of course adding one more order die to the bag.

The third KPA Special Rule is “Not One Step Back” and follows the standard pattern for a communist commissar model. If you take a commissar unit as part of your force, any unit that fails a morale roll with 6” of the commissar removes a miniature from that unit and then re-rolls the dice. This Special Rule makes concentrated infantry assaults deadly even using inexperienced squads.

The fourth KPA Special Rule is “Flag: Rally to the Colors” which replaces the weapon of any soldier accompanying an officer unit with a flag for 25 points. This Special Rule, like the other special rules, provide yet another option to re-roll a failed morale test within 12” of the flag bearer and then rolling two dice and taking the higher die roll to remove pins. These rules taken together make the KPA a formidable force for assaults.

The ROK Special Rules gear those units toward stubborn defense. The first ROK Special Rule is Tae Guk Gi, or “Brotherhood of War.” This rule endows all ROK infantry and artillery units with the “fanatic” special rule when facing KPA units. This should make scenarios between ROK and KPA forces especially hard, as each side will need to grind down the opponent’s units rather than break them through pins and morale rolls.

The second ROK Special Rule is “Conscription” wherein a force may include a free 12-man conscript squad. Like the KPA Special Rule that adds an additional infantry squad, the ROK forces can field a sizeable force and add yet another order die.

The third and last ROK Special Rule is “Defensive Posture.” This unique Special Rule allows the ROK player several abilities. In attack/defense scenarios where the sides roll to see who defends, the dice to determine who is attacking or defending are re-rolled if the ROK player is not the defender on the first roll. The second roll stands regardless of the result.

If the ROK player is defending, the enemy cannot issue run orders in the first turn. In addition, the ROK player can re-roll artillery and smoke barrage rolls. In addition, any ROK units starting the game hidden may start in ambush mode. Lastly, the ROK player receives D3 6” emplacements/obstacles before unit deployment. These can be placed within 12” of the ROK player’s table edge. These rules taken together will give the ROK player a formidable defensive force regardless of the equipment or quality advantage of any opponent.

Warlord Games is shining a long overdue light on a conflict that has escaped most war gamers attention. The diversity of the forces combined with the rugged and difficult terrain found during the Korean War will be an interesting challenge to both experienced and beginner Bolt Action players.