7 Comments
Nov 11Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

TR Fehrenbach’s book is one of the best books on the Korean War. If you go to Korea you will see the terrain & understand that no matter your MOS you were going to be an 11B. I was stationed there 87-88. Also there war museum is excellent & great memorial to those that died fighting for the ROK. My uncle Tony was an assigned to the Columbian Brigade as a translator which I didn’t find out about until he passed. Do you know of any good articles or books on this units activities in the war?

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Nov 11Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

I think it’s of the most importance to study, especially with our rival China and lesser so North Korea. In particular for China, it’s 1 of 2 major wars that the communist party partook in, and it forms a massive amount of their military cultural Mythos.

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Nov 11Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

For those wanting to look at unit organisations for the Korean War armies, the Wargames Vault has a selection (including Chinese and North Korean) in the MicroMark collection. Whilst aimed at wargamers and focused on combat elements they are not tied to any wargames rules and as such as useful for the historian or collectoer.

Not sure if I'm allowed to put a live link on here, please delete if inappropriate:

https://www.wargamevault.com/browse/pub/3426/MicroMark-Army-Lists/subcategory/5776_5897/KOREAN-WAR-19501953

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author

We welcome live links. Thanks for posting.

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Indeed Wonju was the Gettysburg for China in Feb 1951 they’re hopes for total victory faded

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Carefully.

“This kind of war” was the justification for the army we had 80s ~ present, although that’s ending. That book is where the justification for a Volunteer army was laid down, also for constant training and yes discipline.

It’s also excellent history.

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The largest lesson of Korea, (and one which the US army failed to learn either there, in Vietnam or Afghanistan), was that if you can only send large units in areas traversable by wheels, you effectively give up control over 1/3 of the planet's land surface.

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