This extremely important video details how we figured out to best fight with the WW2 equipment we had in Korea 1950-53. The Battle Against the Earth (TBATE): Open terrain in west, closed terrain mountains/hills in east. Firepower RANGE is everything for Long Range Battle (LRB). U.S. WW2 .30 caliber (7.62mm x 82mm) M1 Garand rifles, BAR light machine guns good range but no pistol grips for maneuver fire.
Similarly, we need a modular M16A5 that can shoot 7.62mm x 51mm NATO for Afghanistan/Iraq.
The Battle Against Man (TBAM): North Koreans (NORKS) and Chinese Communists (CHICOMs) peasant armies with pistol grip sub-machine guns, stick grenades good for close quarters battle (CQB) but lacking armored mobility and long-range firepower, fan-out behind T34/85 medium tanks to cross open areas and then hide in terrain folds/vegetation to "squat" and attempt to forcibly unify South Korea.
U.S. Army forces initially tankless and with ineffective 2.36" anti-tank (AT) and assault bazookas
in their force structure rush M24 Chaffee light, M4 Sherman and M26 Pershing medium tanks to strip away NORK daylight, open terrain maneuver capabilities. Falling back to Naktong river TBATE barrier, use artillery, mortar, fighter-bomber and naval gunfire as a FIREPOWER barrier to keep NORKs away from our exposed, foot-slogging WEAK INFANTRY, marked on LINES ON MAPS. Once linear situation established that bureaucracies understand, Pusan perimeter forces built up with mass-produced weapons/ammo; while NORKs mass produce people to send in wave night attacks. General MacArthur brilliantly lands Army 7th Infantry Division and 1st MarDiv in NORK rear to cut off their supplies as 7th Cavalry breaks out of Pusan by advancing a terrain saturation firepower "line" to evict the NORKs followed by our slow, weak infantry.
Bombard & Occupy.
CHICOMs cross NORK border and infiltrate behind our lines and whenever terrain blocks our stand-off firepower our slow, exposed infantry gets pinned by enemy fire when two cavalry-less, pedestrian main bodies collide resulting in stalemate and trenchlines akin to WW1. Historians boasting the helicopter cliche' are clueless; the lesson of Korea is to put infantry in go-anywhere light tracked, armored personnel carriers (APCs) so we can fight non-linearly and fight decisive maneuver wars--not desperate prolonged, linear wars. This is why LTG Gavin asked "Where was the Cavalry?" and why he created the M113. U.S. forces built around weak infantry and too heavy tanks stuck to roads was not qualitatively superior to even peasant armies that could go cross-country and use terrain masking.
The fruit of this hard-fought combat wisdom can be seen in the 11th ACR and other units light mechanized by M113 Gavins in even more closed terrain Vietnam.
Notice the excellent slower-than-jets P-51 Mustang Close Air Support and artillery fire direction from Army L-19 (O-1) Bird Dog STOL grasshopper planes: things we desperately need today in Iraq/AFPAK.
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