Tiger's Tail...

...Looks like its about to be overtaken by events.

So we're setting it aside.

At some point we'll put all the posts together and finish it up, but not now.

So you have President Trump promising biblical level destruction and Kim saying bring it on. The closest analogy I can think of is Kuwait in 1990. Frankly, we've never really seen anything like this. We do recall during a similar crisis  with the Norks in mid-90's Bill saying, 'It would be the end of their country.'

We take this seriously.

We have one principle when it comes to situations like this. We ask ourselves, WWRD?

Four Legions.

Tiger's Tail: Suicide Squad

As the war dragged on, the task force of two American and two South Korean divisions pushed north from the DMZ toward Pyongyang.With the 101st and 3rd Marine Divisions just miles west of Pyongyang American commanders had one question: would Kim order nuclear weapons used on North Korean soil? Would he even go so far as to nuke his own capital?

American planners had spent several days debating this question. Some even favored nuking Pyongyang preemptively and denying Kim that option altogether. Even the most optimistic planners looked on in dread at the prospect of fighting for Pyongyang.

In true communist fashion Kim mobilized the people of Pyongyang for the defense of the city. Every street was blocked, every building fortified. Every public structure turned into a citadel of mass communist resistance. With also Arab rhetorical flourish Kim promised a million deaths and a million more.

But outside Pyongyang, the landing force consolidated its position. One brigade of the 3rd Marine Division occupied the landing zone while one brigade of the 101st protected the route inland. This left a total of four brigades on the high ground west, southwest of the city.

Both Secretary Mattis in Washington and the task force commander on the ground agreed that inaction was undesirable but sending the full force into Pyongyang was too risky. Therefore a marine task force centered on one mechanized battalion and reinforced with an armored company was formed. Their mission was to breach North Korean Defenses in Pyongyang and advance to the Pathone River. Once the river was reached commanders on teh ground would decide if the task force would withdraw from Pyongyang or establish a foothold for further exploitation into the city.

Fourteen hundred marines donned their NBC gear Though their official designation was Task Force 1-6, almost immediately the men dubbed themselves Suicide Squad and their trek into Pyongyang 'Suicide Run'.

At sunup the Suicide Squad advanced down the Youth Hero Highway, northeast into Pyongyang. Over a nearly three and half mile run, past football stadiums and war memorials the marines encountered no resistance whatsoever and barely any sign of life. Within an hour lead elements of Suicide Squad reached the Pathone River Bridge finding it intact.

It was at this point that commanders determined there could be only one reason why they would be allowed to enter the city. Task for 1-6 turned around and sped back down the Youth Hero Highway, hoping they weren't to late.

Tiger's Tail will return tomorrow...

Tiger's Tail: Fire From the Sly

'I do not need Nuclear Weapons!' exclaimed Commander, US Forces, Korea. 'I need time.'
'You don't have it,' Defense Secretary Mattis replied.

As South Korean forces gathered in Seoul, Uijongbu and on the Han River, the Trump Administration made he still controversial decision to fly into Korea units of the 82nd Airborne Division.  As the battle of Uijonhbu was beginning, one brigade of the division was airlifted to Inchon International Airport with no heavy equipment. Units of the brigade debarked and proceeded across the causeway to shore A second brigade was just a few hours behind.

For three days American, South Korean, and Japanese air power mercilessly hammered North Korean logistics. Everywhere throughout the peninsula one heard the sound of aircraft. After the first day of the war these were almost universally friendly and in their quest to gain air superiority, Allied air forces scored an impressive 133-7 kill record.

Command and control targets throughout the north were hammered by sustained Tomahawk strikes. One spectacular strike leveled party headquarters and the presidential palace in Pyongyang. But the main effort fell upon North Korean logistics running to the south.

By the end of the 3rd day of the war these strikes had taken their toll on the North Koreans. It is now known that North Korean armor and mechanized units were short of fuel and ammunition. Supply trucks that entered the Red Triangle had a 50/50 chance of making it to the front. During the 4th day of the war, North Korean troops , never particularly well fed, were actually going hungry.

Indeed it was North Korea's sustained food shortages that great hampered their sabotage efforts...

Tigers Tail: The Red Triangle Looms

As the U.S. Second Infantry Division was fighting its way into the pantheon of American military history the South Korean VI Corps grimly held in the Uijongbu Corridor to the east, while the South Korean I Corps did the same in the Munson Corridor to the west.

The the west he brunt of the first day's effort fell to the ROK 1st Infantry division which by nightfall was fought out by successive waves of North Korean armor. Though exhausted the division fell back in good order and passed the defense of the Munson Corridor to the ROK 25th Infantry Division. Fearing another nuclear strike commanders here deployed their battalions in open formation. Thought partially protected from a nuclear blast, the dispersed formation was less able to absorb the blows form the North Koreans. Several North Korean formations, some battalion sized slipped through the 25th Infantry Division's lines and engaged the ROK 9th Infantry Division. With rear area formations now under attack, South Korean commanders believed the communists had achieved a mass breakthrough and ordered the I Corps to retreat to the South Bank of the Han River. This left the ROK 25th Division in lurch and began a saga of fighting retreat rivaling that of the U.S. X Corps at Chosin during the last war.

In the Uijongbu Corridor the VI Corps of three infantry divisions was steadily pushed south by concerted North Korean pressure. It seemed that despite the massive losses inflicted by American and South Korean air power, the communists just kept coming. By the end of the second day the ROK 6th Infantry division was pushed off to the east, while the 3rd and 8th Infantry Divisions struggled to keep their formations coherent as they pulled back south through the corridor. Both divisions regrouped along the ridge just north of Seoul and running west to Uijongbu, which was now occupied by the Capitol Infantry, or Tiger Division. The 17th Infantry Division came up form Seoul and occupied a hill to the Southwest of Uijongbu, thus protecting the capitol but leaving open Uijongbu's left flank.

By dawn of the third day the battle map showed a giant, red inverse triangle bracketed by the Han River in the west, with its point bearing down on Seoul. While the government there evacuated to Daejon 75 miles to the south, the President remained in Seoul where he was in constant contact with the Trump administration.

Even as American B-1 and B-2 Bombers hammered North Korean logistics, and wave after wave of Tomahawk missile swarmed over the DMZ the South Korean President demanded, 'Where are your troops! Where are your troops!'

'Those decisions are being made,' President Trump replied.
'We are dying,' replied the South Korean President. 'Must I ask the Japanese for help?'
'What is it you would like me to do?' President Trump asked.
'Mr. President, my Minister of Defense has prepared a list of twenty five targets he believes suitable for nuclear attack...'

If you like Tiger's Tail, you'll love Israel Strikes.

Tiger's Tail Part Two: The Nihilist

The North Korean's nuclear strike paralyzed the Trump Administration, dividing it into two factions those that wanted to immediately flood the country with reinforcements and those that wanted to halt those reinforcements and simply retaliate in kind.

For twenty four crucial hours the president simply did not know what to do.

As Kim's armies advanced on Seoul, North Korean troops showed a barbarity and nihilism not faced by the Americans since the Second World War.

Against orders most young soldiers carried their smart phones into battle. Retreating American forces were not able in most cases to recover the bodies of their dead. Cunning North Korean political officers recovered as many phones as they could find. What happened next caused an uproar at home. The North Koreans took over social media accounts of many American dead. Here they posted photos of the dead owners of those accounts. In hundreds of cases they contacted via phone or text the bereaved families and mocked or taunted them.

By the third day of the war the North Koreans had several hundred American prisoners. They subjected several dozen female prisoners to brutal gang rape, often broadcast on FB Live. North Korean political officers singled out several black soldiers and forced them to read statements condemning 'White America'. The same was done with a few Hispanic prisoners. The North Koreans executed several captured white officers and posted the videos on prominent black social media sites.

Kim could not have been happier with the overall results. American media covered thees atrocities exclusivity, ignoring entirely the course of the war, the heroics stands by surviving individual units of the 2nd Infantry Division and the fanatical defense of the Han River Plain by the South Korean Army.

As the North Korean Army reached the outskirts of Seoul the Trump Administration came to a decision...

Tiger's Tail Part One, Unknown Unknowns

Before the war began certain parameters were understood by American and South Korean planners. Geography necessitated that the North Korean offensive concentrate in the western part of South Korea on both banks of the Han River, on the Han River plain.

Both sides also understood that the contest at its most basic would be North Korean mass against American time. That is, could North Korean mass win the battle before American reinforcements arrived?

So no one was surprised when two of North Korea's four first echelon armies rolled across the border and onto the Han River plain.

This put a dozen North Korean divisions against the American 2nd Infantry Division and South Korean forces. These were of course hammered by American and South or Korean air assets which attained air superiority the moment the war began.

These were the last known-knowns of the war.

Kim was expected to concentrate his massive arsenal of artillery on Seoul, Instead. these fell upon the 1st Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, which was unprepared for the onslaught and pinned. The brigade, under siege within the first six hours of the war, hunkered down and waited for the 2nd and 3rd Brigades (deployed from Ft. Lewis in the lead up to the crisis), to move up.

No one expected what happened next. Advancing north both brigades were subjected to bombardment by nuclear armed artillery units. It is now known that at least have of the nuclear shells failed to detonate. No matter. Both brigade's were shattered and the 1st, isolated and cut off, fearing nuclear bombardment itself, disintegrated.

A path to Seoul was now open...