Korean War Prefered Allied weapons?

[MacArther]

Ok, we'll do this in the style that I used for a WW2 weapons (and etc.) thread a loooooong time ago. For this scenario, lets say that we have a mid-range engagement going on (i.e. not outside of carbine and rifle effective range) in a somewhat built up area. Enemy has armor and infantry, and plenty of AAA. As a ground pounder, what weapons would you prefer to see on your side?



Rifle: M1 Garand
AT: A 17 pounder if possible, but more likely the usual Bazooka (or super Bazooka, can't remember when the latter came into play).
SMG: Owen (I THINK Australia used them in Korea, but I'm not possitive)
Tank: I'll get back to you...I need to read up on Korean armor (for both sides) before I can make that decision.

[GrauGeist]

During the Korean war, the allies had good options for equipment, but I'll have to stick with all U.S. equipment.

As far as communist armor, I'm pretty sure that the NKA and Chinese Army fielded the Soviet T34/76 and T34/85 tanks.

My choices are:
Rifle: M1 Garand
SMG: M1A1 Thompson
AT: M1 57mm (based on the British Lovett 6 pounder)
Tank: M46 Patton

[BombTaxi]

I would beg to differ on a few things:

Rifle: M1
SMG: Sten
AT: 17pdr
Tank: Centurion

The 6pdr was obsolete before WW2 ended - it couldn't deal with Panthers reliably, and the T34/85 was just as well protected as the German tank. Ideally, 20pdr armed Centurions and Metors/Mustangs with 60lb/5in rockets respectively would be my AT systems of choice, but 17pdr towed guns are a minimum requirement, IMHO.

[JoeB]

The ROKA had ex US M1 57mm AT guns at the beginning of the war. They had limited success against North Korean tanks (all of which were T-34-85's, none were T-34-76's). Many were captured by the North Koreans and used against, and then sometimes recaptured by, the UN forces.

The US Army basically did not use towed anti-tank guns at the time of the Korean War. One exception was the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team which used a few T6 90mm AT guns, a limited production weapon from late WWII, but never AFAIK encountered any enemy tanks.

Early Commonwealth units in Korea brought some 17 pounders but hardly used them; Korea wasn't good terrain for heavy AT guns, and after November 1950, the enemy armor threat largely disappeared for the rest of the war. They replaced them with much more portable and all around useful 75mm recoilless rifles in 1951.

The 3.5" (M20) bazooka was rushed to Korea in the early weeks of the war where it had good success, after 2.36" (M9) types had proved deficient v T-34's. 57 and 75mm recoilless rifles were again very useful weapons overall because light and relatively easy to lug up steep Korean hills, but not so useful against T-34's.

The most effective airborne AT weapons proved to be napalm. Rockets were good if they actually hit the tank, but relatively seldom did. Near misses usually stirred up a big cloud of dust around the tank that the pilot interpreted as a 'kill', leading to massive overclaims by rocket equipped fighter bombers of how many tanks they were really killing. The same thing happened in WWII also. Early in Korea US pilots came to believe that their regular 5" HVAR's were bouncing off T-34's and a crash program developed a HEAT rocket, the ATAR, in a few weeks during the summer of 1950. But later tests of HVAR's v captured T-34's showed they were quite effective actually, if they got a solid hit.

As far as UN tanks, ones like M26/46 were most useful when the enemy tanks were around (no Centurions were there yet at that time), but later on the older M4 was the more useful because it could climb hills best.

Joe

[timshatz]

Anybody have any idea how a T34/85 vs M26/M46 would turn out? All three seem to be pretty good tanks, about the same size too. Focusing in terms of the penetration of the gun/armor and the protection.

[renrich]

Did the 106 recoiless rifle serve in Korea? How would it have worked as a AT weapon? I believe the M26 would have been more than a match for the T34-85. Did the T41(later M41) see service in Korea? We had them in the 49th Armored and I always liked the look of them.

[Murray B]

Anybody have any idea how a T34/85 vs M26/M46 would turn out? All three seem to be pretty good tanks, about the same size too. Focusing in terms of the penetration of the gun/armor and the protection.

The T-34/85 was about 70,000 pounds and was originally a hybrid with a medium tank chassis coupled with a lightened heavy tank turret. The Pershing was originally a heavy tank that was more like 92,000 pounds and had a floating rifle. Except for speed I would think the Pershing would have the advantage most of the time. In terms of crew fatigue the Pershing also has the advantage since it was roomier. The Patton "medium tank" was just as heavy as the Pershing but had much more power so it also has the advantage over the T-34/85.

[Wildcat]

SMG: Owen (I THINK Australia used them in Korea, but I'm not possitive)

I can confirm that they did, even saw some service in Vietnam.

[Glider]

I would go for the following, very obvious and no surprises

Rifle - M1
SMG - Owen
LMG - Bren
Tank - Centurion
AT Gun - 17 pd