Schematic plan · Korean War

Battle of Pusan Breakout

18 September 1950
Korea
Victory for USA

A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.

USA (US Div, 16,600 men under unrecorded commanders) attacked North Korea (Nkor Corp, 10,300 men under unrecorded commanders) in Korea. The CAA Database of Battles records 72 hours of fighting on a front of 40.3 km, a frontal attack against delaying action, and that USA won. Losses: USA 380 (2%), North Korea 940 (9%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

USA

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	3,492
USA centre	Infantry	4,656
USA right wing	Infantry	3,492
USA reserve	Infantry	2,910
USA artillery (70 guns)	Artillery	1,050
USA armour (200 tanks)	Armour	1,000
USA command	Commander	—
In this plan		16,600

North Korea

Unit	Arm	Men
North Korea left wing	Infantry	2,213
North Korea centre	Infantry	2,950
North Korea right wing	Infantry	2,213
North Korea reserve	Infantry	1,844
North Korea artillery (72 guns)	Artillery	1,080
North Korea command	Commander	—
In this plan		10,300

What the sources report

	USA	North Korea
Strength, this plan	16,600	10,300
Losses, this plan	380	940

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 627, “Pusan Breakout”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 72 hours
Winner: the attacker
Weather: Dry, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Delaying action
Front width: 40.3 km (attacker), null km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	16,600	380	0	70	Penetration
North Koreadefender	10,300	940	0	72	Withdrew

Attacker’s advantages none recorded

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

US Army Concepts Analysis Agency; tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold, CAA Database of Battles (CDB90), no. 627 · ODC-BY-1.0Strengths, losses, front widths, hours of fighting, tactics and outcome.

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.