Schematic plan · Korean War

Battle of Iron Triangle

1 June 1951
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.

North Korea (Nkor Army, 37,000 men under unrecorded commanders) attacked USA (US Div, 13,800 men under unrecorded commanders) in Korea. The CAA Database of Battles records 24 hours of fighting on a front of 32 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense, and that USA held. Losses: North Korea 1,460 (4%), USA 150 (1%).

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

North Korea

Unit	Arm	Men
North Korea left wing	Infantry	8,189
North Korea centre	Infantry	10,918
North Korea right wing	Infantry	8,189
North Korea reserve	Infantry	6,824
North Korea artillery (192 guns)	Artillery	2,880
North Korea command	Commander	—
In this plan		37,000

USA

Unit	Arm	Men
USA left wing	Infantry	2,864
USA centre	Infantry	3,819
USA right wing	Infantry	2,864
USA reserve	Infantry	2,387
USA artillery (85 guns)	Artillery	1,275
USA armour (118 tanks)	Armour	590
USA command	Commander	—
In this plan		13,799

What the sources report

	North Korea	USA
Strength, this plan	37,000	13,800
Losses, this plan	1,460	150

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 635, “Iron Triangle”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting: 24 hours
Winner: the defender
Weather: Wet, Heavy precipitation, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Hasty defense
Front width: 32 km (attacker), null km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
North Koreaattacker	37,000	1,460	0	192	Frontal attack; Repulse
USAdefender	13,800	150	0	85	Stalemate

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. 635 · 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.