Schematic plan · Korean War

Battle of Bayonette Line

3 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.

USA (US Div, 13,700 men under unrecorded commanders) attacked North Korea (Nkor Army, 35,500 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 prepared defense, and that USA won. Losses: USA 240 (2%), North Korea 3,160 (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	2,887
USA centre	Infantry	3,850
USA right wing	Infantry	2,887
USA reserve	Infantry	2,406
USA artillery (72 guns)	Artillery	1,080
USA armour (118 tanks)	Armour	590
USA command	Commander	—
In this plan		13,700

North Korea

Unit	Arm	Men
North Korea left wing	Infantry	8,261
North Korea centre	Infantry	11,014
North Korea right wing	Infantry	8,261
North Korea reserve	Infantry	6,884
North Korea artillery (72 guns)	Artillery	1,080
North Korea command	Commander	—
In this plan		35,500

What the sources report

	USA	North Korea
Strength, this plan	13,700	35,500
Losses, this plan	240	3,160

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 636, “Bayonette Line”, 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 attacker
Terrain: Rugged
Weather: Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Summer, Temperate
Defender’s posture: Prepared defense
Front width: 32 km (attacker), null km (defender)

Force	Strength	Losses	Horse	Guns	Plan and outcome
USAattacker	13,700	240	0	72	Frontal attack; Penetration
North Koreadefender	35,500	3,160	0	72	—

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. 636 · 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.