Glorious Glosters, Imjin River, Korea 1951

Today is the 70th anniversary of the start of one of the greatest battles fought in the Forgotten War, the Chinese attack across the Imjin River in Korea. 300,000 troops attacked along a 80 mile front catching UN forces with strategic surprise. 

The key to this battle was defended by the British 29th Brigade near Choksong. The British, and a Belgian battalion, held several isolated hilltops. 

For 4 days, outnumbered 7 to 1, they fought, stubbornly holding the hills, co-ordinating artillery and air strikes as wave after wave of Chinese infantry assaulted them.

This heroic defence allowed the UN to stabilise and co-ordinate planned retreats and blunted the Chinese offensive capability. The Chinese offensive failed to achieve its objectives and 5 weeks later the ground was recovered preceding the stalemate that became the Korean Peninsula.

I am building a board to refight a part of this battle, the defence of hill 235 by the Gloucestershire regiment, known after this battle as the Glorious Glosters. For 4 days they held, surrounded and cut off until ammunition ran out. Relief attacks failed, air drops missed. Finally the battalion issued the order for individual break outs. 

Days later only 170 out of the 850 nominal troops were able to muster to receive the US Presidential Unit Citation award. If you don’t know about this battle read Andrew Salmon’s To the Last Round: The Epic British Last Stand on the Imjin River, Korea 1951. It a terrific book and an amazing tale.

I will be using the All Hell Let Loose rules (AHLL), available from Wargames Vault, with some minor adaptations and building a 6ft by 4ft board, with 1 inch to 100m ground scale. Work is well underway on the board. Figures will be Adler, WW2 commandos for the Glosters and Winter Russians for the Chinese.

I’ve added some photos of work to date. I will post more information and details of the build over the next few months.

Work on the base boards begins using the Luke APS approach 

Custom built grid to assist with contouring made from plastic strips

First section done, 7 more to go

Got to have a plentiful supply of canned products 

Progress is being made

Very happy, nearly done two boards. What? What do you mean this is the flat bit?!???

A little bit tricky

Looks good in place, but this isn’t the high point yet. Next board has 4 or 5 peaks all interconnected 

2nd board contouring done! One more board to contour!

Keep the dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller