By 1968, the skies above North Vietnam were more than a little hairy. Facing Johnson’s Rolling Thunder, the North had drawn on the arsenals of China and the Soviet Union to build a deadly network of state-of-the-art aircraft and ground units. Not every mission over the North saw American losses but many, many did.
By contrast, Russians and the Chinese weren’t expecting to fight a war against America over North Korea. Although tensions were high enough in early 1968, North Korean targets were not defended by state-of-the-art Surface-to-Air (SAM) missile launchers. The Command: Modern Operations scenario I recently tried out, called Act of War 1968, represents a North Vietnam, Alpha Strike -style mission without some of the difficulties of those were actually faced over North Vietnam. It’s not an easy mission, mind you. The scenario rating calls this both complex and difficult. But while it may be both of these, it is also different.
This what-if mission proposes that two carrier groups, which very rapidly were positioned off of the North Korean coast after the USS Pueblo‘s seizure, are to be used to support a recapture of that lost boat. As the player, you command the forces of both carriers are are instructed to cover the escape of a Marine assault squad as they steer the Pueblo to safety.
The U.S. examined a number of options in reaction to the North Korea’s seizure of the USS Pueblo which, according to them, had breached North Korean sovereign waters (the U.S. denies this). The Pueblo incident followed building escalations along the North/South Korean border. In 1967, border confrontations were more than ten-fold higher than in 1966, including 371 fatalities (no deaths were recorded in 1966). Two days before the Pueblo was captured, a commando team from North Korean had attempted an assassination of South Korean president Park Chung-hee at his official residence in Seoul.
While the carrier group redeployment was ordered immediately it turned out to be a little slower in execution.
The closest naval group was the Enterprise and her Task Group 77.5 (redesignated as Task Group 70.6 upon being reassigned). These three vessels were on their way to Yankee Station off the coast of Vietnam and were redirected to the straight between Japan and Korea. The Enterprise was not able to respond immediately in part due to recent typhoon damage but also simply because the full force of North Korea’s air force and defenses outnumbered the assets of a single carrier. Even the Enterprise in top fighting condition wasn’t an even match for an entire nation.
By January 27th, the carriers Ranger and Yorktown were tasked to what would become Task Group 71. The three carrier formation, joined by guided-missile cruiser Chicago, was operating in the Sea of Japan by February 1st. As you can see in the above screenshot, the scenario jumps the gun a little in terms of having naval assets ready to go on January 26th. But that’s not all.
The redirection of the U.S. navy, called Operation Formation Star, was accompanied by Operation Combat Fox. That second designation was for a restaging of Air Force groups to South Korea and the preparation of the South Korean Air Force for joint operations against the North, should they become necessary.
As I said, the U.S. contemplated a number of actions but a full-scale air confrontation to cover a Pueblo rescue was probably never seriously among them. A more reasonable alternative was an attempt to recover the cryptographic material that was jettisoned by Pueblo as she was about to be captured. Captured crew members aside, it was these intelligence assets, not the ship itself, that had value to the U.S. military.
All well and good but this is a hypothetical mission and is not meant to be a simulation.
I do like the shakeup that this scenario gives with respect to the Rolling Thunder missions that are otherwise provided. The emphasis is on air superiority and combat rather than outfoxing the ground-based air defenses. I like that part. On the other hand, confronting the entirety of the North Korean military (plus some Soviets tossed in) with but one US carrier does not seem like a wise strategic option. While I started out Act of War 1968 doing reasonably well, once the Pueblo was on the move I realized that things were going to rapidly turn against me.
As I said, this scenario is billed as being challenging and it certainly seems to be. For the experienced CMO enthusiast, it may be that this kind of “long shot” attack is just what it needed to test the mettle of a good player. Were I LBJ, though, I would not have ordered this kind of confrontation without being prepared to have the full power of all my assets in play. Therefore, were I designing a scenario for CMO, I’d bump it out to February 6th or so and throw in the roughly one dozen Air Force squadrons historically deployed to South Korea along with the fully compliment of South Korean aircraft.
Would that turn this scenario into a cakewalk? Maybe. But, as I’ve explained here more than once, I don’t mind that at all.
In reality, back channel discussions deescalated the Pueblo crisis, although not without further incident. The US did not really want to risk spinning the ongoing war in Southeast Asia into a global conflict but, then again, neither did the Russians. The strain on the US military of supporting a major deployment in Korea proved to be too much given the recently-begun Siege of Khe Sahn and the about-to-begin Tet Offensive. The most likely countermoves – a naval blockade, harbor mining, retaliatory seizure of North Korean ships, or perhaps just economic sanctions (trade embargo) – just didn’t seem worth the return on the necessary investment. By mid-February, the US was already pulling back from the brink of action.
I’ve not seen it mentioned, but don’t you wonder…? Wasn’t the timing more than a little serendipitous? Just as the communists in Vietnam are about to launch a country-wide assault intended to bring a quick end to American’s involvement in that war, North Korea draws major US Naval assets out of the theater through several unprecedented provocations? It seems a little too lucky to just have been a coincidence.
et tu, Bluto? 
Pingback: Swift Work | et tu, Bluto?