[Hermit]

It is now February 1953, and despite intensive peace talks, the Chinese have failed to make any firm commitment to ending the hostilities in Korea. To further encourage them to make progress, and some concessions, it has been decided at higher levels that we need to take some land away from them. It will probably be given back as part of the negotiations, but who are we to dispute orders? So, we have been assigned back to the Korean theater to assault some Chinese positions that have had plenty of opportunity to dig-in, and they have been generally resistant to polite requests to vacate the premises. There is a large town on the western side of the map, but the hills overlooking the town from the east are the real objectives, and we don't expect an attack on the town to be necessary. The area is, of course, blanketed with snow, although there don't appear to be too many drifts. It is sparsely wooded, although the trees have no leaves since it is the middle of winter, with many smaller villages dotting the landscape.

We have been shipped some of the new M42 Duster SPAA vehicles, which have the same basic weapon system as our M19's they'll be replacing, but more armor protection and quite a bit more ammo storage. I doubt we'll see many Chinese aircraft, but one never knows, and they'll be welcome improvements to our overall force effectiveness. They also swapped out two of our M45 Patton CS tanks in each battalion for the new M103 heavy tanks. They have a massive 120mm gun that can kill other tanks, instead of just infantry, and really thick frontal armor that will be useful for head-on attacks against infantry with light AT weapons, and older tanks. The problem with them is they have so little ammo, you practically have to chain an ammo supply vehicle to them. And they're also as slow as molasses, especially in snow country like this. They'll probably have to stick to the roads for the most part, but hopefully they'll prove useful.

Division has also sent up two armored infantry companies, and made several flights of F-84's available on call. They are armed with napalm bombs, which I've never seen used before, but I hear it's nasty stuff. M75 taxis are also being provided, as well as a few M3 half-tracks to tow the big AT guns. Finally, although not the least by far, division is sending up four Sherman Flail tanks to help clear the inevitable minefields, with two platoons of engineers for support. Despite our requests, no divisional artillery assets will be available. A follow up request was curtly rejected with a nod toward the sky, indicating that the clear weather ought to make the F-84's sufficient while division takes the opportunity to perform maintenance and re-supply on its big guns. Lucky us!