Why did the US not know or understand the armor threat in Korea already? Where was the national level intelligence apparatus to collect such information? Why didn’t the US not equip the US Forces to deal with one of the biggest threats (armor) of the war? Are we not doing the same thing today with respect to the CBRN threat (decon, limited equipment on Penn, training aides, actual atropine and associated lotions)?

The main reasons for General McArthur’s request for ground troops was that the air attack was only so effective and that weather was a huge limiting factor on its ability to affect the North Korean ground forces. The other factor was that it would be impossible to equip the ROK army with tanks and anti-tank weapons and expect them to be used properly against Soviet T-34 tanks. The ROK army did have the M9 antitank launcher (bazooka) but it arsenal was quite small; however, it was quite ineffective with the small size of the warhead and the equipment had deteriorated due to the humid climate and salty air where it was stored. When the Germans had backwards engineered our M9 to make their Panzerschreck, at the close of WWII we also followed suit and reengineered the M9 to make the M20 (super bazooka) with a larger warhead and with a packaging to protect from moisture. With the defense budget cut following WWII, we stopped production and distribution of the M20 which instantly became an issue when U.S. forces entered the Korean conflict. This was one of the main reasons why the U.S. and ROK forces had so much problem with the armor threat. The U.S. didn’t commit enough ground troops to bring the tank fight to the NPKA and they weren’t expecting much of an armor threat.

The chemical threat in general is not a threat that is well understood. The subject matter experts should have a basic understanding of the chemical structure of organic or inorganic molecules that they are working with. A good question is what I can use to make the agents being used to be inert through the simple use of redox, substitution, or even hydrolysis reactions? The Army’s typical answer for decontamination is the use of water or bleach. However, there is no one size fits all answer for something as complex as intermolecular reactions. A gas like chlorine with the use of water quickly converts to hydrochloric acid or in the use of thionyl chloride, which is a precursor to the g-series nerve agents like sarin or samon, it reacts violently with water. Procurement will always be an issue of any army to outfit its forces with the constantly changing battlefield. Just like in the past, we have proved to be a reactionary force, we do not start fixing problems until they arise.