In May 1952, Clark officially took over Ridgway's position as the third Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations Forces. As soon as Clark took office, he received a series of battle plans proposed to him by Van Vleet, commander of the Eighth Army, but they were all rejected by Clark, who said to Van Vleet: I think the battle plan is that when the enemy comes out of the position and attacks, we will give them a fatal blow, except in this way, we will not take the method of attacking the enemy first.
Although Clark rejected all of VanVleet's operational advice, VanVleet was a very stubborn and confident man, convinced that what he thought was perfect, so he continued to give Clark advice. Eventually, Clark accepted his "Showdown Operation."
VanVleet's "Showdown Operation" was planned in such a way that he intended to use two battalions of troops to capture the Shangganling position already occupied by our army, and planned to use 6 days to estimate the casualties of about 200 people. But it was clear that VanVleet was too arrogant and light-hearted.
The U.S. military's "showdown operation" is what we call the Battle of Shangganling, which lasted for 43 days, and the U.S.-Rok combined forces killed and wounded more than 25,000 people, and ultimately ended in their defeat.
In the Battle of Shangganling, the US army dropped more than 1.9 million shells on our army, and the intensity of firepower far exceeded the highest level in World War II, blowing up the entire Shangganling into a bare hill, and the height of the hill was reduced by two meters. Our army returned a total of about 400,000 shells, not even a quarter of the Japanese army.
In terms of troop input, the US-ROK joint army has invested more than 60,000 troops, which is more than 10,000 people higher than our army in numbers. Then, at that time, the Sino-US and ROK combined forces were far higher than our troops in terms of weapons, firepower, and troop input, so why did they lose this battle?
The answer given in Lloyd Moses' memoir, Whatever the Cost, was that the Volunteers adopted "man-sea tactics." Lloyd Moses was the commander of the 31st Regiment of the U.S. 7th Division and led his men in many engagements with us. Later, he said in his memoirs: "Our two battalions fought all day with the 135th Regiment of the enemy 45th Division, and their artillery fire was comparable to ours, and the terrain occupied was easy to defend. According to the army's operational doctrine, in order to attack and defeat the enemy, the ratio of strength and artillery should be 3:1 with the enemy, and our strength cannot even be compared to the enemy. From what I have seen, the enemy is far more numerous than our enemy and we are at least 4:1."
According to the strength of 3537 people in the US 31st Regiment at that time, then the two battalions should be about 2400 people, according to Lloyd Moses, our 135 regiment is 4 times their strength, then it should be 9600 people. But in fact, the entire army of our 15th Army is less than 50,000 people, so how can there be 9,600 people in that regiment? The so-called use of "human sea tactics" by our side is just an excuse for their failure.
In fact, the reason for the failure of the US-ROK joint army is that although they are much better than us in weapons and equipment, the US military is not good at close combat and night combat, in this regard, the ROK army has also sternly proposed to the US military: "Lack of attack capabilities within 50 yards." Compared with the US army, the volunteer army dared to fight and dare to sacrifice, and in the Battle of Shangganling alone, we emerged 12,347 fighters at all levels with third-class merit or above represented by the special hero Huang Jiguang, accounting for 27.5% of the total number of troops.