There is a confusing section of the watergate bridge in the movie, when volunteer soldiers use submachine guns heavily when fighting at close range, but rarely see American troops using them. Is such a scene real? Was the firepower of the Volunteers stronger than that of the Americans?
This is indeed the case. The number and proportion of submachine guns equipped by the volunteer infantry is indeed far greater than that of the American infantry, which has always been the case from the beginning to the end of the war, and there is no exaggeration here, but it truly reflects the real situation of that year.
In He Chuwu's book "Blood Battle at Changjin Lake", a large number of pages are devoted to the comparison of equipment, personnel, and configuration between China and the United States. If you watch it carefully, you will find that the depiction of these small arms and light weapons in the movie "Chosin Lake Water Gate Bridge" is extremely similar to this book, and I don't know if the director was influenced by this book.
In our traditional view, the US military tends to be equipped with a large number of automatic weapons, and even the average person will think that the infantry all use fully automatic weapons, especially submachine guns and the like. But in fact, the main equipment of the US military is the semi-automatic M1 Garand rifle and the M1 carbine.
Take a look at the weapons of a standard U.S. infantry company. The total number of people was about 200 people, and it had 132 M1 Garand rifles, 37 M1 carbines, 15 Browning automatic rifles, three 7.62 mm 1919 medium machine guns and a 12.7 mm M2 heavy machine gun.
Do you see it? Most of the U.S. military equipment is semi-automatic weapons, but not fully automatic weapons. Of all the weapons deployed by one of their infantry companies, we did not see the shadow of submachine guns at all. The M1 Thomson and M3 submachine guns used by the US military in peacetime are only equipped with some reconnaissance patrols.
But look at the volunteer side. In the case of the 27th Army, they had 2,763 submachine guns, an average of about 25 per company and 2 to 3 per infantry squad. The movie Chosin Lake reflects the story of the 27th Army. But the weapons of the Volunteers were indeed a mess, soviet, American, Belgian, British, Canadian, and everything.
This, of course, goes to the credit of the captain of the transport brigade. What made the First Marine Division even more unhappy was that because the volunteer army was also equipped with a large number of American weapons, the ammunition between the two sides was almost universal. This led to the direct replenishment of the Volunteers after the battle, so much so that the First Marine Division even thought that the Ninth Corps was better equipped than the KPA.
Judging from this comparison, it seems that the firepower output of the volunteer army is not weak. But in fact, although most of the American infantry were equipped with semi-automatic rifles, their firepower output was indeed much stronger than that of the volunteers. Although Garand only fired semi-automatically, they could reach one submachine gun, but the Volunteers could not reach one submachine gun. Moreover, garland has an effective range of 500m, and although the Thomson submachine gun is fast, the range is only 50m, and even the m1 carbine with a range of 200m is not as good.
Therefore, although our army is more equipped with submachine guns, if it is 50 meters away, our army will definitely suffer a big loss. A variety of light and heavy machine guns and a large number of semi-automatic rifles in the hands of the US army, the fire output density of the carbine at a long distance is far more than the submachine gun and the old rifle in the hands of the volunteer army, which is the real firepower advantage of the US army.
There are also reasons for the cold weather. Temperatures in the Chosin Lake area had dropped below minus 30 degrees, and submachine guns were prone to malfunctions at this time, resulting in frequent jams, but the semi-automatic rifle reliability was much stronger, which undoubtedly increased the advantage of the U.S. military. Therefore, the practical difficulties encountered by our army in the Battle of Chosin Lake were really greater than we thought.
It can be seen that the degree of restoration of the props in the Watergate Bridge is still very high, and the battles in this small scene are also very close to historical reality. I checked it, the book "Blood Battle of Chosin Lake" also made a complete comparison of the troop strength and equipment of the United States and China, and it can be said that the choreographers of "Chosin Lake's Water gate bridge" have most likely referred to this book.
In just a few hours, the film cannot describe the turning point of the war to resist the United States and aid Korea, and it is recommended that you check out He Chuwu's "Blood Battle of Changjin Lake". The author spent more than two years interviewing 28 veterans of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea from all over the country, all of whom were witnesses on the battlefield, in order to restore the war as realistically as possible.
"Blood Battle of Chosin Lake" begins with the Korean War and ends at the Battle of Chosin Lake. There are both grand narratives and microscopic interpretations, telling the process of the volunteer army's experience of light enemies against the US army, fear of the enemy and then the same enemy. It also includes the interpretation of the details of the equipment establishment and logistics supply of the Chinese and AMERICAN armies, which can be purchased by clicking the link below.
Blood Battle of Chosin Lake Korean War Series
