An NKPA tank battalion included a headquarters section and three 25-man companies. A company contained three platoons, each of which was assigned a medium tank. The standard crew consisted of the commander, usually a senior lieutenant, the driver and assistant driver, the gunner in charge of the 85-mm. rifle, and the assistant gunner operating the 7.62-mm. machinegun. The usual ammunition load was 55 85-mm. shells and 2,000 rounds of machinegun ammunition.
Not much was known about the 206th Mechanized infantry Regiment, but it was believed to consist of three motorized infantry battalions, a 76-mm. howitzer battalion, a 45-mm. antitank battalion, a 120-mm. mortar battalion, a signal company, and an NCO training company.[36]
[36] Ibid.
NKPA Officer Procurement and Conscription
Officer procurement problems were solved in large part by the fact that thousands of North Koreans had seen combat service with the CCF forces. Many of these veterans were qualified as junior officers or NCO’s without further training. Remaining vacancies for company-grade officers were filled by officer candidate schools or the commissioning of qualified NCO’s.
The West Point of the NKPA, located at Pyongyang, turned out an estimated 4,000 junior officers from the time of its activation in 1946 to the beginning of the invasion. Courses normally ranged in length from 6 to 10 months, but were abbreviated to 3 months during the autumn of 1949 in anticipation of the invasion. After hostilities began, the need for replacement officers became so urgent that one entire class at the Pyongyang academy was commissioned wholesale on 10 July 1950 and sent to the front after 20 days of instruction.[37]
[37] FECOM, ATIS, North Korean Forces, op. cit., 35–42.
Three Soviet officers, a colonel and two lieutenant colonels, reportedly acted as advisers to a faculty composed of NKPA majors. The five departments of the Academy were devoted to infantry, artillery, engineering, signaling, and quartermasters’ duties.
A second military academy at Pyongyang specialized in subjects which Communists termed “cultural.” So much importance was attached to political indoctrination that graduates of this school were commissioned as senior lieutenants and given unusual authority in their units. Although a 2-year Russian language course was offered, most of the candidates took the standard 9-month term.
Branches of the Pyongyang military academy were established as officer candidate schools in Hamhung, Chinnampo, Chorwon, Mesanjin, Kaechon and Kanggye. Applicants were required to have an acceptable political background and a 6-year minimum of schooling, though the last was sometimes waived.