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Originally Posted by castlebravo92
A couple of points. One, the US superiority in technology was marginal, at best. Mig 15 vs F-86 is basically a tossup (and Russian pilots were often in those Mig 15s). T-34/85 vs Shermans? Situationally a toss-up, with some advantages to the T-34 and vise versa. Artillery? Toss-up. Small arms? M1 Garand is better than the Mosin, but sub-machine guns probably equivalent.
Two, the US never really tried to decisively defeat the PLA. We never attacked mainland China, and once the Chinese got involved, never had enough troops to wage any sort of decisive offensive campaign (Chinese had 1.7x the troops the Americans and their allies did).
While in modern times US systems have advanced substantially compared to peer/near peer tech, another thing that sets the US apart is largely the level of training that troops get. Training like this would become a luxury as a Twilight level war would eat up troops as fast as you could deploy them, which is the real reason why I think you would see "parity" between the combatants (especially once nukes started flying and casualties really ramped up).
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Speaking just of the tanks, by the end of 1950, only about half of the American tanks in Korea were Shermans (679 out of 1,326). There were 138 Chaffee light tanks, 309 M26 Pershings, and 200 M46 Patton. During 1951 the Pershings and most of the Shermans would be replaced by Pattons (Pershings were underpowered for the terrain, so despite their better armor and firepower they were disliked when compared to the Sherman). The T-34 was significantly inferior to the American tanks in use for the latter 75% of the war.
The Shermans alone outnumbered the entire T-34 force without counting any of the other American tanks in use, or the Churchill, Cromwell, and Centurion tanks of British forces in Korea. The 8th King's Royal Hussars had 6 Cromwell and 64 Centurion and the 7th Royal Tank Regiment had 20 Churchill in-country in November 1950).
With a small Canadian contingent of Shermans also serving, the UN forces had more than three times as many tanks as the North Koreans, and I'm pretty sure it was more than three times even excluding the Chaffees that were horribly outclassed by the T-34.