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djones520 wrote:

dogma wrote:
No, we don't. If you have access to Jstore I can provide citations. If not, you're out of luck.

USAF Fighter Assets within striking distance of N. Korea right at this moment.

5 F-16 squadrons, two of which specialize in SEAD operations.
1 A-10 squadron
2 F-15 squadrons

Assets that can be there within 1 day from other PACAF bases.
1 F-16 Squadron
1 F-15 Squadron
3 F-22 Squadrons

US Navy/Marine Corp Assets within striking distance of N. Korea right at this moment.

5 F-18 squadrons

That is just our fighter assets, 18 squadrons. Not our bombers. Not our electronic warfare capabilities. Not our ship based bombardment capabilities. Nor any of S. Korea's capabilities.

I spent four and a half years on the tip of the spear. I'm well aware of our capabilities to devestate the N. Korean military with our air and naval forces. Tell me though, if roughly 250 Fighter Aircraft aren't enough, then how many are?

Enough to save Seoul and avert massive civilian casualties stemming from direct shelling and chemical attacks primarily focused on civilian targets? It's less a matter of numbers and more a matter of response time. The capitol would be gone before the day out assets could arrive and the standing assets aren't enough (especially if the north acts first) to prevent a catastrophe. An air campaign could eventually effectively silence the guns, but whether they are capable of doing so before all targets within range of a very large, very concentrated battery of artillery (several thousand pieces) are destroyed is a big question. If they can't do that then they aren't doing much.

Several thousand guns? thought it was 38?

In any case I doubt if even the NK regime are crazy enough to actually attack Seoul unprovoked. *pray*

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Several thousand guns? thought it was 38?

In any case I doubt if even the NK regime are crazy enough to actually attack Seoul unprovoked. *pray*

Last I heard, artillery deployable within range of seoul within a very short amount of time (a few hours?) was 4000+ pieces of many different varieties. Of course info on this isn't really concrete for anyone. Thats about all the northern military has, a lot of men and a lot of artillery. The bulk of their forces straddle the DMZ.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Several thousand guns? thought it was 38?

In any case I doubt if even the NK regime are crazy enough to actually attack Seoul unprovoked. *pray*

Thirty eight guns per reinforced concrete bunker, and I'd say that the North has a much more....Soviet style build. Lots of expendable cannon fodder, supported by massed tanks and artillery. It's their air force and Navy that are weak.

Ah! beg pardon. thanks for the clarification
misunderstood what I read last night.

wow I am gone for like 1 day. AND THIS THREAD GETS 60 messages?

It'll all be quiet on the SEA front now you are back

Eh its fine i'll just watch from the shadows. *retreats into the darkness of the internet.*

Begone! Go back to the 4chan from whence you came!

a great many of them had gone through the same brainwashing since birth that the North Koreans had gone through

I don't agree. I think Japan's nationalism and sense of duty were/are a lot more organic, natural and systemic. There's a big difference between a radio blaring garbage at you, and your own grandfather telling it to you.

MOre importantly, you're flat out wrong about the lots of them left part....

Before this turns into a nipponadoration thread, I'm not saying that they left cause they hated Japan, I'm saying that they had the OPTION to leave. And I said "lots" to convey the idea that this wasn't just a few people who snuck out, it was as many as wanted to leave were free to go. The point here is that the Japanese were free to leave and didn't, they fought doggedly for Japan. That's loyalty.

When you have to pen everyone in, and kill/torture/imprison anybody who tries to leave, it doesn't speak for a high level of loyalty.

You also have to note that North Korea's defensese are less focused on keeping their people in, and more on keeping anyone else out.

That's actually more true of Japan's history. The DPRK is very aggressively keeping their people in. There is no stream of refugees because they're good at it, and more aggressive about it than Cuba.

When Elian Gonzales fled Cuba, their government brought him home, gave him to his dad, and made a big cheer about it. In the DPRK, they probably would have tortured his dad to death and killed the kid. They're very aggressive about punishing family, it's an effective way to intimidate people.

According to my sources it was even less than 40%; meaning that 40% destruction was reached via repeated strikes. This is supported by the fact that US ground forces had to open fire.

Your statistics are measuring something different than mine. As I understand it, yours state airpower was responsible for destroying 40% of all enemy units. That is not the same as saying that airpower had a 95% success rate in strike missions. Both of them can be entirely true, as they are measures of different things. Yours measures total force impact, mine measures success rate.

dogma wrote:

Why would you risk death of any sort if you didn't have to do so?

You're asking the wrong person.

You also have to note that North Korea's defensese are less focused on keeping their people in, and more on keeping anyone else out. There is no stream of refugees fleeing to the West like we saw with Cuba and East Berlin. The people stay in place, simply because they have been forced to think that that is the only purpouse they have in life. Seriously, if you've been thought since birth that the greatest thing you can give the man who gave you everything is to work in a factory for 15 hours a day....you'd do it, and the thought of escape would not enter your mind. It would just be inconceivable.

That isn't quite true. There has been a steady stream of people fleeing, but you don't hear very much about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_refugee

Never a reliable source, but it will do.

Just because you're a veteran does not magically make you a god of understanding as far as the military goes, depending on what you did, you would have a greater understanding of certain parts of military operations, but not all of them, and the fact is that 250 fighters will not annhilate the North Korean military. As dogma has pointed out, it took much more aircraft months to grind down the Iraqi's, and the Iraqis were hiding behind sand bunkers and the like, not concrete bunkers. It will take time to find and destroy these sites one by one, the fixed ones will be gone relatively quickly, but the Katyusha batteries? Those will be hard as hell to take out, and they'll be doing a lot of damage.

1. We're (or at least I am) talking about airpower in regards to ending an artillery threat to one city. You don't NEED to annihilate the North Korean military, you need to annihilate a few key sites. The rest of it is mostly legwork.
2. I have megabytes upon megabytes of hardened reinforced concrete structures that the Iraqis were using in GW1. You want to tell me that they used sandbag bunkers again?
3. Katyushas are innacurate, and take a long time to reload. They also have the nasty sideeffect of leaving a nice smoketrail for you to follow.

That for me screams 'ineffective'. We barely scratched them at all. Now, I'm assuming you're right and that there were limitations on attack capability, but also a key problem was the fact that the Serbians were ready and waiting, and had emplaced their assets, just like the North Koreans.

And once again, unless I am mistaken, that doesn't give us a success rate, that gives total force impact. That could very well be (though I doubt it, mainly because I know better) a 100% success rate, if during the 78 days, coalition airpower was only tasked with destroying 14 tanks, 18 apcs, and 20 artillery pieces.

Enough to save Seoul and avert massive civilian casualties stemming from direct shelling and chemical attacks primarily focused on civilian targets? It's less a matter of numbers and more a matter of response time. The capitol would be gone before the day out assets could arrive and the standing assets aren't enough (especially if the north acts first) to prevent a catastrophe. An air campaign could eventually effectively silence the guns, but whether they are capable of doing so before all targets within range of a very large, very concentrated battery of artillery (several thousand pieces) are destroyed is a big question. If they can't do that then they aren't doing much.

I think this is the crux of the matter. Between the S. Koreans and US air assets on hand, I have no doubt that we have enough, but if the North decides to take first blood, it probably doesn't matter. Planes could get airborne pretty quick, but not quick enough to stop hundreds of shells from landing on Seoul. But if North Korea is pulling the trigger first, we have bigger problems. If certain rumors are to be believed, the North possesses hundreds of tunnels, very large tunnels, some big enough to drive armored units through, running right under the DMZ and into the rear areas. Supposedly some run right under the aribases in the area, and can be 'sapped' to destroy the airfields before anyone can do anything about it. I question how true this is, simply because I feel we would have countermined, etc. but if the tunnels are deep enough, we might not be able to find them (I mean, hell, look how many drug tunnels are believed to run across the US Mexico border, and then look how many we have actually found, pretty dismal success rate).

Last I heard, artillery deployable within range of seoul within a very short amount of time (a few hours?) was 4000+ pieces of many different varieties. Of course info on this isn't really concrete for anyone. Thats about all the northern military has, a lot of men and a lot of artillery. The bulk of their forces straddle the DMZ.

And the chances of them ALL being mobilized to destroy one city is nonexistant (unless Kim Jong Who has really gone totally insane).

chaos0xomega wrote:

dogma wrote:

Why would you risk death of any sort if you didn't have to do so?

You're asking the wrong person.

I think you are confusing being foolish and being in a dangerous situation. I doubt you would foolishly put yourself into stupidly dangerous situations, as opposed to having to be in dangerous situations in general. As someone who was the "sharp end of the spear" if given the option of having to go in against a fully powered force or one that has been whittled down by artillery and air support, which is the better option? People will die in combat, just the way it is, but that doesn't mean you resign oneself to making combat a war of attrition and just throw bodies at the problem, Zap Brannigan style. Every soldier's life is important and we should always try to minimize the losses. I also know that the US Military mindset isn't one of nonchalance, but of training and preparedness so I don't see how you can think it is braver/better/whatever to needlessly risk lives.

ChrisWWII wrote:Begone! Go back to the 4chan from whence you came!

I hate 4 chan with a firey passion.

Thanks guys for the answering of my question Lots of debate on this topic it seems.

Ahtman wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

dogma wrote:

Why would you risk death of any sort if you didn't have to do so?

You're asking the wrong person.

I think you are confusing being foolish and being in a dangerous situation. I doubt you would foolishly put yourself into stupidly dangerous situations, as opposed to having to be in dangerous situations in general. As someone who was the "sharp end of the spear" if given the option of having to go in against a fully powered force or one that has been whittled down by artillery and air support, which is the better option? People will die in combat, just the way it is, but that doesn't mean you resign oneself to making combat a war of attrition and just throw bodies at the problem, Zap Brannigan style. Every soldier's life is important and we should always try to minimize the losses. I also know that the US Military mindset isn't one of nonchalance, but of training and preparedness so I don't see how you can think it is braver/better/whatever to needlessly risk lives.

He did say 'death of any sort'. That little phrase makes your argument pointless IMO (but to answer your question, of course I would rather go up against the weakened force).

So I was wrong about the refugee thing, granted. I'd been unaware of the sheer volume of DPRK refugees leaving the country, and now conceded the point.

However, when it comes to the fighting of a war, I still hold that Seoul will suffer servere damage. Even if Katyusha's only get one volley off, then they're work is done. THey're carpet bombing a city, not trying to take out specific targets, and one volley from a Katyusha will more than pay for the vehicle itself, and its ammunition. If it gets a second shot off, that's a lucky break.

ANd on the Kosovo point, it was most definitely NOT anywhere near a 100% success rate. The air force was considered the 'primary strike arm' in Kosovo, and according to the same article, a total of 6766 sorties were planned, with only 3766 of those actually being launched. Even then NATO barely engagege half the targets on their big list of things to blow up. THat shows a shockingly low success rate against an enemy whose dug in and has had time to prepare.

In Iraq, their ground forces in Kuwait were deployed out in the open desert behind piles of sand in order to defend against a classical ground assault. The Iraqi's had barely occupied Kuwait, and hardly had time to build up massive concrete fortification like the North Koreans have. The vast majority of Iraqi bunkers were likely command and control facilities deeper inside the nation, instead of forward bunkers. That is what allowed us to so completely devastate the Iraqi's. That is also a one time situation that will not be repeated in North Korea. So yes, I will tell you again in the context of the situation we are discussing, the Iraqis were using piles of sand, not reinforced concrete to protect their military assets in the field.

Finally, we do have to consider the rest of the DPRK's military, since it won't just be an artillery bombardment. There will be tanks and infantry crossing the border in huge numbers, and I'm willing to bet most aircraft would be dedicated to supporting the ground troops fighting there instead of hunting for artillery.

One salvo, which could have tragic consequences, does not constitute a massive threat

A single Lancaster would drop c8700lbs of explosives on Berlin in a night raid.
By day, a single B-17 would usually carry a 5000lb payload to the German capital

Whole squadrons went in day and night pounding Berlin.
lets keep the potential artillery bombardment on Seoul in perspective.

ChrisWWII wrote:

However, when it comes to the fighting of a war, I still hold that Seoul will suffer servere damage. Even if Katyusha's only get one volley off, then they're work is done. THey're carpet bombing a city, not trying to take out specific targets, and one volley from a Katyusha will more than pay for the vehicle itself, and its ammunition. If it gets a second shot off, that's a lucky break.

I dont know what the accuracy of the Katyusha is, but I have heard that they could be wildly innacurate, missing a target by almost a kilometer (maybe more) at times. I don't know how true that is, but if it is, Seoul need not worry too much. Especially since it occured to me to look up the range of a Katyusha, about 4 miles give or take, so now the North is launching attacks at Seoul from inside South Korea is it?

ANd on the Kosovo point, it was most definitely NOT anywhere near a 100% success rate. The air force was considered the 'primary strike arm' in Kosovo, and according to the same article, a total of 6766 sorties were planned, with only 3766 of those actually being launched. Even then NATO barely engagege half the targets on their big list of things to blow up. THat shows a shockingly low success rate against an enemy whose dug in and has had time to prepare.

I know... even I said that, I was illustrating a point in regards to success rate. Also note, 3766 sorties does not equal 3766 attempts to blow up ground targets. Sorties are a wide variety of missions, from Recon, to SEAD, to air superiority, etc.

In Iraq, their ground forces in Kuwait were deployed out in the open desert behind piles of sand in order to defend against a classical ground assault. The Iraqi's had barely occupied Kuwait, and hardly had time to build up massive concrete fortification like the North Koreans have. The vast majority of Iraqi bunkers were likely command and control facilities deeper inside the nation, instead of forward bunkers. That is what allowed us to so completely devastate the Iraqi's. That is also a one time situation that will not be repeated in North Korea. So yes, I will tell you again in the context of the situation we are discussing, the Iraqis were using piles of sand, not reinforced concrete to protect their military assets in the field.

Except they most definitely weren't. The majority of strike missions conducted in GW1 were done against targets in Iraq, not in Kuwait (due to the risk of collateral to what was largely FRIENDLY civilian infrastructure).

Finally, we do have to consider the rest of the DPRK's military, since it won't just be an artillery bombardment. There will be tanks and infantry crossing the border in huge numbers, and I'm willing to bet most aircraft would be dedicated to supporting the ground troops fighting there instead of hunting for artillery.

Given the way the air campaign went in GW1 (over a third of coalition air assets were tasked specifically to engage in the SCUD-hunt), I wouldn't say thats true. Besides that, one of the reasons that Desert Storm was so much more successful than Kosovo was that Iraqi military units weren't as dispersed as Yugoslav units were. Considering that North Korea is (most likely) going to utilize 'human wave' tactics (again), even more-so than the Iraqi's, airpower and massed American/South Korean artillery are going to reap a bloody toll on North Korean forces very, very quickly.

To put it into bloodthirsty military warmonger terms: You see a lot of hostiles trying to overrun us, I see a target rich environment.

Since I'm about to unplug myself from the Internet for the next few hours (so I actually get work done...curse you facebook tetris!) I'll just make a quick reply.

No, coalition targets were: a) Iraqi command and control facilities, and b) Iraqi ground forces. Iraqi ground forces in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert where there were no civillians whatsoever. Basically, the air force couldn't have set the Iraqi army up better if they tried.

Looks like CoD :WWIII may be a possibility... But seriously, I am a little worried, but I think we (SK, USA, possibly anyone else) Would probably win

First off, there won't be a war. The N. Koreans know they would lose and if they started it, the Chinese wouldn't back them this time.

2nd. Seoul would get nailed by artillery but then the emplacements on Cheju-do would totally ream the entire N. Korean artillery force. S. Korea has a smaller military but has nicer toys while N. Korea is playing with Russian and Chinese cast-offs. Seol would be hit by 1-200 shells, hardly enough to decimate a city of that size plus if there was any kind of warning at all, most of the population would be ok (barring gas and chems) because there're shelters everywhere; they've only had 50 years advance notice that they could be hit at any time....

3rd. Everytime the N. Koreans start something, all the doomsayers come out of the woodwork and pronounce the end of the world. Sorry, not going to happen. Ya see, the Koreans have a term, "Han" which means that brother Kim won't be out trying kill off all the Lees and Chos.

Oh noes, Korea is on the brink of war.....again. If an attack on the presidential estate didn't spark a war....

1968 Jan 21, A group of 31 North Korean commandos trudged undetected for about 40 miles from the border to the presidential Blue House of South Korean President Park Chung-hee in downtown Seoul. South Korean security forces repelled the assault. 28 North Koreans and 34 South Koreans were killed.

1974 Aug 15, South Korean President Park Chung-hee escaped an assassination attempt in which his wife was killed. Park’s daughter took over as 1st lady.

1975 Aug, North Korea seized 33 South Korean fisherman near their maritime border. In 2006 Choi Uk-il, one of the 33, escaped to China and returned home to South Korea.

1987 29 Nov, North Korean agents place explosives on Korean Air, Flight 858 resulting in the deaths of all aboard (104 passengers and 11 crew).

1998 Dec 18, South Korea sank a half-submarine belonging to North Korea and recovered the body of a crewman in a wet suit carrying a grenade.

1999 Jun 11, South Korean ships rammed and briefly repelled 4 North Korean patrol boats. North Korea warned South Korea to withdraw warships from disputed waters in the Yellow Sea on the 5th day of a standoff.

1999 Jun 14, South Korean warships sank a North Korean torpedo boat and damaged another in the Yellow Sea.

2002 Jun 29, A South Korean patrol boat was sunk in the yellow Sea border waters and four South Koreans were killed with 22 wounded. North and South Korea blamed each other for the sea battle which cast a shadow over the South's World Cup finale as well as reconciliation efforts on the peninsula.

2010 March The sinking of the Cheonan by a N. Korean min-sub resulted in 110 deaths.

2010 Nov most recent, shelling.

ChrisWWII wrote:Since I'm about to unplug myself from the Internet for the next few hours (so I actually get work done...curse you facebook tetris!) I'll just make a quick reply.

No, coalition targets were: a) Iraqi command and control facilities, and b) Iraqi ground forces. Iraqi ground forces in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert where there were no civillians whatsoever. Basically, the air force couldn't have set the Iraqi army up better if they tried.

Err... no, really, most targets were inside of Iraq, during the war there were approx. 35k sorties flown against targets in Kuwait out of over 100k sorties total, thus the majority of sorties flown were against Iraqi targets (and as a side note, the Iraqi army was in retreat from Kuwait for a large chunk of those 35k sorties).

What exactly were you trying to allude to regarding the occupation of Germany after WWII chaos0xomega? That was no cakewalk. There was an active insurgency by die-hard Fascists who would take any opportunity to kill occupying GI's.

Stormrider wrote:What exactly were you trying to allude to regarding the occupation of Germany after WWII chaos0xomega? That was no cakewalk. There was an active insurgency by die-hard Fascists who would take any opportunity to kill occupying GI's.

If there was, I have never heard of it, despite having researched the topic extensively. Aside from the short-lived near mythical "Werewolves," it appears there wasn't any insurgency at all. In fact, from the research I did, no allied soldier was ever proven to have been intentionally killed in hostilities following the German surrender. So please, do furnish proof of your claims.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:One salvo, which could have tragic consequences, does not constitute a massive threat

A single Lancaster would drop c8700lbs of explosives on Berlin in a night raid.
By day, a single B-17 would usually carry a 5000lb payload to the German capital

Whole squadrons went in day and night pounding Berlin.
lets keep the potential artillery bombardment on Seoul in perspective.

I'm guessing you don't live in Seoul.

Or Berlin...

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:In any case I doubt if even the NK regime are crazy enough to actually attack Seoul unprovoked. *pray*

They aren't. This stuff is typical saber-rattling. And we aren't going to go to war because of a few artillery shells fell on an ally. agnosto has it right.

I take it that you have little concept of the difference between an artillery salvo and carpet bombing.

The whole thing is being blown out of proportion.

No I do not have first hand experience of suffering such attacks.
My parents however did.
And unlike you sprogs some of us have grown up through the Cold War where there was potentially a damned sight more explosives aimed our way than will ever fall on Seoul.

Stop being such drama queens.

edit: Absolutely.
Agnosto was on the money.

I still hold that Seoul will suffer servere damage.

What does severe mean?

I think most of us are pretty underqualfied to make these guesses, but we're doubly so if we're going to use vague adjectives.

So what's "severe?"

Does the ROK not have shelters and contingecy plans in place? The Koreas are two states that have spent a long time thinking about each other. The DPRK has loaded up on long ranged artillery, they even built impractical, otherwise useless heavy artillery simply to have the correct range to carry out a specific fire mission. That's bad news for Seoul. On the other hand, these pieces are no mystery. The ROK no doubt has thought about what will happen if artillery comes down, and I'm sure it won't involve sitting in the open being shocked.

It seems unlikely to me that the DPRK would ever just start shooting out of the blue. If they did, by the time they did there would be an even higher level of preparation, which would result in less severe damage.

Buildings would get wrecked, sure. But I don't think you'd see the city demolished, or massive casualties.

They fired hundreds of rounds over the course of an hour in the recent exchange, and 4 people were killed. Granted, this wasn't a heavily populated area, but I feel like maybe people are overestimating what artillery can do. It's not like every shell that lands sends 15 bodies flying through the air. Warfare (especially the sort the DPRK would fight) is a lot about spamming crap at your enemy. Hundreds of thousands of shots for every kill.

I take it that you have little concept of the difference between an artillery salvo and carpet bombing.

The whole thing is being blown out of proportion.

There was a big difference between that and 3-4 thousand artillery rounds of sarin gas being dropped on a city too. A very densely populated city to boot.

No I do not have first hand experience of suffering such attacks.
My parents however did.

I watched a movie where it happened once!

And unlike you sprogs some of us have grown up through the Cold War where there was potentially a damned sight more explosives aimed our way than will ever fall on Seoul.

....

North Korea has nukes. Were the russians going to drop holy hand grenades or did you forget one of the biggest points of contention?

Stop being such drama queens.

Any realistic estimate places the civilian casualties resulting from a korean conflict initiated by the north at exceedingly high numbers. It's not dramaqueenism so much as pragmatism.

Agnosto was on the money.

Yeah, nothing will come of this until china finally abandons them.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

dogma wrote:

Why would you risk death of any sort if you didn't have to do so?

You're asking the wrong person.

I think you are confusing being foolish and being in a dangerous situation. I doubt you would foolishly put yourself into stupidly dangerous situations, as opposed to having to be in dangerous situations in general. As someone who was the "sharp end of the spear" if given the option of having to go in against a fully powered force or one that has been whittled down by artillery and air support, which is the better option? People will die in combat, just the way it is, but that doesn't mean you resign oneself to making combat a war of attrition and just throw bodies at the problem, Zap Brannigan style. Every soldier's life is important and we should always try to minimize the losses. I also know that the US Military mindset isn't one of nonchalance, but of training and preparedness so I don't see how you can think it is braver/better/whatever to needlessly risk lives.

He did say 'death of any sort'. That little phrase makes your argument pointless IMO (but to answer your question, of course I would rather go up against the weakened force).

Militarily I think the emphasis is more on the 'if you didn't have to' part of the sentence; you do have to risk death in the service. That doesn't mean it should be be a needless risk or that it operations should be undertaken without regard to casualties. The Marines don't risk the life of their men if they don't have to. Sometimes they do.