North Korea: What would a war look like ?

a reply to: gortex

Think about it,if there ever was a case for sabre rattling this would be one,NK has no firepower compared to US forces,kind of like a NK soldier holding up a rock to a soldier with a machine gun,way over his head

originally posted by: kelbtalfenek

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: kelbtalfenek

So much that just went over your head.

Maybe you do know more, but I don't believe it unless you tell me HOW you would know more than people on the inside.

*back atcha*

can you gurantee the people he gets the info from will not go to jail for violating their NDA?

Here is a non-American assessment:

If it happens, it will start with a provocative action by the USA. This provacation will be highly twisted, if not completely fabricated like the Gulf of Tonkin incident to justify the invasion of Vietnam.

The USA will begin with air strikes from the air and sea. They will target military and political command and control facilities. The DPRK will respond by unleashing imense artillery barrages that will turn the landscape a few KMs south of the DMZ into ruins, which will probably result in thousands of casualties of ROK and American soldiers stationed there. DPRK naval assets will also target ROK and American warships and probably score some success. The DPRK will also respond to aerial attacks with their own airforce, and probably gain some success there (they won't wait for the Americans to destroy their airfields and bury their planes under the sand like Iraq did).

After a few days of this, second phase will commence. The people of the DPRK will galvanize, knowing that this is everything that they have been preparing for their whole lives. Every adult citizen of the DPRK has gone through military training, and both their morale and capacity to organize will be extremely high. The DPRK effectively has its entire population as both active military and military reserves, and they will all be called to arms. The DPRK also fields hundreds of thousands of shock troopers trained to smash through the DMZ. ROK will probably try to cross armies through the DMZ first (as a vassal army under US strategic command), and the DPRK will counter attack and break into northern ROK territory. Then American soldiers stationed there would be on the defensive line and dedicate air power for use against invading DPRK units inside of ROK territory.

By this time, China will get involved. They will more than likely occupy the ocean space between their territory and the Korean Peninsula. They may restrain from direct involvement, but their presence there will restrict American/ROK activities. They will support the DPRK indirectly with intelligence and special ops.

The Russians will occupy the northern flank of the DPRK and deny activities there. Russian naval presence would probably arrive on the eastern flank and also deny activities. All of this will ensure that the USA/ROK will be restricted to the southern flank of the DPRK. This flank will become a meat grinder situated along the DMZ area for all sides involved there.

Next phase after a week or two will probably be a combined USA/ROK advanced up from the DMZ. By this time, there will probably be casualties ranging up into the hundreds of thousands, for all sides directly involved. For the ROK, there would be massive social upheaval. Economy would stop, and there would be both a mass exodus of South Korea refugees pouring out of the peninsula and riots on the streets (they love to riot). The North Koreans will have nowhere to go, unless China and Russia accept refugees under a UN mandate.

After some successes by ROK and American advances in the southern sectors of the DPRK, you should fully expect China and Russia to ramp up their involvement. Russia will seek hard diplomacy tactics, denouncing the USA at the UN and providing all kinds of economic and diplomatic support to the DPRK. China will use the opportunity to intensify military involvement, and will begin sending armies into the DPRK as an occupying force. They will probably invoke R2P and place their soldiers all over the place, under the assumed intention of open war with the Americans, should they attack Chinese troops.

At this point, the options for the USA will be to give up the war and retreat south of the DMZ, or engage with the Chinese and initiate a much greater conflict that will suck in the whole world.

The victory conditions are as follows:

USA/ROK: Successfully invade the entire DPRK, dismantle its leadership, and then annex it into ROK territory. For the USA, this means greater hegemony over East Asia, strengthening its global empire.

DPRK: Survive long enough and inflict enough damage to invading forces to eliminate popular support for the war within the ROK and the USA, to the point that they will back down or face serious social unrest back home. Secondary objective would be to capture all of ROK territory and annex it into the DPRK, but this is highly unlikely and risky.

China: China seeks regional dominance over East Asia as a regional superpower and will want the USA to fail in its campaign against the DPRK, at the very least. Total victory would be kicking the USA out of the Korean Peninsula for good, as well as inflicting the reality of failure upon the USA, ensuring that the USA will back down from all activities in East Asia.

Russia: Russia will seek similar conditions to China, in that they want less American presence in East Asia and a military campaign failure in American hands, ensuring that they will lick their wounds instead of initiating more conflict against Russian interests in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. Such a victory would also be a huge victory for the SCO, and ensured strengthened relations between not only Russia and China, but non-aligned nationstates in general.

As this is only a prediction, there are several factors involve that could change the outcome dramatically. The main one that I would be concerned about are rogue commanders from the USA and China, and to a lesser scale Russia, who would seize opportunity to initiate a greater conflict. For instance, and American/Chinese naval fleet commander scheming provocative action against opposing fleets. Or rogue submarine commanders. This opportunity may present itself as a human factor (idealistic), or simple miscommunication that is bound to happen in any conflict.

Anybody who uses nukes would be immediately made out to be a pariah by all other sides involved, regardless of who they are, and a greater conflict will follow with more nukes, albeit at a tactical scale. We will all be screwed if somebody uses nukes strategically, ie., nuking a city.

BBC is hard left.

a reply to: TheStalkingHorse

WE aren't RUSSIANS hoss...
Their airforce :?
BWAAAAA,HA,HA,No.
First we wil EMP the CRAP out them
mil-embedded.com...
THEN kill their indirect.MAYBE 2 hours at the most ,if it's not underground.
China will attempt to establish a foot hold as well with little effect,WE want that artificial Island killed soon as well.
Russia will toss nasty notes as usual diplomatically,but will SIT on THEIR asses because we aren't kidding this time either.
It won't take a month.
MAYBE we'll see an underground nuke go off under an invasion,by the DPRK .
We don't really NEED nukes anymore to obliterate,we just use THERMOBARICS.

a reply to: yuppa

No he cant guarantee. And those are some good folks. So nope i no give details or clues. NDAs btw are called SF312 in that community.

a reply to: cavtrooper7

Russia is pulling up a ringside seat knowing whats coming and hopibg this time they can see the weapon do its thing up close so they can get more info.

China knows too and will stay the F out of our way. They know realistically they have no way of militarily opposing us. You dont spend more than the rest of the world combined on military R&D annually for several decades with nothing to show for it. They know that and can only sit in the sidelines and watch the show.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

So we're talking space based weaponry ?
The latest Top Secret launch from Vandenberg was preparation for use ?

No need to answer just nod or shake your head.

a reply to: gortex

I thought of starting a new thread but that's not necessary. President Trump (not my choice) has just said he has the military option President Trump answers question about military option In essence if all else fails he will use the military option. What is it?

The easiest thing to do is to kill Kim Jong Un and his general staff and then issue a direct warning to the DPRK that the situation is over and they must stand down. If they start shooting they will be nuked out of existence by no less than 20 nor more than 50 airbursts of thermonuclear weapons denoted well within the boundaries of North Korea. It will kill 80% or more of the population and will decimate the country.

Getting rid of Kim and his henchmen is the easy part with a preselected target from a B2 probably making a supersonic dash across the peninsula with a rare stealth missile with a warhead of 25 to 100 kiltons and hitting its mark.

China and Russia aren't going to start WWIII over North Korea because their national interests are not at stake and they have far more to lose than to gain from war. The losers will be the North Koreans and if they start shooting they will lose it all, country, infrastructure and mostly their lives.

As for the numbers killed it will about equal all of the Russians killed in WWII, 25 million. My best,

a reply to: airforce47

25 million... That is the whole NK population gone.

No way will the World accept that the US kill of the whole population.

That would be the end of the US. No Nation would ever trade with them again. And the US will become as isolated as NK are today.

a reply to: Kandinsky

If your assessment were about a healthy-minded or even average minded person. Lilrocketman is deranged, evil and mentally unstable. He is a sociopath with no regard for human life nor capable of empathy or change. No I think his best and only choice will be to go down in History as having killed more people than anyone else, he is locked in now.

Kim Jong-un's false bravado arises out of his correct assumption that if he has nuclear capability, countries will think twice before attacking North Korea, and that having nuclear capability will give him leverage against the sanctions that have taken the country to an economy-collapsing state. So on the one hand, he seeks to deter, and on the other he seeks to lessen sanctions by implied threat.

We all know that China is the key to the crisis, but have engaged with it in a ham-fisted way, and now probably perceive their errors with North Korea as being a very real thorn-in-the-side, one they would much prefer would go away on its own, or just simply settle down into an uneasy peace, but it cannot do so, not with Kim Jong-un running the show.

China's position is precarious, in that it could lose its buffer zone with the West via South Korea. War would bring about a ferocious assault on North Korea, because America and its allies would have to hit the country hard and quick, in order to annihilate North Korea's ability to attack. Kim Jong-un's only leverage in any conflict is his ability to cause death and destruction on a large scale, so any response to a North Korean pre-emptive strike (or even a defensive attack response to being attacked) would necessarily require a goal to reduce and destroy that capability.

Right now, fingers are pretty much poised on the triggers and sabre-rattling is loud. A miscalculated response to a misunderstood incident is the most likely catalyst to the conflict starting. The only reason why it has not already begun is because neither party wants to be condemned for attacking first, but it would seem American tactics are seeking to draw an attack from North Korea. In essence, America or any of its allies would have a legitimate right to shoot down any test missile launched from North Korea that flew into international airspace or over international waters. The UN could sanction such a response, and it would not then be an act of war against North Korea, even if Kim Jong-un claimed it to be so.

I still think China would lose very little sleep if Kim Jong-un and his cohorts were removed, but I doubt if they would look kindly on American and South Korean troops racing up to Pyongyang. If China wants to maintain a buffer zone, it would have no choice but to enter North Korea from the north and try to reach Pyongyang before any American or South Korean forces got there.

I doubt very much that North Korea could attack the American mainland with the little nukes it has, any missile launched towards the Western coast of America would be quickly detected, tracked and shot down. However, if North Korea has managed to fit some of its missiles with nukes, I should think they would be launched towards South Korea and probably against Japan. This would probably draw a series of tactical nuclear responses upon specific targets in the capital, primarily against Kim Jong-un and his military advisers. At this point, a ceasefire would be sought in order to assess both the threat level North Korea still had, and to assess what humanitarian aid is required and where, and if it is safe to implement it?

Kim Jong-un has to be taken out. He cannot be left in place, he cannot be allowed to continue being a threat to the region's stability. China knows this, and will probably oversee the rebuilding of North Korea once he has been removed. Unfortunately, many people are going to be killed, but the aftermath should bring the North Korean people out of their brainwashed slavery.

That's certainly one of the more likely scenarios imho.I would hope it wouldn't go nuclear, or for that matter that NK refrained from using chemical or biological weapons.

a reply to: antar

Let's hope you're wrong. It's hard to see any positives in the circumstances other than keeping NK away from the brink.

Even if that happens, the NK population will remain in their nightmare Truman Show world. No real positives...

originally posted by: sg1642
I think people read far too much into this supposed artillery onslaught that would decimate the North and Seoul itself.

As soon as the bombardment began, NK would have put themselves in a situation where they couldn't use the artillery to cover the DMZ due to massive counter battery fire and air assets picking them off. Very few of NK's artillery pieces are actually within striking distance on Seoul. They have it one way or the other. Cover their southern areas where a ground breakthrough would take place or try the shock tactic by going after dense, populated areas. They don't have the capability to do both. The whole millions of casualties within days stuff just isn't true. Then consider the fact that within an hour most of SK would be underground in shelters.

Someone mentioned the troops along the front being a buffer zone who aren't there to stop an invasion and that sounds about correct. The south wouldn't leave the best or majority of its forces within harms way. One of the principals of defence is depth. You need that buffer zone where you can hide your best shots from the initial fight.

The US has the ability to take apart any standing army within weeks without landing a large force on the ground. Someone mentioned the struggle in the mountains of afghanistan? Not even close. Picking off an enemy who live among the local civilian population (an insurgent force) is a whole different ball game to taking out conventional forces. And those mountains are exactly where NK would want their artillery because that's where it would be most useful. Another reason they wouldn't risk losing it all in one go.

Before the gulf and 2003 invasion in Iraq some of these people made crazy out of this world predictions about casualty rates and they were way off. You can expect the same kind of scenario here too. By the time the air war was over the ground war would be nothing more than a mop up. The winning over of the local population would be key as they could easily turn into a fanatical force.

I'd go as far as to say landing forces in the North and South in a pincer movement would be worth the risk. It would cut off any supply chain from the North and force a diversion of forces from the South

I tend to agree with this type of assessment. I mean, NK would actually have to take out their artillery for starters, and we all know we have satellites monitoring them 24/7 with God knows what type of sensors on them (like infrared). I'd also think any type of strategy would be to carpet bomb anything within n miles of the DMZ.

originally posted by: elysiumfire
Kim Jong-un's false bravado arises out of his correct assumption that if he has nuclear capability, countries will think twice before attacking North Korea, and that having nuclear capability will give him leverage against the sanctions that have taken the country to an economy-collapsing state. So on the one hand, he seeks to deter, and on the other he seeks to lessen sanctions by implied threat.

We all know that China is the key to the crisis, but have engaged with it in a ham-fisted way, and now probably perceive their errors with North Korea as being a very real thorn-in-the-side, one they would much prefer would go away on its own, or just simply settle down into an uneasy peace, but it cannot do so, not with Kim Jong-un running the show.

China's position is precarious, in that it could lose its buffer zone with the West via South Korea. War would bring about a ferocious assault on North Korea, because America and its allies would have to hit the country hard and quick, in order to annihilate North Korea's ability to attack. Kim Jong-un's only leverage in any conflict is his ability to cause death and destruction on a large scale, so any response to a North Korean pre-emptive strike (or even a defensive attack response to being attacked) would necessarily require a goal to reduce and destroy that capability.

Right now, fingers are pretty much poised on the triggers and sabre-rattling is loud. A miscalculated response to a misunderstood incident is the most likely catalyst to the conflict starting. The only reason why it has not already begun is because neither party wants to be condemned for attacking first, but it would seem American tactics are seeking to draw an attack from North Korea. In essence, America or any of its allies would have a legitimate right to shoot down any test missile launched from North Korea that flew into international airspace or over international waters. The UN could sanction such a response, and it would not then be an act of war against North Korea, even if Kim Jong-un claimed it to be so.

I still think China would lose very little sleep if Kim Jong-un and his cohorts were removed, but I doubt if they would look kindly on American and South Korean troops racing up to Pyongyang. If China wants to maintain a buffer zone, it would have no choice but to enter North Korea from the north and try to reach Pyongyang before any American or South Korean forces got there.

I doubt very much that North Korea could attack the American mainland with the little nukes it has, any missile launched towards the Western coast of America would be quickly detected, tracked and shot down. However, if North Korea has managed to fit some of its missiles with nukes, I should think they would be launched towards South Korea and probably against Japan. This would probably draw a series of tactical nuclear responses upon specific targets in the capital, primarily against Kim Jong-un and his military advisers. At this point, a ceasefire would be sought in order to assess both the threat level North Korea still had, and to assess what humanitarian aid is required and where, and if it is safe to implement it?

Kim Jong-un has to be taken out. He cannot be left in place, he cannot be allowed to continue being a threat to the region's stability. China knows this, and will probably oversee the rebuilding of North Korea once he has been removed. Unfortunately, many people are going to be killed, but the aftermath should bring the North Korean people out of their brainwashed slavery.

I always wondered, why couldn't we take out Rocket Boy at the big celebrations they have? I mean we likely have covert assets that could easily blend into the crowd and tag where he is, and stealth aircraft?

a reply to: Kandinsky

Yes let's hope so, however, if it is his deepest desire and the only historical chance at more than a hiccup in the countries historical records, the important issue here will be to find a totally new NK representative of the people, they certainly deserve a positive future.

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
a reply to: TheStalkingHorse

WE aren't RUSSIANS hoss...
Their airforce :?
BWAAAAA,HA,HA,No.
First we wil EMP the CRAP out them
mil-embedded.com...
THEN kill their indirect.MAYBE 2 hours at the most ,if it's not underground.
China will attempt to establish a foot hold as well with little effect,WE want that artificial Island killed soon as well.
Russia will toss nasty notes as usual diplomatically,but will SIT on THEIR asses because we aren't kidding this time either.
It won't take a month.
MAYBE we'll see an underground nuke go off under an invasion,by the DPRK .
We don't really NEED nukes anymore to obliterate,we just use THERMOBARICS.

Assuming that you're invincible will be a vast miscalculation. Any attack you make on the DPRK will hold significant consequences for the USA; internally, among allies, and within the international community as a whole.

As for your military assessment, it is highly exaggerated. Just more assumptions on perceived secret weapons that will probably never be deployed on any significant scale in battle, because they are too secret to use. And that's if they even exist at all.

The USA would be more keen on using new weapons platforms, such as stealth aircraft like the F-35. Why? Because they spent so much money on the program that they need to use it. The USA wants to start developing 6th gen fighter aircraft, yet without any practical use of 5th gen, the 6th gen would probably be obsolete the moment they are deployed. In fact, I'm sure the American administration is being lobbied into a war by its military corporations just to see how the materiel holds up against a capable opponent. Considering all the unknown factors involved with actually engaging in a war, is that really a smart idea for instigating one?

a reply to: TheStalkingHorse

My "HIGHLY EXAGGERATED" assessments were SUPERIOR before Desert Storm,MORE SO than the DODs ,think tanks and press.
MY EXAGGERATION was 2 weeks.
I am being quite generous and giving the Norks a week ,if China kicks in a month.
ANYONE wagering?
I am right 85% so far.
HUMAN wave assaults are suicide now,we MAY have to show you why you shouldn't do it to the 1st Cav..

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
a reply to: TheStalkingHorse

My "HIGHLY EXAGGERATED" assessments were SUPERIOR before Desert Storm,MORE SO than the DODs ,think tanks and press.
MY EXAGGERATION was 2 weeks.
I am being quite generous and giving the Norks a week ,if China kicks in a month.
ANYONE wagering?
I am right 85% so far.
HUMAN wave assaults are suicide now,we MAY have to show you why you shouldn't do it to the 1st Cav..

This isn't Iraq, and this is not Operation Desert Storm. This isn't 1990s Middle East where the USA held a dominating military role. The USA has failed in its Syria campaign in 2017 Middle East because the Russians got involved.

Now you're talking about the Southeast Asian sector where both Russia and China hold a significant military role. For China, their imperial objective is strictly dominance in SEA, with some exceptions where they have expeditionary forces deployed throughout the world where they have economic assets (such as Africa).

It is simply absurd to believe to compare total American and Chinese military power in an SEA confrontation when the indisputable fact is that China will deploy a majority of its forces in SEA while the USA simply won't because it must maintain a global empire spread out everywhere.

And the main factor that will determine American campaign failure in any conflict, regardless of region, will always be mass casualties and loss of materiel (aka cost). The USA and its allies in such a scenario will encounter mass casualties.

And really, do you even understand anything about the hazards of war within Korea? Even the environmental hazards? Do you know where Hantavirus was first discovered? In the Hanta valley during the Korean War when allied troops were dropping like flies. This wasn't a weapon, or the Norks, but rather deer mice.

Deer mice vs 1st Cav. Who will win?