The Rense NK Article

Ok, I've seen this brought out before on some threads.

rense.com...

It's a great article....for 2003. That's right, it's pretty outdated. It paints a grim picture of the US vs. NK, but it's really got some issues.

Nuclear weapons are offensive weapons and there is no defense against nuclear attacks except retaliatory nuclear attacks

Wrong. PAC 3 missiles and Aegis missiles are but two components of the BMDS (Ballistic Missile Defense System). Most of the ships in the carrier groups have Aegis systems, Japanese ships even have some, and you can bet there are some PAC 3 missile batteries on US bases in SK.
www.mda.mil...

The US army in Korea is equipped with Paladin anti-artillery guns that can trace enemy shells back to the guns and fire shells at the enemy guns with pin-point accuracy. However, it takes for the Paladins about 10 min to locate the enemy guns, during which time the Paladins would be targeted by the enemy guns Gen. Thomas A Schwartz, a former US army commander in Korea, stated that the US army in Korea would be destroyed in less than three hours.

Completely ignores the capability of drones, stealth planes, cruise missiles, etc. to destroy the sources of the artillery.

American and Western tank commanders do not know how to fight tank battles in rugged terrains like those of Korea.

First of all, comparing NK tanks and modern tanks is apples to oranges. Second, US tank crews train in a variety of terrain, as they never know where they will be deployed.
www.inetres.com...

North Korea's main battle tanks - T-62s - have 155 mm guns and can travel as fast as 60 km per hour. The US main tanks - M1A - have 120 mm guns and cannot travel faster than 55 km per hour. North Korean tanks have skins 700 mm thick

Where in the heck are they getting these stats for the T-62? Even the Ch'ŏnma-ho V has a 125mm gun (not 155mm), and a speed of 50km/hr (probably less with the V's armor upgrades). 700mm thick armor though? Doubtful...the base T-62 is less than 300mm in it's best spot. Not to mention, you'd have to compare to the new versions of the M-1, which have 800mm thick Chobham armor.

In case of war, the skies over Korea will be filled with fighters in close dog-fights and the A-10s would be ineffective.

This is just absurd. Other than the MiG-29s and MiG-23s (and few of them being operational), the other craft that make it into the air might as well fly into the ground. The vast majority of their air force is MiG-21s, a plane designed in the 50's. Sending those pilots up is basically tantamount to shooting them in the head. If there are any air-to-air kills from NK, it will be from a MiG-29, but he likely won't live long enough to land and brag about it.

North Korea can produce about 100 missiles a year. It began to make missiles in 1980 and has about 1,000 missiles of various types in place, about 100 of which have nuclear warheads.

Where they hell do they get that from? Even current analysts state they've got only a gravity delivery system at this time.

ut as shown in the recent Iraq war, the Patriots are not 100% accurate or reliable even under ideal conditions.

Sure, but in Iraqi Freedom, the PAC 3 were 100% reliable, so.....

Most of the underground facilities are drilled into granite rocks and the entrances face north in order to avoid direct hits by American bombs and missiles. The B-61 Mod 11 is the main bunker buster in the US arsenal. A recent test showed that this buster could penetrate only 6 meters of rock. The latest GBU-28 laser-guided bunker-buster can penetrate to 30m. North Korean bunkers have at least 80 m of top-cover of solid rocks.

The new MOP can reach to 61m, and the 80m depth is largely believed to be inaccurate. That's not even considering tactical nukes, which of course, reach much deeper.

In addition, the underground facilities make US spy planes and satellites impotent.

Spy satellites have come a LONG way in 9 years....

North Korea has reengineered US shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles captured in Vietnam, and designed its own missile, wha-sung. North Korea began to manufacture wha-sung missiles in 1980. Wha-sung comes in two models: SA-7 that has an effective range of 5 km and SA-16 with 10 km range. North Korea has more than 15,000 wha-sung missiles in place.

And lock on to what? Heat? Radar? Oops....

America's main defense against anti-ship missiles, the Arleigh Burke class Aegis destroyers are ineffective outside 20-50 km from missile launch pads.

Bigger range than that (even in 2003), but really, wouldn't matter, as long as they protect the ships.

It is said that North Korea's planes are obsolete and no match for US planes. North Korea has 770 fighters, 80 bombers, 700 transports, 290 helicopters, and 84,000 men. In case of war, North Korean planes will fly low hugging the rugged terrains and attack enemy targets.

So they'd just have less distance to fall when hit by missiles of advanced planes they can't even see yet. Again, see the MiG-21...

MiG-21 fighters from Bongchun and US F-15 from Ohsan would meet in less than 5 min, assuming they took off at about the same time. In about 5 min, hundreds of MiG21s and F-15s would be swirling in the skies over Korea.

If I were in a MiG-21 and saw an F-15 coming at me (which I wouldn't, because I'd already be dead), I'd turn and burn right out of there.... Let alone if I saw an F-22 or F-35...

Now granted, they've done some upgrades too, but in looking at the military spending budgets...this article paints a VERY unrealistic picture.

HAHAHA, good rebuttals. Bottom line. NK is no match for the U.S. military machine. The CIA has been launching top secret military hardware into orbit for decades under Reagan's SDI program. Also it seems everyone has missed one important detail. America's "black projects"! All the hardware mentioned here, i.e. Raptors, F-35s etc. are almost obsolete. Remember, the F-117 Nighthawk has been flying for at least a decade or more before being made public. What technologies does the U.S. have now that's not in the public domain???

Not a single black project weapons system would be deployed in any Korean conflict. The chances of any wreckage falling behind enemy lines (accidential or shoot-down) would be a Chinese pickers dream, and a chance that the US would be unwilling to take. Known systems are more than enough to push NK back and knock them down for good.

The caviat there would be any space-based systems, of course... but even that would be something deployed in a home-defense only situation, as deployment would give the Chinese and Russians invaluable intel, and would reveal those weapons and weapon signatures.

reply to post by larphillips


Yep, I even question whether or not we'd use THELs or MTHELs, or ABLs (or whatever their more modern versions are called). These things were even working back in the 80's, so I can only imagine now... But, I doubt we're ready to reveal these so publicly.

I would expect and hope that any conflict with NK would be an overwhelming technological battle. In this area, we are vastly superior and one would hope, would end the conflict before too many innocent NK's were killed..