Pentagon Estimates 250,000 US Dead In A North Korean War

reply to post by Logarock

China, by all accounts is already moving troops and machinery to the border of NK with all of the rhetoric that is going on. It would not surprise me if they keep building up in a means to kind of make both sides back down.

Originally posted by Red Cloak

Originally posted by butcherguy
Casualty estimates are often grossly overestimated by the war planners.

That way, when the war is over, they can say... 'We only lost a tenth of the number of men that we anticipated, look how well we did'.

Odd, considering they predicted 5,000 deaths for the Iraq War.

All depends how you look at it....
Here is a site:
Anti-war.com

From there:
4488 total US servicepersons killed since 3-19-03.
4347 of those have been killed after 'mission accomplished'.

Until mission accomplished was declared, 141 died, and all of those were not combat deaths.

so, there are different ways of looking at things. I am sure that the the DoD touted the 141 number when 'Mission Accomplished' was declared.

reply to post by sdcigarpig


They just want to keep thousands of refugees from crossing into China, no doubt.

Originally posted by butcherguy

Originally posted by Red Cloak

Originally posted by butcherguy
Casualty estimates are often grossly overestimated by the war planners.

That way, when the war is over, they can say... 'We only lost a tenth of the number of men that we anticipated, look how well we did'.

Odd, considering they predicted 5,000 deaths for the Iraq War.

All depends how you look at it....
Here is a site:
Anti-war.com

From there:
4488 total US servicepersons killed since 3-19-03.
4347 of those have been killed after 'mission accomplished'.

Until mission accomplished was declared, 141 died, and all of those were not combat deaths.

so, there are different ways of looking at things. I am sure that the the DoD touted the 141 number when 'Mission Accomplished' was declared.

That simply proves the point. The Pentagon estimated there would be 5,000 US dead in the Iraq War and the actual number was higher. Some people are arguing the Pentagon estimates are purposefully made way higher than what they would be on purpose.

That's obviously not true. Remember, the Pentagon now does NOT count the dead in the MEDIA numbers that die in a helicopter or in a hospital. They ONLY count those dead on the ground in the media numbers. In previous wars they didn't count it that way.

When the Pentagon is doing internal estimates for numbers of dead.........they are counting all dead, not just the ones that died on the ground, but also the ones that died in transport and in the hospital.

So yeah, the 5,000 number estimated for Iraq was exceedingly LOWER than the actual total. Which is totally in contrast to what some here are trying to claim.

I dont believe it. Atleast that many SK civilians though, after Soeul gets pounded for a week straight because its so close to the border but I doubt US would even deploy much more than the 30k they already have there..

IMO!

Originally posted by Gazrok
reply to post by fenceSitter

 

For those who think the US will runover North Korea... remember we are only a few weeks away until the 10th aniversary of this great moment...

People just LOVE to belabor this point. They keep forgetting that the WAR part (toppling the leadership regime) took only about two weeks. It was the POLICE actions later, that took time and lives. In NK, it might take three weeks to take out Un and leaders, due to bunkers...but yeah, if we then get stuck trying to POLICE there, then we see more casualties.

SK would love to police there after a NK fall. If we do fight, we should leave as soon as we win (in the conventional sense) and let NK handle the rebuild and re-unification.

Originally posted by Red Cloak

Originally posted by butcherguy

Originally posted by Red Cloak

Originally posted by butcherguy
Casualty estimates are often grossly overestimated by the war planners.

That way, when the war is over, they can say... 'We only lost a tenth of the number of men that we anticipated, look how well we did'.

Odd, considering they predicted 5,000 deaths for the Iraq War.

All depends how you look at it....
Here is a site:
Anti-war.com

From there:
4488 total US servicepersons killed since 3-19-03.
4347 of those have been killed after 'mission accomplished'.

Until mission accomplished was declared, 141 died, and all of those were not combat deaths.

so, there are different ways of looking at things. I am sure that the the DoD touted the 141 number when 'Mission Accomplished' was declared.

That simply proves the point. The Pentagon estimated there would be 5,000 US dead in the Iraq War and the actual number was higher. Some people are arguing the Pentagon estimates are purposefully made way higher than what they would be on purpose.

That's obviously not true.

They estimated 5,000.
Actual number right now = 4488.
4,488

Originally posted by butcherguy

Originally posted by Red Cloak

Originally posted by butcherguy

Originally posted by Red Cloak

Originally posted by butcherguy
Casualty estimates are often grossly overestimated by the war planners.

That way, when the war is over, they can say... 'We only lost a tenth of the number of men that we anticipated, look how well we did'.

Odd, considering they predicted 5,000 deaths for the Iraq War.

All depends how you look at it....
Here is a site:
Anti-war.com

From there:
4488 total US servicepersons killed since 3-19-03.
4347 of those have been killed after 'mission accomplished'.

Until mission accomplished was declared, 141 died, and all of those were not combat deaths.

so, there are different ways of looking at things. I am sure that the the DoD touted the 141 number when 'Mission Accomplished' was declared.

That simply proves the point. The Pentagon estimated there would be 5,000 US dead in the Iraq War and the actual number was higher. Some people are arguing the Pentagon estimates are purposefully made way higher than what they would be on purpose.

That's obviously not true.

They estimated 5,000.
Actual number right now = 4488.
4,488

reply to post by Red Cloak


How is the number 250,000? They have the location of 250,000 drone operators pushing a button? Or maybe the people pushing the button on long range missiles.....

They must have the locations of someone.......If you think we are going to march troops in there without tactical missiles and drone attacks first cleaning out what can be, you people are nuts!

Minus nuclear war, there is no way unless they nuke all of our people and troops in South Korea....

reply to post by Red Cloak


I think the number is low. American forces are good at dropping bombs from planes... Hand to hand combat is a different thing all together..

reply to post by Gazrok

True, and not have any conflict spill over into their country as well, like it did the first time around.

reply to post by NavyDoc

SK would love to police there after a NK fall. If we do fight, we should leave as soon as we win (in the conventional sense) and let NK handle the rebuild and re-unification.

Exactly. God willing we are that smart this time around...

reply to post by Red Cloak

I am saying the internal Pentagon death estimates are for ALL dead. The MEDIA estimates, the ones you quote, only are those dead on the ground. That does not include any dead that died in transport from the battle field, or that died after they were transported from the battle field.

Oh.

Would you give me a link to these real numbers that you speak of?
Without these real numbers, I can't do much.

I supposed that an anti-war website would have good figures.

reply to post by Red Cloak


Sure, if they fight the war wrong. and put that many American soldiers in harms way for no reason. America could destroy NK without ever putting a boot on the ground, and without using nukes. This war will probably be fought like Iraq... bomb here, build a school there.. convert people to Jesus over here... drop the sandwiches and chips over there... etc. I hate war, and I can say that having done 6 combat deployments back when I was a brainwashed imperialist pawn... also known as a Neo-Con Republican, but I have grown wiser and seen our military industrial complex for what it is, but I digress. The way our policy makers and military leadership go about fighting wars is wrong. The purpose of war is to win. the purpose is to neutralize a threat. Not to bring so called "democracy". Not to give women the right to vote. The problem is that we don't fight wars... we nation build. I really do hope that no war comes of the NK situation, and since NK has nothing to do with the Petro-Dollar I suspect that there won't be any war with them, but you never know.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
US dead?... nah!

The US would do nothing but sit in its boats lobbing missiles and sending jets.. the South Koreans, now they will be the ones to fight and die in the apparent war.

Must have forgotten about the US Second Infantry Division in SK, and the AF Bases there.

And the US Dependents that would be killed in a NK strike.

Maybe the 250k number hints to the possibility that the Pentagon does beleive DPRK has nukes, can deliver them and would use them if this does turn into a conflict?

I can't think of any other way you could reach mortality figures that high, even if they were planning on a long term occupation (which i cant think why they would want to do that anyway)

why not just take a page from NK themselves and just drop a few a bombs up there ass and wipe them out... no losses on our side, solve the problem of NK. Sounds like a Win/Win to me.

So your saying we will lose roughly half thepeople we lost during WW2 or roughly 10x the number in the first Korean War?

I agree with others...Lets see a Pentagon report/analysis

You could lose this much if they began nuking SK pretty fast but we got less than 20k soldiers there (normally)

Need more facts

Every time we have issues about war they always say the same damn thing. We estimate a dank load of deaths and blah blah blah. Same with both iraq wars.

Thought it might be interesting to some. Sometimes looking at what happened the last time is the best way to understand what we could face again on a second time around. Features stories from veterans of the Korean War:



Some stats, courtesy of the U.S. Army. Note that Korean War casualties include killed, wounded, missing, or captured: www.history.army.mil...

Overview of Korean War, again, courtesy of the U.S. Army: www.almc.army.mil...

The Korean War was a mess and I doubt it would be any less messy a second time around.