North Korea
- Thread starter terley
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People who speak about how big North Koreans army is should refer to Desert Storm for how little that matters these days. The Iraqi army at the start of Desert Storm had at least 4,500 tanks, 484 aircraft, 232 helicopters and 650,000 regular troops. They were defeated in 5 weeks losing the majority of their military hardware
Amongst other things actual battle experience as well as training can count for a lot - but as noted in one of these threads there is a big difference between NK and Iraq in that NK is a military lead society with a far higher level of actual patriotism and brainwashing while very few of the Iraqi forces other than the hardline forces had any incentive to even fight.
NK defensively also has a significant force multiplier in the form of the terrain - if it was like Iraq they wouldn't even last 5 weeks (on the offensive probably not even 2 weeks) - but they are dug in and could last months defensively against anything the US could throw at them short of heavy use of nuclear weapons - even their bunkers, etc. aren't easily compromised as some were claiming as they are dug in deep (often former salt mines, etc.) with multiple entrances connected by long tunnels.
EDIT: Also those 4500 tanks were I believe based on older soviet t-72 and 60 series platforms while they were up against tanks sporting the newly upgraded Chobham armour or variants of with new breakthroughs in optics as well - I don't think it was much of an exaggeration that they could take on the Iraqi tanks 15:1 if it came to it.
NK defensively also has a significant force multiplier in the form of the terrain - if it was like Iraq they wouldn't even last 5 weeks (on the offensive probably not even 2 weeks) - but they are dug in and could last months defensively against anything the US could throw at them short of heavy use of nuclear weapons - even their bunkers, etc. aren't easily compromised as some were claiming as they are dug in deep (often former salt mines, etc.) with multiple entrances connected by long tunnels.
EDIT: Also those 4500 tanks were I believe based on older soviet t-72 and 60 series platforms while they were up against tanks sporting the newly upgraded Chobham armour or variants of with new breakthroughs in optics as well - I don't think it was much of an exaggeration that they could take on the Iraqi tanks 15:1 if it came to it.
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Caporegime
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I don't think the US will have to do anything. At this rate, China will put their foot down soon.
Certainly been some very non-traditional comments from the Chinese (possibly some behind closed doors agreement with the US) over it and they've been reinforcing border towns with armed administration units (can't remember what they are actually called) to deal with a potential large scale displacement of people - though that might just be because it seems North Koreans close to that border seem to be becoming increasingly disenchanted and higher than ever numbers either deserting into China that way or going on armed forays into China to steal food, etc.
Soldato
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The terrain indeed in their advantage but I still don't see it as much of a problem as many see it, It's likely will become a major problem for NK forces as it be just as much of a disadvantage to them as to any Allied forces since they won't control the air, so anything moving on top will be bombed, that means no supplies for any forces hidden or trying to wage war while Allied forces will be free to be transported anywhere.
Bunkers and Salt mines isn't really a problem too, entrances will be destroyed trapping them inside or you just drop MOAB's on top of them which will destroy the mine whatever the dept due to the shockwave alone.
Personally, I just see an invasion of NK just a repeat of Desert Storm.
They've spent more than 30 years working on those problems amongst other things their army is designed to be able to fight divided up into semi-autonomous divisions with supplies fairly localised as well as a network of sunken railroads, etc. a lot of the country looks something like:
With densely packed valleys - the bunkers are often under 100s of feet of rock with multiple entrances in adjacent valleys - sure they aren't impenetrable but they'll be tough to crack as well - there is a variant of a MOAB designed specifically for targetting hardened bunkers at depth but even that isn't a guaranteed kill against these.
EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_Ordnance_Penetrator is the variant for use against these kind of bunkers - MOAB is more suited to collapsing spread out complex networks of soft tunnels (rather than having to clear them out stage by stage) than kills against hardened deep complexes.
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Soldato
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The shockwaves from MOAB will collapse them, you don't need to touch the bunker/structures underneath. I do agree that they have multiple entrances, but am pretty confident that they been found and mapped and any hidden ones will be found during the battle.
That said, US only has a a handful of MOAB's, so they would need to go build more or just use the next best thing or just go nuclear on them or again, just collapse any entrances with normal bunker busters once found.
That said, the US could just leave them alone and use precision strikes, destroy everything that moves on top and and just secure the cities, leave the countryside alone and install a new government and force a surrender that way, sounds the more reasonable option. The elites of NK ain't stupid, they understand the outside world unlike the poor sods who are not allowed to leave.
Guess we can play war games all day, but with this current liberal world, nothing is going to happen with NK unfortunately.
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This is actually the most dangerous aspect of NK - if they ever managed to develop an end game nuclear arsenal that they could use with relatively impunity they will use it - unlike most other countries that don't have the siege mentality at the level higher ranking NK people do.
Soldato
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I be honest and say am conflicted if they would, they surely would understand that they would be nuked back but on the other hand, you just don't know, they are brainwashed from birth and issue threats all the time.
This is why I think later we leave them to build weapons, worst it gets for our future generations to deal with, we just passing the problem down the line to our kids.
I honestly don't think a peaceful resolution will ever fix North Korea. The people themselves won't fix it and sanctions will not fix it, talking doesn't seem to help, since we have a hard enough time getting them to the table in the DMZ.
My example was a theoretical end game scenario where they could first strike wipe the US with the press of a button and take maybe the odd nuke in return. I think its the main danger of NK that their mindset is much more towards that end - while even say Russia if someone gave them the button to wipe the US off the face of the earth tomorrow with relatively little consequences would be highly unlikely to use it (sure there would be a fair bit of geopolitical realignment to the new reality).
Point being if anyone thinks that this problem can go on indefinitely they are likely to be very mistaken - NK simply won't be giving up any time soon and sooner or later someone will be forced to deal with them.
Point being if anyone thinks that this problem can go on indefinitely they are likely to be very mistaken - NK simply won't be giving up any time soon and sooner or later someone will be forced to deal with them.
Soldato
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Oh for sure, if they could just press delete, they would for sure. Agree there.
Flat desert, is literally the easiest terrain on the planet. (well mostly, dust isnt fun)
North Korea has like a lot of farm land, lots of roads, sure it has some hills and forests but it's not Vietnam version 2.0. You can go on Google maps and check out the terrain around Pyongyang. Sure they could hold out in bunkers for a while, but to what end? They can't effectively fight a war and they'll lose on attrition within weeks.
Pyongyang is largely an exception - a lot of the rest of the country is like my screenshot above - and even then around Pyongyang is not ideal terrain for anything other than attacks from the air - lots of bottlenecks in open terrain (i.e. due to the farmland meaning dikes around soft ground being the only path) where an invading ground force would be pushed into bottlenecks where they could be engaged from dug in positions.
Sure they can't win but the mentality they've been brought up into means that while there is a half effective backbone of those totally brainwashed in command they will fight on for quite awhile.
Sure they can't win but the mentality they've been brought up into means that while there is a half effective backbone of those totally brainwashed in command they will fight on for quite awhile.
or maybe they just turn on their glorious leader when china whispers promises into peoples ears...china can promise to modernise the whole state, infrastructure projects for chinese companies with NK people doing the work, revitalsie the economy and bring them into the modern age
its only the leadership holding them back...it would benefit china to make it a true vassal state, opening up trade routes and still giving them a buffer between their border and south korea
they might have the excuse they need and nobody would stop them
its only the leadership holding them back...it would benefit china to make it a true vassal state, opening up trade routes and still giving them a buffer between their border and south korea
they might have the excuse they need and nobody would stop them
As someone posted about before - various attempts have been made to reach out to the hearts and minds of the general population but it doesn't work - the leadership just portrays it as they are so powerful even the other countries pay tribute to them and there is enough of a backbone of "true believers" (kind of like herd immunity) that it largely sticks.
I'm not sure bottlenecks are overly meaningful when you have vastly superior armour and complete air supremacy. You guys are being silly, these things may matter if they were relatively equal forces, which they aren't. It's like saying we'd struggle against a bunch of longbow men if they had high ground when we have sniper rifles, that's literally the gulf in technology. Someone mentioned earlier about 1 US tank beating 15 Iraqi tanks, it's more than that, the Iraqi tanks couldn't actually penetrate the M1A1's armour and they had no where near the range or accuracy. They were effectively completely useless.
Hence the bottleneck - squeezing down the attacking force to engage in lower numbers against that 15 tank equivalent in dug in positions. Sure they are relatively vulnerable to the air but identifying and systematically destroying those positions as you come against them is easier said than done in reality - these are people who've had decades of paranoia to prepare for it not an army in open ground that has very little intention of fighting.
Regarding air-defences I'm not sure how seriously it can be taken but NK supposedly has upgraded their long range radar platforms to function at a modern level (EDIT: It isn't the radar itself its the integration system with platforms like the S-125) - its probably unlikely but a couple of other countries that use similar systems have managed it domestically. They are also claiming to have reverse engineered something similar to a modern capability S-300 platform but again IMO unlikely as even the Russians needed outside help with the microelectronics involved and I severely doubt NK has the fabrication capabilities required let alone Japan supplying them with the parts (who are one of the main producers).
Regarding air-defences I'm not sure how seriously it can be taken but NK supposedly has upgraded their long range radar platforms to function at a modern level (EDIT: It isn't the radar itself its the integration system with platforms like the S-125) - its probably unlikely but a couple of other countries that use similar systems have managed it domestically. They are also claiming to have reverse engineered something similar to a modern capability S-300 platform but again IMO unlikely as even the Russians needed outside help with the microelectronics involved and I severely doubt NK has the fabrication capabilities required let alone Japan supplying them with the parts (who are one of the main producers).
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FWIW here is my view of how NK will be dealt with. At some point the USA will get to a position where they will have no option other than to invade NK or simply Nuke it. When that time arrives, they will be telling the Chinese this in advance. The Chinese simply won't allow it to happen and on that basis will take NK away from it's ruling elite. NK at that point will just become another province of China and it's people will move into the 21st century.
For the USA it would be a good result, the same for China because they won't have had to deal with the after effects of a nuclear winter on their border. I say that because i don't think for one min that the USA would deploy an invasion force against NK................................it would nuke it and tell the Chinese in advance knowing full well what the Chinese reaction would be.
For the USA it would be a good result, the same for China because they won't have had to deal with the after effects of a nuclear winter on their border. I say that because i don't think for one min that the USA would deploy an invasion force against NK................................it would nuke it and tell the Chinese in advance knowing full well what the Chinese reaction would be.