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Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

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Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#91

Post by AcerbicZero »

dmix wrote: post #75
AcerbicZero wrote: post #58

A reasonable, if somewhat short, overview of the topic, although a bit generous when discussing the air power situation over Korea. Smashing older Russian SAM sites is almost an American pastime at this point, and I have serious doubts the KPAF would put up anything beyond token resistance in the air. The author also skims over the massive leaps in lethality on the modern battlefield. It's difficult to stress this en…

Indeed, all of those tanks will be pretty useless against an array of modern anti tank, see javelins https://youtu.be/wrhybKEzb-0 The primary concern is the use of artillery and multi barrel rocket launchers devastating any ROK ground forces. Russia demonstrated their long distance lethality in Ukraine. I'm also curious at the quality of DPRKs SAMs. The new S400 ones definitely pose a problem even for modern American…

I've not heard of the DPRK possessing anything beyond S200/Buks (along with plenty of older Soviet SAMs) which shouldn't be discounted, but are not going to be capable of stopping the dedicated air defense suppression operations over the immediate combat area.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#92

Post by dba7dba »

dmix wrote: post #75
AcerbicZero wrote: post #58

A reasonable, if somewhat short, overview of the topic, although a bit generous when discussing the air power situation over Korea. Smashing older Russian SAM sites is almost an American pastime at this point, and I have serious doubts the KPAF would put up anything beyond token resistance in the air. The author also skims over the massive leaps in lethality on the modern battlefield. It's difficult to stress this en…

Indeed, all of those tanks will be pretty useless against an array of modern anti tank, see javelins https://youtu.be/wrhybKEzb-0 The primary concern is the use of artillery and multi barrel rocket launchers devastating any ROK ground forces. Russia demonstrated their long distance lethality in Ukraine. I'm also curious at the quality of DPRKs SAMs. The new S400 ones definitely pose a problem even for modern American…

Ukraine did not have own artillery to counter nor airpower.

South Korea has plenty of artillery and MLRS to counter N Korean threats, not to mention counter-battery radar systems.

I read someone who quoted a South Korean army officer who said once S Korean K9 SPH started rolling off the factory, South Korean army gained the advantage over N Korean army.

And with my very amateur level knowledge, I agree.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#93

Post by yongjik »

ilamont wrote: post #26

local breakthroughs on the major routes towards Seoul—their first operational objective. Playing devil's advocate: How do we know Seoul is the operational objective? It seems obvious (capital city located near the border) but what if DPRK went for something not so obvious? i.e. "Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected" (classic Sun/Mao approach) Also, what if Pyongyang tries to draw in a…

> In the 1990s I remember reading an account of North Korean special forces landing by submarine and trying to infiltrate ... and immediately being tripped up by unfamiliarity with modern technology.

Actually, most of them weren't special forces. It was a North Korean submarine that was doing its routine(?) spying activity when the submarine was stuck in the shore. They had to abandon the ship, and most of them were navy soldiers with (I assume) no training in spying activity. Besides, you cannot exactly hide a submarine stuck in the shore, so of course a national emergency was declared and the South Korean military went full alert mode.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Gangneung_submarine_infil...

In an ordinary situation, a North Korean spy agent would act much less conspicuously and have much more time to prepare for life in South Korea. (Personally, though, I don't believe they would make much difference in a full-scale war.)

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#94

Post by yongjik »

charles-salvia wrote: post #14

The assessment predicts: "Tens or hundreds of thousands could become casualties" ... in the event of an all-out DRPK/(US+ROK) conflict. One factor to consider here is what happens if no conflict occurs? In that case, there are ... still likely tens of thousands of civilian deaths happening as the status quo in North Korean labor camps[1]. Allowing the regime to continue to exist also has a major cost in human lives.…

Not saying you're wrong, but the same argument was used to justify the "liberation" of Iraq.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#95

Post by dba7dba »

Animats wrote: post #15

The key thing here is the geography. Seoul is only 20 miles from the border with North Korea. It's within artillery range, and North Korea has the necessary artillery. If there's a war, Seoul gets clobbered in the first minutes. Few countries have their capital that close to a hostile border. Syria does. Look where Damascus is.

The whole story of North Korean artillery turning Seoul into a sea of fire was a phrase coined by a North Korean general few decades ago to threaten S Korean. And that's what it is, a verbal threat.

N Korean army would be really idiotic to focus all their available artillery on Seoul and ignore all other military installations.

During the Battle of Britain, Luftwaffe nearly broke RAF when they concentrated on bombing the RAF bases. But when Nazi switched their focus to bombing London, RAF had a chance to recover and eventually beat back Luftwaffe.

And you can bet S Korean artillery units won't be sitting around when the balloon goes up.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#96

Post by dba7dba »

Theodores wrote: post #73
Animats wrote: post #15

The key thing here is the geography. Seoul is only 20 miles from the border with North Korea. It's within artillery range, and North Korea has the necessary artillery. If there's a war, Seoul gets clobbered in the first minutes. Few countries have their capital that close to a hostile border. Syria does. Look where Damascus is.

I think the key thing is history. The UK developed the nuclear bomb with no help from the USA. As a consequence the UK was not part of the Marshall Plan and as well as enduring a 'rebuild from nothing' there was also the phenomenal cost of Windscale and all of the rest of the infrastructure, a cost borne without the industrial base the USA had - ruins vs. vast and intact. The Manhattan Project was a similar cost to t…

UK SURVIVED NAZI threat because of Land Lease and eventually US pouring resources into beating back Nazi and Japanese threat.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#97

Post by JumpCrisscross »

panglott wrote: post #76
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side of your argument is it accepts the Kims' ownership over North Korea's land and population. The concept of legitimacy is fuzzy. There is gray area between defense and colonialist conquest.

It's implicit in your statement that the moral repugnancy of the Kim regime makes any acceptance of its existence intolerable. But that clearly implies we should remove the Kim regime; but invading countries is also generally immoral and the consequences of Korean War II are also morally repugnant.

> that clearly implies we should remove the Kim regime

No, it just means we can discuss it without moral censure. There have been lots of multilateral and unilateral interventions, covert and overt, since World War II. Global stability is built on great powers not warring with each other.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#98

Post by ethbro »

timthelion wrote: post #70
aphextron wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The US is a superpower, but that doesn't mean that other nation-states exist because we deign to suffer their existence—that's a very colonialist way of looking at the world. This is a question of international consensus, not US will. Under the definition of sovereignty agreed upon by the international community, DPRK has forfeited its' right to sovereignty by repeated human rights abuses, WMD development, and aggre…

It is Trump making the decision now, not the international community. I'll also remind you, that the only country in the entire world that has extensively used WMDs is the US. The US has used Nukes (WWII), and is also responsible for the most extensive use of chemical weapons of any county (Vietnam). NK has never used a WMD.

Let's add some context.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 129-226k dead

Nazi Holocaust: 4.9-11m dead

Soviet Holodomor: 1.8-7.5m dead

Cambodian Genocide: 1.7-3m dead

Armenian Genocide: 800k-1.5m dead

Vietnam War (all deaths, US period): 1-3m dead

In terms of human death, WMDs have historically been the least of conflict-affected people's worries, compared to starvation and drawn out total war.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#99

Post by thrden »

timthelion wrote: post #70
aphextron wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The US is a superpower, but that doesn't mean that other nation-states exist because we deign to suffer their existence—that's a very colonialist way of looking at the world. This is a question of international consensus, not US will. Under the definition of sovereignty agreed upon by the international community, DPRK has forfeited its' right to sovereignty by repeated human rights abuses, WMD development, and aggre…

It is Trump making the decision now, not the international community. I'll also remind you, that the only country in the entire world that has extensively used WMDs is the US. The US has used Nukes (WWII), and is also responsible for the most extensive use of chemical weapons of any county (Vietnam). NK has never used a WMD.

Lots of countries had widespread Chemical weapons usage.

Iraq used chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program

Israel used white phosphorous till 2013: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22310544

the Soviet Union was accused of using chemical weapons in afghanistan: http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/afghan/report.pdf

The UN stated that Cuban units used VX as well as Sarin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#Angola

even the vietnamese used chemical weapons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_border_raids_in_Tha...

None of these examples include the use of chemical weapons in WWII or WWI. During these wars most major european countries used chemical weapons of some kind.

these instances don't excuse their usage, But I don't believe much is gained by pretending the rest of the world is blameless.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#100

Post by phil21 »

lettergram wrote: post #65
WillyOnWheels wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think DPRK really wants to nuke anyone. They just look at countries in the last 30 years and look at their options: Libya: Gave up their WMDs, Libya government gone. Ukraine: Gave up their nukes, Russia invaded (I admit this is a bit contrived) Iraq: Didn't have nukes, Iraqi government gone. Pakistan: Has nukes, is incredibly unstable, still there!

You can also look at places like South African. Where the government gave up nukes, transitioned to a different government​, and everything was fine (internationally)

So same outcome, just less violent and voluntarily vs military intervention? I don't think that's the outcome the leadership of NK are looking for.
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