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Subject: north Korea what can its army and airforce do?
verong    3/11/2009 11:37:36 PM
Hey Folks, can the North Korean army survive a battle with South Korea and the USAF? I feel that this would be a holding action, since North Korea simply would not be powerful enough to defeat the South Korean forces, and I would suggest the USA keep its involvement at a minimum, so as to not see the war expand. How many of you agree with me that the US Army is stretched to thin to fight North Korea to a fullscale occupation Sincerely, Keith
 
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WarNerd       3/24/2009 5:02:50 AM

Of course you can make dirty bombs but this was about nuclear warheads currently on someone's arsenal. Hiroshima was totally safe after a few weeks. People who went there after a week didn't suffer from any radiation sickness but there's a slight increase in thyroid cancer figures. And this was a super inefficient fission device so any talk about contaminating an area for years to come is complete bullshit. Even the trinity test site was ok after a few months and that was near-ground detonation of a similar inefficient fission bomb. 

In case of a nuclear war most detonations would be atmospheric and the exposure levels days after those blasts would be a minor issue compared to the huge amounts of people dying of burns and acute radiation sickness. Nobody would worry about 1/100 chance of developing a treatable form of thyroid cancer if you defend an area against an enemy who just nuked your territory. 

Several corrections:
First, in a nuclear war many of the targets, possibly more than half, will be hardened facilities requiring surface, near surface, or possibly sub-surface detonation.  These will create much greater amounts of fallout.
 
Second, most of the acute radiation victims from detonations will be dead before the week is up.  They will have been replaced by a larger number of fallout victims that failed to get to adequate shelter in the first day.  The will be virtually no medical facilities remaining, so any cancer may well be untreatable.
 
The good news?  The enemy is not in any better shape than you are, so you can stop worrying about a ground invasion.
 
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strat-T21C       3/24/2009 12:36:29 PM

Hey Folks,

can the North Korean army survive a battle with South Korea and the USAF? I feel that this would be a holding action, since North Korea simply would not be powerful enough to defeat the South Korean forces, and I would suggest the USA keep its involvement at a minimum, so as to not see the war expand. How many of you agree with me that the US Army is stretched to thin to fight North Korea to a fullscale occupation

Sincerely,

Keith
I beleive that it wouldn't even be a holding action, the S Koreans would, even without help of the USAF, bitch slap the NK. Janes-country profile's say that the South even has plans for the occupation/liberation of the North against outside interfearance of Japan/China. The South's armed forces are better in everyway to the North, and the gov't is now confident that it can win vs NK. As for nukes, well I don't know enough to comment on that to make a viable statement, in light of the other facts presented here already.
  As for US involment, the USN would most likly hold China in check whilst it's air wings oblitorated the NK along side the ROKAF.

 
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Basilisk Station       3/24/2009 1:04:00 PM

I beleive that it wouldn't even be a holding action, the S Koreans would, even without help of the USAF, bitch slap the NK. Janes-country profile's say that the South even has plans for the occupation/liberation of the North against outside interfearance of Japan/China. The South's armed forces are better in everyway to the North, and the gov't is now confident that it can win vs NK. As for nukes, well I don't know enough to comment on that to make a viable statement, in light of the other facts presented here already.
Given that any likely scenario would include Seoul as a smoking ruin, I doubt that any outcome would count as a "Bitch slap". NK army might not be in shape to win victories, but as King Pyrrhus is supposed to have said "Another such victory and we are undone. Check out some of the statistics on the amount of SK's economy and population in Seoul.
  As for US involment, the USN would most likly hold China in check whilst it's air wings oblitorated the NK along side the ROKAF.
Yeah, how well did that work out the last time there was a conflict on the Korean Peninsula?
 
Don't underestimate the willingness of the Chinese leadership to pay an enormous price in order to safeguard their interests. One of the reasons why they are still in charge and the Communists of the former USSR aren't, is that they were willing to slaughter their own people. They certainly don't have any qualms about killing other people and have a distressing tendency to be quite cunning at maximizing their strengths and minimizing thoses of their opposition.
 
NK is also not terribly friendly to air power and the NK have put a really good chunk of their nation's ecconomy into digging stuff in. This isn't the wide open desert terrain of Iraq and even there air power had a significantly overstated effect.
 
Never go to war assuming your enemies are going to be idiots. While it's always gratifying if they are and there is no aid in war so great as that of an incompetent foe. It's a very, very bad idea to assume they will indulge you in that fashion.
 
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strat-T21C    Basilisk..   3/24/2009 4:44:30 PM
  When you state that NK is not air freindly, do you mean mountains and valleys? If that is so, that is taken care of with percision munitions, the conflicts in the Balkans are a good case in point. This includes horizontal attack as well with criuse missles.
   The NK army is in no shape to fight anyone when they have no fuel and the tanks that could get moving are T-62 and T-54/55 which cannot fire on the move, engage acuratly beyond 1200m and fire a STEEL sabot round. This cannot match the K1/K1a2, the L5 105/L44 120 guns would obliterate them. The ROC army is better equiped and motivated ( as far as a conscript army can be) and is actually FED ( not like the NK eating grass stew and drinking tree bark tea).
   The Chi-coms would not be able to challenge on the seas as the PLAN is biulding and training. How long would it take to produce a fighting class navy? 1-2 generations? The ROCN/USN would dominate in this theatre.
    As for the destruction of Seoul, well I'd think that they've taken that into account and the populous has been prepared for that possibility though nearly 60 years of tentions.
   So, in my view, as this thread asks, would the NK army survive a clash with the ROC Armed Forces with help from USAF/USN? Nope. 
 
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cwDeici       3/24/2009 4:50:16 PM

Hey Folks,

can the North Korean army survive a battle with South Korea and the USAF? I feel that this would be a holding action, since North Korea simply would not be powerful enough to defeat the South Korean forces, and I would suggest the USA keep its involvement at a minimum, so as to not see the war expand. How many of you agree with me that the US Army is stretched to thin to fight North Korea to a fullscale occupation

Sincerely,

Keith

Seriously?
I guess they could put up some intensive defensive action and sporadic military guerilla actions before it crumbles.
 
I think the North Koreans would actually throw flowers at their invaders, so the US could probably occupy North Korea properly with 50,000 troops.
 
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cwDeici       3/24/2009 4:53:53 PM
*looks at other posts*
 
Seriously... Soul a smoking ruin? Yes, if their nuke gets through defensive systems.
And then there's conventional bombing, for as long as their fuel and missiles last (very much not so in the former).
 
Please people... One to a few A-bombs does not equal 'fighting power' against a SK on a war footing (as much as I dislike much of that nation's people's attitudes). As for their conventional forces... they have no ability to project for more than a week.
 
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cwDeici       3/24/2009 4:56:50 PM

Btw., my 50,000 troops figure comes with South Korean economic aid and some arrangement for civilian policing to help fill in the gaps though.

But all in all they're a disciplined population, so it shouldn't be too hard once they get a bucketload of food each.

 
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Basilisk Station       3/24/2009 5:53:47 PM

  When you state that NK is not air freindly, do you mean mountains and valleys? If that is so, that is taken care of with percision munitions, the conflicts in the Balkans are a good case in point. This includes horizontal attack as well with criuse missles.

Air power didn't exactly shut down things in the Balkans. It's a very nice tool and being on the wrong end of it really, really sucks, but it isn't magic and it's no substitute for ground forces. If you want to do more than hurt someone, you have to send in troops. Pounding Saddam from the air didn't change his mind and it isn't going to stop NK either.
   The NK army is in no shape to fight anyone when they have no fuel and the tanks that could get moving are T-62 and T-54/55 which cannot fire on the move, engage acuratly beyond 1200m and fire a STEEL sabot round. This cannot match the K1/K1a2, the L5 105/L44 120 guns would obliterate them. The ROC army is better equiped and motivated ( as far as a conscript army can be) and is actually FED ( not like the NK eating grass stew and drinking tree bark tea).
It's not the NK infantry and tanks I worry about.
 The Chi-coms would not be able to challenge on the seas as the PLAN is biulding and training. How long would it take to produce a fighting class navy? 1-2 generations? The ROCN/USN would dominate in this theatre.
 
You need to study some geography and history. China borders NK. They don't need a navy to do squat in NK. They can just march over the borders. That's how they did it in '50 and that's how they'd do it now. The US Navy was even more dominant in the Korean War and it didn't stop them from doing anything then.

    As for the destruction of Seoul, well I'd think that they've taken that into account and the populous has been prepared for that possibility though nearly 60 years of tentions.
There is only so much you can do to prepare for several thousand pieces of artillery in dug in mountain positions. NK doesn't need nukes to level Seoul. I'm quite sure that we can take their arty out given enough time, but I have serious doubts as to how quickly that can be accomplished and I simply don't believe it can be done before there is massive damage done.
 
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warpig       3/24/2009 6:48:48 PM



    As for the destruction of Seoul, well I'd think that they've taken that into account and the populous has been prepared for that possibility though nearly 60 years of tentions.


There is only so much you can do to prepare for several thousand pieces of artillery in dug in mountain positions. NK doesn't need nukes to level Seoul. I'm quite sure that we can take their arty out given enough time, but I have serious doubts as to how quickly that can be accomplished and I simply don't believe it can be done before there is massive damage done.

 
I think everyone knows that if the North Koreans want to shell the crap out of Seoul, they can.  However, that doesn't change the fact that if the North started (renewed) the war, they'd get schwacked by our airpower and by the South Korean military.  If they drive more than about 20miles south of the DMZ, leaving the cover of their dug-in arty, they've got nothing left going for them and will be chopped to pieces.  If they stay in their holes we'll burn them out one-by-one until they quit, are killed, or (most likely) manage to cry enough to get some sort of UN cease-fire again.  North Korea has no realistic chance of "winning" a war against South Korea/US.
 
 
 
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verong       3/24/2009 7:12:22 PM



Hey Folks,



can the North Korean army survive a battle with South Korea and the USAF? I feel that this would be a holding action, since North Korea simply would not be powerful enough to defeat the South Korean forces, and I would suggest the USA keep its involvement at a minimum, so as to not see the war expand. How many of you agree with me that the US Army is stretched to thin to fight North Korea to a fullscale occupation



Sincerely,



Keith



Seriously?


I guess they could put up some intensive defensive action and sporadic military guerilla actions before it crumbles.

 

I think the North Koreans would actually throw flowers at their invaders, so the US could probably occupy North Korea properly with 50,000 troops.



Hey there,
Yes there might be a low number of troops, but you must consider the surrounding area where nobody would want the USA there forever, Thus we must consider that the North might get a treaty to stop itself from being occupied, thus hurting the south while playing off the USA being stretched. The real question here is would it be worth trying for the north ie trying to take over the south then if fail pull back before the USA could get ground troops there????
 
Sincerely,
 
Keith
 
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