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Subject: ROKN Patrol Corvette sucken by DPRK torpedo boat
YelliChink    3/26/2010 12:10:07 PM
Just happened 2150 Korean local time. Chinese reports say that it was DPRK torpedo boat. The ROKN corvette sunk is probably a 1200t PCC. I can't read Korean so I am not sure which one exactly. At this moment, 59 out of 104 crew have been saved so far. Best wishes to the still missing ones and condolence to families of lost sailors.
 
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Reactive       4/7/2010 11:39:28 AM




It would be the right thing for them to do.  Of course it risks the possibility of the North escalating into more warfare.  So what?  The North already decided to take the largest escalatory step in the first place by sneak attacking the frigate out of the blue in the closest thing that passes for peacetime over there.  I do not believe in advocating "stability" over enforcing proper behavior among nations, and I do believe there are worse things than war.  A blatant military attack should not be swept under the rug amid hand-wringing and sternly-worded demarches, and if that means it escalates into a war, then that's what it means.



 






Disagree. It's the wrong thing to do militarily and just as a practical matter. The Norks are in a bind and would probably benefit more from a war than we or the south would. Whatever damage we inflict they will return 10x over in terms of cost and lives affected. The propaganda victory would serve the Norks overall national objective which is regime survival. We don't have the resources to do more than an air and sea campaign there and at great cost in blood and treasure. I'm not against making them pay for it IF they did it but I am against opening up a campaign we aren't in a position to end. Thats the trap.




We go for limited objective, things escalate, then a limited retaliation turns into full on war. That's the danger. In order to take a risk like that we need to be in a position to see this through all the way. With the bulk of our ground components committed elsewhere and the current economic situation the timing isn't right for that. This isn't about a moral argument just a matter of practicality and choosing the best strategy to deal with the problem which is to cause political changes to the Norks ultimately.

-DA 
That is a good point, when you consider that the DPRK citizens have absolutely no idea about this event, zip, zilch, a reprisal consisting of a similar measure (sinking a ship, blowing up a sub) would be percieved by the north's populace as a completely unprovoked attack, it's my guess that the reason the sinking of the Cheonan hasn't been given any airtime at all, any tit-for-tat reprisal will create a climate of fear through which Dicators are generally strengthened.
 
I think that part of this was designed to elicit either a limited aggressive, or appeasory response, which is why I think neither of those two options will work. 
 
In my view, the likely results: (assuming that NK involvement is the conclusion of the investigation- an assumption I am taking on the basis that it is, in my view, the greatest likelihood AFTER an open/inconclusive/unproven verdict).
 
a) Strong international condemnation, will come at the same time from the EU, US, Russia, even possibly China (who will call, as always for 'calm') 
 
b) Security council resolution, basically, they'll either impose stronger sanctions or if this fails through resolution at the UN South Korea will simply end all provision of aid, which could be a big deal.
 
As I said a long time ago in this thread, the idea (as far as I can see) is to allow the SK populace to "cool off". Personally, yes, it's not the "right time" for a war, but then, it never is, the problem as I see it is that intervention (large scale military intervention) will become politically impossible once the North Koreans demonstrate a significant weaponised nuclear capability. This has been their method of survival, and when they get to the point of having 10-40 warheads, which admittedly is not imminently, they will be virtually impossible to "control" externally, and can essentially hold the upper hand in negotiations.
 
It's not an easy issue, there doesn't seem any straightforward route to getting the regime to either open up (and at least become more like the PRC) or collapsing. South Korea must call the bluff now, and make it clear that any future provocations will result in a massive response, brinksmanship works better for SK than NK, the latter is certain to be, at the very least, politically destroyed in any conflict, this is something Jong-Il can not afford to risk, and he won't, he has largely been able to act like the punch-drunk fighter ready for war whilst at the same time possesing the q
 
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Reactive    Sorry to paste Al-Jazeera...    4/7/2010 12:18:49 PM
S Korea sailors recount ship blast

http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images//2010/4/7/2010478164176580_5.jpg" border="0" alt="" />
The surviving crew said the cause of the blast appeared to come from outside the ship [Reuters]

Survivors of last month's deadly explosion aboard a South Korean patrol boat have been recalling their ordeal for the first time, describing a huge blast that tore through the ship as it sailed near the disputed border with North Korea.

The explosion on March 26 caused the 1,200-tonne Cheonan to list badly before eventually sinking.

Forty-five members of the crew have been listed as missing and are believed to have drowned, although they have not been formally declared dead.

On Wednesday the 58 survivors from the sunken ship appeared at a televised news conference at a military medical facility near Seoul recounting the deafening explosion followed by a desperate struggle to escape the ship as it was plunged into darkness.

"I was preparing to report for duty when there was a sound of an explosion which hurt my ears and I was thrown in the air," said Oh Seung-tak, a senior petty officer.

"Power was immediately cut. I was hit in the face by a flying computer and lost consciousness momentarily. When I regained my senses, everything was dark."

Oh, who was in charge of munitions storage, said that he detected no smell of explosives from inside the ship and nothing unusual before the blast.

http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images//2010/4/7/20104782052248621_3.jpg" border="0" alt="" />
Rescue teams have said the salvage of vessel parts could take weeks [Reuters]

US and South Korean teams are preparing to lift the shattered hull sections of the Cheonan from the bed of the Yellow Sea in search of clues to the disaster which left 46 sailors dead.

However experts say the salvage operation could take several weeks.

The ship is thought to have broken into at least two pieces, leading to suggestions that it was torn apart either by a torpedo or a mine.

The disputed border area was the scene of deadly naval clashes between North and South Korea in 1999 and 2002 and a firefight last November.

Trapped
 
Captain Choi Won-il said that his fellow officers at the time reported the blast "seemed to be a shock from outside".

Choi was trapped in his cabin until crewmen broke it open, and climbed a fire hose to reach the deck.
 
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DarthAmerica       4/7/2010 12:48:59 PM

So whack Kim Jong Il and pick a winner from his inner circle.  Or coup the whole regime, or decapitate it.  I understand the hope - and it is a hope - that the whole rotten edifice will come down of its own accord; and I know that kicking the door in to create the same effect were classic Hitlerian "famous last words," but I do question whether war would really put any ram in the Norks' rods.

It's not that simple and frankly the cost in blood and treasure aren't worth it. What you want to do is allow it to wither and die. Failing that, marginalize him and keep him irrelevant or irritant as we do now. War or direct action should only be taken when the benefit outweigh the cost and the objective is achievable. I understand the principle but in war such principles are dangerous to have if applied without intelligence. One of the keys to victory is to be unpredictable. Sometimes people attack and look forward to the counterattack. I'd love nothing more than to see these guys go down but only if it's done properly.

-DA 
 
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Hamilcar       4/7/2010 1:09:03 PM

Right, H, I recall the lousy conditions (yet not all the divers died - then again, big freaking limpet mine!) but, like warpig, was thinking of delayed action device planted at 'happier' time.

See above.

There seems to be some incompetence in recent RoK activities. Firing at birds (if true), the lousy PR...why not a botched harbor watch? They only have to be lucky once.
 
I don't think it was incompetence.

I don?t think it was birds. Remember what one of the hypotheses is. If I was in a semi-submersible speedboat and I was suddenly avoiding radar blind-fire, then what would I do?  

Yet it was a foolish thought. The effects are no good, right? If it were hull attached contact explosive you would have the twisted metal, the brimstone smell (mmm, it's been too long since I went shooting), and from what I am gathering there was none such, so it would be a limpet on a chain, which sounds ridiculous in my head as I type it. I remember you schooling me on the Munroe (not Monroe) effect; this water hammer/keel-snapper is sort of like a seaborne version, loosely speaking.

Well.....the formed jet of material that cuts into metal is similar, but here its water that forms the cutting agent and a gas bubble that supplies additional kinetic shock, hence water HAMMER.. 

A loose comparison, of course. One could as easily invoke the Misznay?Schardin (sp?) effect. Just an analogy.

As long as you understand that it?s a shock wave that drives a cutting agent through a fluid into a solid, then you?ve got the idea,  

So how far from the hull does this water hammer effect work? One meter, 10m, 30m? Was/is any test of local water chemistry viable, for reaction products? Might there be traces of the explosion on the seabed if the water is so shallow?

US Mark 9 DCs could crack some submarine pressure hulls as far away as ten to fifteen meters distant. Its an "It depends" kind of answer. How big is the charge, is it shaped, how tough is the target hull, etc? A bottom mine set at 40 meters could snap Cheonan in two. It would be a very large mine though.    

Then there should be a crater at the bottom, or at least explosive residue.

There would be a crater if it were a large bottom mine.

I am willing to believe it was an accident of some sort, and to hold conclusions till that's settled yea or nay, but DA doesn't convince me as he used to. He is too fond of being right so I'm afraid I suspect him of roasting facts to feed his conclusions. Does SK deploy any water hammer effect devices? That seems like it would narrow things down.

Note the underlined.

If you mean the RoKN corvette Cheonan, she carried depth charges and torpedoes. She was also capable in a pinch of laying mines tho0ugh this us not advertised as it is not the usual modern way to mine lay.

Were these of such type (metal enhanced water hammer effect devices)? Does RoK own such and did Cheonan carry them? (E.g., if the US were attacked with poison gas we would know it wasn't us as we have no chemwar program.) If the RoK have a weapon that would do this, it's possible it was FF (work accident, lol) or ND. If not, it's not .

The Cheonan carries US Mark 9 type depth charges. I don?t know if she has changed over to the domestic produced 12.75 inch torpedo, yet. If not, then she carries either the US or Italian version of the weapon.

A depth charge was a novel idea, guess that could fit with a premature; especially if they were having a mad minute off at seagulls, they might have (perhaps accidentally) dropped one at such preposterous depths, and without proper safety devices I guess it could have gone off. C.S. Forester writes of such an incident (fictional) that was barely averted in New York Harbor during WWII.

I floated that idea as one of the many "three weapon class effect plausibles". It, as a hypothesis, like the circle run torpedo and fatigued hull failure event that results in a magazine explosion set pf ideas, has many problems we mist solve before we list it as a viable cause. As of now, its a speculation.

 Maybe you could do one of your summary tim
 
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warpig       4/7/2010 4:29:32 PM



It would be the right thing for them to do.  Of course it risks the possibility of the North escalating into more warfare.  So what?  The North already decided to take the largest escalatory step in the first place by sneak attacking the frigate out of the blue in the closest thing that passes for peacetime over there.  I do not believe in advocating "stability" over enforcing proper behavior among nations, and I do believe there are worse things than war.  A blatant military attack should not be swept under the rug amid hand-wringing and sternly-worded demarches, and if that means it escalates into a war, then that's what it means.



Disagree. It's the wrong thing to do militarily and just as a practical matter. The Norks are in a bind and would probably benefit more from a war than we or the south would. Whatever damage we inflict they will return 10x over in terms of cost and lives affected. The propaganda victory would serve the Norks overall national objective which is regime survival. We don't have the resources to do more than an air and sea campaign there and at great cost in blood and treasure. I'm not against making them pay for it IF they did it but I am against opening up a campaign we aren't in a position to end. Thats the trap.

We go for limited objective, things escalate, then a limited retaliation turns into full on war. That's the danger. In order to take a risk like that we need to be in a position to see this through all the way. With the bulk of our ground components committed elsewhere and the current economic situation the timing isn't right for that. This isn't about a moral argument just a matter of practicality and choosing the best strategy to deal with the problem which is to cause political changes to the Norks ultimately.


 
To reiterate, I *never* said that's what "we" should do.  Each time I said that's what South Korea should do.  Frankly, I don't think the South should care if the North *might* benefit more from a war than the South would "benefit" or whether the North would then counter-strike/escalate, or whether the North would then find some way to inflict yet more damage than they already have, or whether the North *might* be able to spin the South's counterattack to better effect among some audience than they will spin what they've already done.  The only point that should count for the South is that the North already has inflicted (completely unprovoked) damage and such an attack is intolerable and necessitates nothing less than a military reaction, period.  Of course, like I said, the South should *also* permanently cut off all economic aid and trade, too.
 
Naturally, as an American, I have little interest in getting sucked into anything against the North that is anything less than balls-to-the-wall, ENDIT with finality once-and-for-all.  These last 60years of the South nursing off of our generosity are enough without us spending more troops and money on something that ultimately permits the status quo to remain.
 
 
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SantaClaws       4/7/2010 5:36:42 PM
Anyone who thinks that the North would benefit more from a war doesn't see the bigger picture. Any war with North Korea is basically an open invitation for another country to break their government and dispose of the old regime. I can say without hesitation that S. Korea, the US, Japan and even China are wanting to see the leadership change and all want sway with whatever government would replace it. If North Korea would benefit more from a war, then they would have already started one.
 
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Hamilcar    Just to update on the "birds".   4/7/2010 6:01:56 PM
 

Was Flock of Birds Really A North Korean Semi-Submersible?

Remember the claim that the ROK Navy fired at a flock of birds after the mysterious explosion destroyed the Cheonan?  Well some are saying that it could have been a North Korean semi-submersible instead:

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/_data/photo/2010/03/31224436.jpg" alt="" width="422" height="199" />

The South Korean Navy fired northward on the night of the Cheonan?s sinking at the order of the upper military chain of command, with orders to destroy a perceived threat on radar, a senior military official told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday.

The 1,200-ton patrol combat corvette Sokcho shot at an unidentified object after the Cheonan sank on Friday night near Baengnyeong Island in the Yellow Sea near the inter-Korean border. The National Defense Ministry later explained that the target on the radar was identified as a flock of birds. They did not disclose at the time that the order came from the upper military chain of command.

?At the time, the Sokcho was operating a mission in the nearby waters and rushed to the explosion site to assist the Cheonan,? said the military official. ?And it found an unidentified object moving fast toward the Northern Limit Line, and the military command ordered the Sokcho to fire its 76-millimeter guns.?

The Sokcho fired 130 shots toward the object 90 minutes after the Cheonan?s sinking.

?The command believed that the object was relevant to the sinking, so an order to shoot to destroy was made,? the source said. ?But the Sokcho made sure not to fire beyond the NLL.? The Northern Limit Line is the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea.

According to the source, the object still crossed the NLL and moved into North Korean waters. The military, therefore, concluded that it was a flock of birds. A Blue House official also said the conclusion was made because the movements were random on the radar.

A Navy specialist, however, raised skepticism, noting that the North could have deceived the South. ?Birds fly at the speed of 30 to 40 knots, and the speed is about the same as the North?s semi-submersibles,? he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. ?It could have been a deception tactic of the North.?

He said the North had infiltrated the South in the past by exploiting the limitations of the radar on ships such as the Cheonan and Sokcho, which is incapable of indicating the altitude of an object.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

 
 
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gf0012-aust       4/7/2010 6:56:54 PM

He said the North had infiltrated the South in the past by exploiting the limitations of the radar on ships such as the Cheonan and Sokcho, which is incapable of indicating the altitude of an object.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]
is this supposed to be proper analysis on their part?
in simple terms SWR is fundamentally 2 dimensional as its a target/track for non avian threats. the same problem exists for OTHR in isolation of other sympathetic capabilities (to enhance target/track)
 
if you are going to work in "patrol boat" pairs, then one asset is covering the airspace and one is covering surface and land - assuming that the fitouts exist.
 
and semi submersibles would struggle to do 40knots - there are some engineering "immovables" that are getting ignored.  lo-vis surface yes - semi-submersible no.
 


 
 
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Hamilcar    Fast exit.   4/7/2010 7:20:26 PM
I would not have highlighted it, if I didn't see problems. There is only two things that makes sense to me, either a  false target echo off the opposite shore line. (improbable) or a false target generated signal return by means as yet unknown.
 
Birds.... I just don't believe birds. Not in a situation for an aimed gunfire solution track that lasts more than a minute.. 
 
H. 
 
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VelocityVector       4/7/2010 7:28:01 PM

and semi submersibles would struggle to do 40knots - there are some engineering "immovables" that are getting ignored.  lo-vis surface yes - semi-submersible no.

Please consider:  h**p://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/8-14262.aspx

These Taedong semi-submersible craft are reportedly capable of submerging to nearly 2 atm (almost 60 ft) and quickly resurfacing.  Once on the surface, three speedboat motors are said to power their planing design in excess of 40kts.  They are equipped with retractable snorkel, radar mast, radio antennae, periscope and stern planes.  The distances, sea state and coastal cover involved in the Cheonan sinking ought to be well within Taedong capabilities and experienced, hardcore operators who know the area.  Anecdotal, I personally have driven small, fairly open planing designs in >3 meter swells, ~20kt gusting winds and frigid water; Taedong in comparison should be a relative treat.  I should not be surprised to learn these NorK semi-submersibles have been fitted with decoy launchers.  0.02

v^2
 
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