Nuke Nuke, Nuke of GURRRRRLLL, Nuke, Nuke, Nuke of GURRLLLLLLL

nekom: I really hope kim dong fatty goes too far this time.  No people should have to live like that.

Its looking like hes going to.

Maybe its the only way North Korea is going to get better, and the govt knows it. They cant just give up communism cold turkey, or simply hand the country over to the south...so they go out in a blaze of glory. The last bastion of hardline communism falls, and in the long run the people end up better off.

I'm not sure "fear" is the right word here. Not until the South Koreans give his threats more than a one-shoulder shrug, anyway.

Does N Korea have a good army?  Or would this be another Gulf War? (over in days)

somedude210: Best Korea has told Russia they might want to evacuate their embassy staff. It's in their Best interests, really

Same to the British Embassy.  Saying the "North Korean government would be unable to guarantee the safety of embassies and international organizations in the country in the event of conflict from April 10. "

stuhayes2010: Does N Korea have a good army?  Or would this be another Gulf War? (over in days)

North Korea have a large army - experts disagree as to the moral and capability of it, so it's hard to say how 'good' it might be in a shooting war.

stuhayes2010: Does N Korea have a good army?  Or would this be another Gulf War? (over in days)

Much like the Iraqi Republican Guard, NK has some elite units.  Those will be the ones who surrender in droves first.

stuhayes2010: Does N Korea have a good army?  Or would this be another Gulf War? (over in days)

Regardless of their technology it wouldn't be easy.  N Korea's active military is 1.1M with reserves estimated in the 8M range.  Even if half gave up immediately you're still talking an Army twice the size as the US.

stuhayes2010: Does N Korea have a good army?  Or would this be another Gulf War? (over in days)

It's irresponsible to ever assume a war would be over in days, but barring full scale Chinese assistance (which seems extraordinarily unlikely this time) they cannot fight a long term conventional war. They could assemble millions of riflemen who are likely well trained and dedicated fighters, so they might not collapse outright like the Iraqi army, but their equipment is older than what the Iraqis had in '91 and they have little food, ammo, or repair facilities. They're probably hungry today and certainly would be a week into battle when what few supply trucks they could muster have been eliminated by the vastly superior US/Allied air forces.

There could be significant Allied casualities, as well as SK/NK civilians, but they would pale in comparison to the number of dead NK soldiers at the hands of the USAF and USN.

bighairyguy: On the ground, they have tons of tanks and artiliary too.

Their tanks are T-55s and similar. We're talking about the worst equipment Saddam had in the Gulf War, which was no match for US technology 22 years ago. US firepower would completely and utterly destroy their army. The only question is how long it would take and how many casualties the NK would inflict while they go down. Would their soldiers fight to the last man and hide in the mountains like the Japanese did in the Pacific, or would they give up just to get a hot meal once they see all their equipment blown to pieces?

Has anyone bothered to interview his former schoolmates from that private school he attended?

KarmicDisaster: The generals are loading Un onto the missile right now. They are Unloading it.



/someone should shoop Kim's face onto that

GoodOmens: somedude210: Best Korea has told Russia they might want to evacuate their embassy staff. It's in their Best interests, really

Same to the British Embassy.  Saying the "North Korean government would be unable to guarantee the safety of embassies and international organizations in the country in the event of conflict from April 10. "

April 10?  So, are they telegraphing an official start of hostilities?
Sounds counter productive.

bighairyguy: The first things we always do is to wipe out their communications, air force and navy, that would happen very quickly. However, they have missiles and could do a lot of damage with those. On the ground, they have tons of tanks and artiliary too. If they choose to fight, that will take a while to subdue. Could be a big mess.

They have basically no fuel though.  That's the thing that makes me think it would be over fairly quickly.  I would expect die-hard NK soldiers to go on fighting for a while, but they'll be hard pressed to muster much more than dismounted infantry (and those soldiers are mostly stunted and/or starving).

WRT their artillery, a lot of their positions are fixed, and are in fact viewable on Google Earth (so you know the US military knows where they are too).  I don't expect that those fixed positions would last very long either---it's just a matter of us not running out of ammo to shoot at them, but between attack planes/helos, drones, cruise missiles, etc., I imagine we could silence most of their artillery reasonably fast.

The bigger concern is mobile missile launchers.  They might not be as easy to track, and some of them have enough range to hit Seoul from anywhere in NK (the few guns that NK has that could hit Seoul have to be stationed right along the DMZ in fairly hittable positions).  We'd want to prioritize taking those things out as quickly as possible.

I would expect a war on the Korean peninsula (barring significant Chinese/Russian intervention in favor of NK, which I think is unlikely) to be very bloody but over quickly.  The North just doesn't have the resources to sustain any kind of conflict.

KarmicDisaster: This armchair general says:
During the first 24 hrs, we would destroy their C&C, their air force, their power "grid", such as it is, any air defenses, and any fixed artillery positions in range of SK. Then with complete air superiority it would be a longer matter of just waiting for any vehicle or troops to move on a road and hitting that, maybe with hitting some fixed positions as they are discovered.  The hunkered down troops would have no way to resupply and no orders and no way to move; I'd just wait them out; they will make a mistake. This phase might take months, but why attack fixed positions, let nature take it's course.

Probably the safest course of action for SK and US military as well as SK civilians.  I would add to that though, that we'd want to get all of our assets focused on capturing and/or killing the various generals, Communist party leaders, and Kim himself.  NK's whole "pyramid scheme" is kind of held together by threats and power at the top, so decapitating the regime may facilitate things.

WegianWarrior: stuhayes2010: Does N Korea have a good army?  Or would this be another Gulf War? (over in days)

North Korea have a large army - experts disagree as to the moral and capability of it, so it's hard to say how 'good' it might be in a shooting war.

Morale-wise, the NK army is full od psychos. Raised their entire lives to die for Best leader.

Equipment wise, that's a question. Unless China has been sending them at least 80's era surplus, all NK has are 60's-era junk and whatever they could get smuggled in from Iran.

TXEric: GoodOmens: somedude210: Best Korea has told Russia they might want to evacuate their embassy staff. It's in their Best interests, really

Same to the British Embassy.  Saying the "North Korean government would be unable to guarantee the safety of embassies and international organizations in the country in the event of conflict from April 10. "

April 10?  So, are they telegraphing an official start of hostilities?
Sounds counter productive.

If I were a betting man I would say they are going to do a missile test on April 9th.

stuhayes2010: Does N Korea have a good army?  Or would this be another Gulf War? (over in days)


Given the recent discovery that wars cost money, no Democratic president would want to incurr another 2-3 Trillion under the table. That's best left to Republicans.

Un is actually excited by the Sequester.

KarmicDisaster: This armchair general says:
During the first 24 hrs, we would destroy their C&C, their air force, their power "grid", such as it is, any air defenses, and any fixed artillery positions in range of SK. Then with complete air superiority it would be a longer matter of just waiting for any vehicle or troops to move on a road and hitting that, maybe with hitting some fixed positions as they are discovered.  The hunkered down troops would have no way to resupply and no orders and no way to move; I'd just wait them out; they will make a mistake. This phase might take months, but why attack fixed positions, let nature take it's course.

This is all dependent on whether China intervenes (as required by their treaty). Unlike last time, China might not want to piss off their #1 debtor, who could use a war powers act to render all their debts to China null and void.

probesport: Sybarite: The current crisis, with its nuclear threats and Kim's lurid exhortations to his troops to "break the waists of the crazy enemies and totally cut their windpipes"

You have to watch out for those dangerous gyeok sul waist breaking techniques.

En gard, i'll let you try my wu-tang style.

that's nothing to fark with...

stuhayes2010: Does N Korea have a good army?  Or would this be another Gulf War? (over in days)

That's not the problem. The problem is that there is no good outcome for China. A peaceful reunification strengthens the US in a region where China is already sick of playing the underdog. A messy revolution sends waves of poverty stricken refugees into a region of China which is struggling to manage its existing populace. China really doesn't want western mining companies operating in NK. Even if all of those were resolved there's still an ideological question, for China, hanging over US actions in nominally Communist countries.

TV's Vinnie: Morale-wise, the NK army is full od psychos. Raised their entire lives to die for Best leader.

That's what we're meant to believe, but it's not like anyone has ever interviewed an NK soldier (who wasn't worried about getting executed for saying the wrong thing).  I mean, you might be right, and the propaganda might have totally worked on them, but I think it's also fairly possible that they'd happily surrender the moment their Commissar takes one to the head.

SlothB77: the average weight in lbs of the males in this army is about 115.

And they had to lower the minimum height for males to 5'0".  They're stunted as fark.  I'm amazed they can even lift AKs at this point.

BitwiseShift: Given the recent discovery that wars cost money, no Democratic president would want to incurr another 2-3 Trillion under the table. That's best left to Republicans.

I bet we could shake down Japan/SK for some assistance on that, given how happy they'd be about having NK dealt with.  Also,  we'd save a lot of money if we acted mainly in an air and naval support role for SK, and let them do a lot of the dirty work on the ground.  I'm not saying that we wouldn't have to put any (extra) soldiers into Korea, but it wouldn't be like Iraq where we were nearly going it alone.

KarmicDisaster: This armchair general says:
During the first 24 hrs, we would destroy their C&C, their air force, their power "grid", such as it is, any air defenses, and any fixed artillery positions in range of SK. Then with complete air superiority it would be a longer matter of just waiting for any vehicle or troops to move on a road and hitting that, maybe with hitting some fixed positions as they are discovered.  The hunkered down troops would have no way to resupply and no orders and no way to move; I'd just wait them out; they will make a mistake. This phase might take months, but why attack fixed positions, let nature take it's course.

I was just thinking we don't have any recent night vision footage of green people running away from their tanks and armored vehicles as they get shredded by an A10.  Can you do some of that, too?

HMS_Blinkin: it wouldn't be like Iraq where we were nearly going it alone

You ignore the coalition of the willing, such sacrifices made by great nations such as the kingdom of Tonga

Came here for the bacon. I was promised bacon.

/nom nom

nekom: I'd even go one further, take out the mausoleum of kim il sung, Juche tower, everything like that. Make sure they know that the lie is now finished, time to wake the fark up. That shock isn't going to feel good for many of them, but it's best to get it out of the way early on, make sure they know that the jig is up for good.

Id go one further

Stay the fark out of it, he is playing you
He is no threat to the US, never has been, never will be
He is taunting the US because he knows the US is immature as fark and will fall for these tricks.
Grow the fark up and stay the fark out of it, he is an attention whore with no real power, leave him to rot.
Dont Bomb him
Dont Feed him
Dont respond to him
If you do you are puppets to a farkwit, congratulations take your prize

Anyone asking about the size of the NK military needs to RTFA:

TV's Vinnie: China might not want to piss off their #1 debtor, who could use a war powers act to render all their debts to China null and void

They have already traded those with other nations, so if you null and void them you are going to piss off half the planet.

Fireproof: Anyone asking about the size of the NK military needs to RTFA:

That graphic is VERY misleading. There's simply NO comparison between the 4,100 tanks the North supposedly has versus the 2,400 the South has. They would likely not face each other because the North doesn't have fuel to run them and if they did, American/Korean airpower would destroy them.

The idea that the North Koreans have more "combat aircraft" than the South is laughable if technically true. The North's most numerous fighter is the MiG-21 and they still have MiG-17's in the inventory. The South and the Americans have F-16's, F-15's, and F-22's which would decimate any force the North could even get off the ground.

Slartibartfaster: Dont Bomb him
Dont Feed him
Dont respond to him

Which is exactly what the US is doing right now, and why Kim is ratcheting up the ante here.  We're speculating what would happen if NK strikes first.

A guy from China once told me he'd spent the required time in the army there but had only ever fired 5 shots from a weapon. He asked me how many times I had fired a gun (I've never been in the militar, but I'm from the rural U.S.), and not wanting to make him feel awkward, I lied and said about 200.

If that's the kind of underfunded training most of Best Korea's troops have, I wish them a safe journey across the Styx.