North Korea: Can the US Win?

[Taz]

This thread covers 3 basic areas:

• HARTS
• KN06
• Submarines laying sea-mines

There is a concept most people over-look when discussing anything strategy related: Theory of Victory.

Spoiler Alert, the US doesn't really have a theory of victory in North Korea, but we can get to that later. However, this problem is significant because without a theory of victory there is no way to determine what the appropriate tactical and strategic responses should be. Arguably the US theory of victory in North Korea is to maintain a status quo. A theory of victory framework people often think of is "complete destruction of North Korea" which I suppose means reunification of North Korea on US-South Korean terms unconditionally.

That goes out the window, because China would not accept this outcome, they do have a theory of victory, and if I can post URLs I could link to the lecture sources about what North Korea and Chinese Theory of Victory are. The reason this is worth mentioning is their Theory of Victory is far easier to achieve than the US's. Theirs is to simply keep the Status Quo, which is easy enough, because it's the situation that exists now, and the only alternatives seem to box the US into wars it can't afford or is unwilling to fight.

Enough of that though, on to the meat-and-potatoes. Can the US win a war with North Korea?

Why are the 3 bullet points significant?

1. HARTS - Hardened Artillery Sites. These sites form the nucleus of North Korea's visible strategy to deal with US-ROK forces. In brief, North Korean corps are 2x larger than US corps, and are half comprised of artillery units. What this means is that each corps is expected to act independently with a common objective, like links in a chain, regardless of any command or control in place. North Korea chose this operational strategy because they expected that their top leadership would be decapitated, a decapitating strike will not do anything though to stop North Korea's corps from acting independently and working toward their objectives.
   
   The HARTS themselves form the stronghold around which these Corps and these Artillery units exist. They are frequently built, rebuilt and relocated, and they face away (to the North) from the DMZ. They are positional warfare (think WW1 trench warfare) on steroids. Their survivability against bombing is regarded as high.
   
   Time and space is critical in warfighting, and HARTS buys a lot of time and space. The US for instance may have 500 fighter-bombers in theater. If a turn around time for their sorties is 1 hour, that's only 500 sorties an hour. If a HARTS can survive several hits, and if there are 10,000 HARTS, you can quickly see that these bombing sorties are INSUFFICIENT to deal with the amount of artillery shells North Korea can fire at South Korea and the DMZ.
   
   This gives the North Koreans a significant advantage in forcing the US-ROK into a positional war, a trench war, along the DMZ.
   
   These HARTS extend up the coast line, reducing the possibility of a meaningful amphibious landing. But will be further reinforced by sea-mines, which will be discussed in #3.
   
   
2. KN06 - A more modern, S-300, phased array radar version of anti-Air missiles. This missile is arguably capable of tracking F-22, F-35, and possibly can be incorporated with civilian Air Traffic radars to track B-2 bombers also. The specifics on the KN06 are difficult to figure out (I just couldn't find good available sources on it specifically) looks like the general assumption is it will perform like the S-300, but that the phased array radar is the critical piece and it is difficult to tell but assumed that it is similar in capability of Nebo-M. But the Nebo-M system is a 3 part system capable of tracking B-2 stealth. Likely the North Koreans have the ability to track complex stealth targets like F-22, and F-35. But not to engage B-2s and would have to rely upon a different radar for that that is not integrated to their fire-control systems.
   
   The effectiveness therefore is hard to determine, but the North Koreans are well trained. If their systems are effective, they will be used and used well.
   
   This again, buys time and space for their decision process and their ground armies.
   
   It blunts the impact of US-ROK air forces in striking North Korean targets especially command and control targets which are critical.
   
   It rules out almost completely any chance at destroying North Korea's strategic targets such as Nuclear tipped missiles.
   
   Us Air supremacy may be possible, but would take more time until the KN06 threat is dealt with.
   
   
3. Submarine laid Sea-Mines. This threat is an overlooked mainstay of North Korean strategy. They have 50,000 mines that are modern, in the Korean War they used mines including deep sea bottom laying magnetic activated mines which were of Soviet design. Now they have a more robust and modern equivalent in mine technology that can be most certainly based on China and Russia designs.
   
   The problem the North Koreans and Russians faced in the Korean war was laying the mines when the US had blue-water supremacy. They could effectively mine harbors and prevent invasions like at Wonsan, but they had trouble layering mine fields in depth.
   
   It is self-evident that North Korea's reliance upon a submarine that can't be useful in anti-submarine and surface fleet engagements, but is great at creeping and very silent when running at only a few knots, that their Submarines are intended to circumvent this problem and lay sea-mines in open waters or maybe more strategically.
   
   Such as mining the straits of Korea and Japan, and mining further out on the sea-beds in order to try and do as much threat to the US Navy.
   
   North Korea probably considers that the US is much less likely to tolerate Naval losses than air or ground force casualties. Naval losses are so dramatic and singular, and the US has had barely any damage done by enemy action to its Navy since WW2 that losing a troop ship killing 10,000 marines to a sea-mine would be unfathomable casualty rate in modern US calculation.
   
   Because of this, and experience in Korea shows, the US treats mines like nuclear weapons, and spends all its efforts on ensuring mine-sweeping is finished before moving in troop ships.
   
   This is so significant that it delayed an invasion in Wonsan by 2 weeks, afterwhich the invasion was no longer necessary because of ground developments.
   
   Putting it all together
   
   
   So what does all this mean?
   
   There's a lot of hear-say about what the US can do in North Korea, but the real facts on the ground is...not much.
   
   Going to war in North Korea will be starting a WW1-type war, which was how the Korean war ended, stuck in trenches on the now-DMZ. The geography favors this. And the only way around this is to do amphibious landings, which North Korea has coastal defenses in depth, and multiplied by the effect of sea-mines, which they can lay more effectively using their Submarine's only advantage, stealth.
   
   The air power is thus the US-ROK next best bet, but it is much more limited than it was in Iraq or in the middle east in general, where the US has complete supremacy. At least in the beginning of the war, the skies would be contested because of the KN06. Until those threats have spent their ammunition (North Korea has around 450 missiles), or those threats are destroyed, they will make sorties very dangerous.
   
   There is not enough B52 and B-2s to make any meaningful conventional impact. Their sortie turnarounds are enormous, a B52 flying out of Guam will take 1 full day to do a bombing run.
   
   North Korea has 10s of thousands of targets to bomb. So you can see how these turn around times are not useful in large scale action.
   
   Conclusion

Because of this, I think the US cannot win a war in North Korea. Because this does not meet the criteria of any reasonable US "theory of victory". There is no middle ground where the US goes to war and North Korea conditionally surrenders like the Emperor of Japan, keeping their President Kim Jong Un, but losing their Nuclear Weapons, and returning to a Status Quo.

Since that theory of victory is off the table, it is arguable that given the above problems, the US cannot achieve its only practical theory of victory, total destruction of North Korea, with any reasonable cost.

The cost is so enormous, without factoring in variables such as Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear weapons.

North Korea can Nuke Guam, can Nuke Hawaii, this delays US response even further.

Can North Korean forces push into South Korea? If there's no positional war, can they push to Busan?

If they push to Busan can the US reinforce the Peninsula or will Sea-mines have too great an impact?

Etc.

These problems alone raise the costs so high, that the American people would not tolerate a victory and the US economy may not be able to suffer it.

This conventional problem alone is why North Korea has not been dealt with in 50 years, and why it won't be dealt with now except by a madman who clearly has no understanding of Strategy, costs, and what the end-game should look like in the first place.

The US hasn't won a war since WWII, and even then we needed lots of help. So no, The US can't win in Korea, the South will be destroyed.

so if there still was a South Vietnam after the Vietnam war, that would've been a loss?? !!

There isn’t so it’s a loss. Big time.

 

[harmonica]

This thread covers 3 basic areas:

• HARTS
• KN06
• Submarines laying sea-mines

There is a concept most people over-look when discussing anything strategy related: Theory of Victory.

Spoiler Alert, the US doesn't really have a theory of victory in North Korea, but we can get to that later. However, this problem is significant because without a theory of victory there is no way to determine what the appropriate tactical and strategic responses should be. Arguably the US theory of victory in North Korea is to maintain a status quo. A theory of victory framework people often think of is "complete destruction of North Korea" which I suppose means reunification of North Korea on US-South Korean terms unconditionally.

That goes out the window, because China would not accept this outcome, they do have a theory of victory, and if I can post URLs I could link to the lecture sources about what North Korea and Chinese Theory of Victory are. The reason this is worth mentioning is their Theory of Victory is far easier to achieve than the US's. Theirs is to simply keep the Status Quo, which is easy enough, because it's the situation that exists now, and the only alternatives seem to box the US into wars it can't afford or is unwilling to fight.

Enough of that though, on to the meat-and-potatoes. Can the US win a war with North Korea?

Why are the 3 bullet points significant?

1. HARTS - Hardened Artillery Sites. These sites form the nucleus of North Korea's visible strategy to deal with US-ROK forces. In brief, North Korean corps are 2x larger than US corps, and are half comprised of artillery units. What this means is that each corps is expected to act independently with a common objective, like links in a chain, regardless of any command or control in place. North Korea chose this operational strategy because they expected that their top leadership would be decapitated, a decapitating strike will not do anything though to stop North Korea's corps from acting independently and working toward their objectives.
   
   The HARTS themselves form the stronghold around which these Corps and these Artillery units exist. They are frequently built, rebuilt and relocated, and they face away (to the North) from the DMZ. They are positional warfare (think WW1 trench warfare) on steroids. Their survivability against bombing is regarded as high.
   
   Time and space is critical in warfighting, and HARTS buys a lot of time and space. The US for instance may have 500 fighter-bombers in theater. If a turn around time for their sorties is 1 hour, that's only 500 sorties an hour. If a HARTS can survive several hits, and if there are 10,000 HARTS, you can quickly see that these bombing sorties are INSUFFICIENT to deal with the amount of artillery shells North Korea can fire at South Korea and the DMZ.
   
   This gives the North Koreans a significant advantage in forcing the US-ROK into a positional war, a trench war, along the DMZ.
   
   These HARTS extend up the coast line, reducing the possibility of a meaningful amphibious landing. But will be further reinforced by sea-mines, which will be discussed in #3.
   
   
2. KN06 - A more modern, S-300, phased array radar version of anti-Air missiles. This missile is arguably capable of tracking F-22, F-35, and possibly can be incorporated with civilian Air Traffic radars to track B-2 bombers also. The specifics on the KN06 are difficult to figure out (I just couldn't find good available sources on it specifically) looks like the general assumption is it will perform like the S-300, but that the phased array radar is the critical piece and it is difficult to tell but assumed that it is similar in capability of Nebo-M. But the Nebo-M system is a 3 part system capable of tracking B-2 stealth. Likely the North Koreans have the ability to track complex stealth targets like F-22, and F-35. But not to engage B-2s and would have to rely upon a different radar for that that is not integrated to their fire-control systems.
   
   The effectiveness therefore is hard to determine, but the North Koreans are well trained. If their systems are effective, they will be used and used well.
   
   This again, buys time and space for their decision process and their ground armies.
   
   It blunts the impact of US-ROK air forces in striking North Korean targets especially command and control targets which are critical.
   
   It rules out almost completely any chance at destroying North Korea's strategic targets such as Nuclear tipped missiles.
   
   Us Air supremacy may be possible, but would take more time until the KN06 threat is dealt with.
   
   
3. Submarine laid Sea-Mines. This threat is an overlooked mainstay of North Korean strategy. They have 50,000 mines that are modern, in the Korean War they used mines including deep sea bottom laying magnetic activated mines which were of Soviet design. Now they have a more robust and modern equivalent in mine technology that can be most certainly based on China and Russia designs.
   
   The problem the North Koreans and Russians faced in the Korean war was laying the mines when the US had blue-water supremacy. They could effectively mine harbors and prevent invasions like at Wonsan, but they had trouble layering mine fields in depth.
   
   It is self-evident that North Korea's reliance upon a submarine that can't be useful in anti-submarine and surface fleet engagements, but is great at creeping and very silent when running at only a few knots, that their Submarines are intended to circumvent this problem and lay sea-mines in open waters or maybe more strategically.
   
   Such as mining the straits of Korea and Japan, and mining further out on the sea-beds in order to try and do as much threat to the US Navy.
   
   North Korea probably considers that the US is much less likely to tolerate Naval losses than air or ground force casualties. Naval losses are so dramatic and singular, and the US has had barely any damage done by enemy action to its Navy since WW2 that losing a troop ship killing 10,000 marines to a sea-mine would be unfathomable casualty rate in modern US calculation.
   
   Because of this, and experience in Korea shows, the US treats mines like nuclear weapons, and spends all its efforts on ensuring mine-sweeping is finished before moving in troop ships.
   
   This is so significant that it delayed an invasion in Wonsan by 2 weeks, afterwhich the invasion was no longer necessary because of ground developments.
   
   Putting it all together
   
   
   So what does all this mean?
   
   There's a lot of hear-say about what the US can do in North Korea, but the real facts on the ground is...not much.
   
   Going to war in North Korea will be starting a WW1-type war, which was how the Korean war ended, stuck in trenches on the now-DMZ. The geography favors this. And the only way around this is to do amphibious landings, which North Korea has coastal defenses in depth, and multiplied by the effect of sea-mines, which they can lay more effectively using their Submarine's only advantage, stealth.
   
   The air power is thus the US-ROK next best bet, but it is much more limited than it was in Iraq or in the middle east in general, where the US has complete supremacy. At least in the beginning of the war, the skies would be contested because of the KN06. Until those threats have spent their ammunition (North Korea has around 450 missiles), or those threats are destroyed, they will make sorties very dangerous.
   
   There is not enough B52 and B-2s to make any meaningful conventional impact. Their sortie turnarounds are enormous, a B52 flying out of Guam will take 1 full day to do a bombing run.
   
   North Korea has 10s of thousands of targets to bomb. So you can see how these turn around times are not useful in large scale action.
   
   Conclusion

Because of this, I think the US cannot win a war in North Korea. Because this does not meet the criteria of any reasonable US "theory of victory". There is no middle ground where the US goes to war and North Korea conditionally surrenders like the Emperor of Japan, keeping their President Kim Jong Un, but losing their Nuclear Weapons, and returning to a Status Quo.

Since that theory of victory is off the table, it is arguable that given the above problems, the US cannot achieve its only practical theory of victory, total destruction of North Korea, with any reasonable cost.

The cost is so enormous, without factoring in variables such as Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear weapons.

North Korea can Nuke Guam, can Nuke Hawaii, this delays US response even further.

Can North Korean forces push into South Korea? If there's no positional war, can they push to Busan?

If they push to Busan can the US reinforce the Peninsula or will Sea-mines have too great an impact?

Etc.

These problems alone raise the costs so high, that the American people would not tolerate a victory and the US economy may not be able to suffer it.

This conventional problem alone is why North Korea has not been dealt with in 50 years, and why it won't be dealt with now except by a madman who clearly has no understanding of Strategy, costs, and what the end-game should look like in the first place.

The US hasn't won a war since WWII, and even then we needed lots of help. So no, The US can't win in Korea, the South will be destroyed.

so if there still was a South Vietnam after the Vietnam war, that would've been a loss?? !!

There isn’t so it’s a loss. Big time.

exactly--so Korea = win !!!!!
we wanted a SVietnam--no SVN = loss
so the opposite must be a win
we want a SKorea-- we get it = win

 

[Taz]

This thread covers 3 basic areas:

• HARTS
• KN06
• Submarines laying sea-mines

There is a concept most people over-look when discussing anything strategy related: Theory of Victory.

Spoiler Alert, the US doesn't really have a theory of victory in North Korea, but we can get to that later. However, this problem is significant because without a theory of victory there is no way to determine what the appropriate tactical and strategic responses should be. Arguably the US theory of victory in North Korea is to maintain a status quo. A theory of victory framework people often think of is "complete destruction of North Korea" which I suppose means reunification of North Korea on US-South Korean terms unconditionally.

That goes out the window, because China would not accept this outcome, they do have a theory of victory, and if I can post URLs I could link to the lecture sources about what North Korea and Chinese Theory of Victory are. The reason this is worth mentioning is their Theory of Victory is far easier to achieve than the US's. Theirs is to simply keep the Status Quo, which is easy enough, because it's the situation that exists now, and the only alternatives seem to box the US into wars it can't afford or is unwilling to fight.

Enough of that though, on to the meat-and-potatoes. Can the US win a war with North Korea?

Why are the 3 bullet points significant?

1. HARTS - Hardened Artillery Sites. These sites form the nucleus of North Korea's visible strategy to deal with US-ROK forces. In brief, North Korean corps are 2x larger than US corps, and are half comprised of artillery units. What this means is that each corps is expected to act independently with a common objective, like links in a chain, regardless of any command or control in place. North Korea chose this operational strategy because they expected that their top leadership would be decapitated, a decapitating strike will not do anything though to stop North Korea's corps from acting independently and working toward their objectives.
   
   The HARTS themselves form the stronghold around which these Corps and these Artillery units exist. They are frequently built, rebuilt and relocated, and they face away (to the North) from the DMZ. They are positional warfare (think WW1 trench warfare) on steroids. Their survivability against bombing is regarded as high.
   
   Time and space is critical in warfighting, and HARTS buys a lot of time and space. The US for instance may have 500 fighter-bombers in theater. If a turn around time for their sorties is 1 hour, that's only 500 sorties an hour. If a HARTS can survive several hits, and if there are 10,000 HARTS, you can quickly see that these bombing sorties are INSUFFICIENT to deal with the amount of artillery shells North Korea can fire at South Korea and the DMZ.
   
   This gives the North Koreans a significant advantage in forcing the US-ROK into a positional war, a trench war, along the DMZ.
   
   These HARTS extend up the coast line, reducing the possibility of a meaningful amphibious landing. But will be further reinforced by sea-mines, which will be discussed in #3.
   
   
2. KN06 - A more modern, S-300, phased array radar version of anti-Air missiles. This missile is arguably capable of tracking F-22, F-35, and possibly can be incorporated with civilian Air Traffic radars to track B-2 bombers also. The specifics on the KN06 are difficult to figure out (I just couldn't find good available sources on it specifically) looks like the general assumption is it will perform like the S-300, but that the phased array radar is the critical piece and it is difficult to tell but assumed that it is similar in capability of Nebo-M. But the Nebo-M system is a 3 part system capable of tracking B-2 stealth. Likely the North Koreans have the ability to track complex stealth targets like F-22, and F-35. But not to engage B-2s and would have to rely upon a different radar for that that is not integrated to their fire-control systems.
   
   The effectiveness therefore is hard to determine, but the North Koreans are well trained. If their systems are effective, they will be used and used well.
   
   This again, buys time and space for their decision process and their ground armies.
   
   It blunts the impact of US-ROK air forces in striking North Korean targets especially command and control targets which are critical.
   
   It rules out almost completely any chance at destroying North Korea's strategic targets such as Nuclear tipped missiles.
   
   Us Air supremacy may be possible, but would take more time until the KN06 threat is dealt with.
   
   
3. Submarine laid Sea-Mines. This threat is an overlooked mainstay of North Korean strategy. They have 50,000 mines that are modern, in the Korean War they used mines including deep sea bottom laying magnetic activated mines which were of Soviet design. Now they have a more robust and modern equivalent in mine technology that can be most certainly based on China and Russia designs.
   
   The problem the North Koreans and Russians faced in the Korean war was laying the mines when the US had blue-water supremacy. They could effectively mine harbors and prevent invasions like at Wonsan, but they had trouble layering mine fields in depth.
   
   It is self-evident that North Korea's reliance upon a submarine that can't be useful in anti-submarine and surface fleet engagements, but is great at creeping and very silent when running at only a few knots, that their Submarines are intended to circumvent this problem and lay sea-mines in open waters or maybe more strategically.
   
   Such as mining the straits of Korea and Japan, and mining further out on the sea-beds in order to try and do as much threat to the US Navy.
   
   North Korea probably considers that the US is much less likely to tolerate Naval losses than air or ground force casualties. Naval losses are so dramatic and singular, and the US has had barely any damage done by enemy action to its Navy since WW2 that losing a troop ship killing 10,000 marines to a sea-mine would be unfathomable casualty rate in modern US calculation.
   
   Because of this, and experience in Korea shows, the US treats mines like nuclear weapons, and spends all its efforts on ensuring mine-sweeping is finished before moving in troop ships.
   
   This is so significant that it delayed an invasion in Wonsan by 2 weeks, afterwhich the invasion was no longer necessary because of ground developments.
   
   Putting it all together
   
   
   So what does all this mean?
   
   There's a lot of hear-say about what the US can do in North Korea, but the real facts on the ground is...not much.
   
   Going to war in North Korea will be starting a WW1-type war, which was how the Korean war ended, stuck in trenches on the now-DMZ. The geography favors this. And the only way around this is to do amphibious landings, which North Korea has coastal defenses in depth, and multiplied by the effect of sea-mines, which they can lay more effectively using their Submarine's only advantage, stealth.
   
   The air power is thus the US-ROK next best bet, but it is much more limited than it was in Iraq or in the middle east in general, where the US has complete supremacy. At least in the beginning of the war, the skies would be contested because of the KN06. Until those threats have spent their ammunition (North Korea has around 450 missiles), or those threats are destroyed, they will make sorties very dangerous.
   
   There is not enough B52 and B-2s to make any meaningful conventional impact. Their sortie turnarounds are enormous, a B52 flying out of Guam will take 1 full day to do a bombing run.
   
   North Korea has 10s of thousands of targets to bomb. So you can see how these turn around times are not useful in large scale action.
   
   Conclusion

Because of this, I think the US cannot win a war in North Korea. Because this does not meet the criteria of any reasonable US "theory of victory". There is no middle ground where the US goes to war and North Korea conditionally surrenders like the Emperor of Japan, keeping their President Kim Jong Un, but losing their Nuclear Weapons, and returning to a Status Quo.

Since that theory of victory is off the table, it is arguable that given the above problems, the US cannot achieve its only practical theory of victory, total destruction of North Korea, with any reasonable cost.

The cost is so enormous, without factoring in variables such as Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear weapons.

North Korea can Nuke Guam, can Nuke Hawaii, this delays US response even further.

Can North Korean forces push into South Korea? If there's no positional war, can they push to Busan?

If they push to Busan can the US reinforce the Peninsula or will Sea-mines have too great an impact?

Etc.

These problems alone raise the costs so high, that the American people would not tolerate a victory and the US economy may not be able to suffer it.

This conventional problem alone is why North Korea has not been dealt with in 50 years, and why it won't be dealt with now except by a madman who clearly has no understanding of Strategy, costs, and what the end-game should look like in the first place.

The US hasn't won a war since WWII, and even then we needed lots of help. So no, The US can't win in Korea, the South will be destroyed.

so if there still was a South Vietnam after the Vietnam war, that would've been a loss?? !!

There isn’t so it’s a loss. Big time.

exactly--so Korea = win !!!!!
we wanted a SVietnam--no SVN = loss
so the opposite must be a win
we want a SKorea-- we get it = win

You forgot one small detail, the war with NK isn't over, as no armistice or anything like that was ever signed. So we're at war with a country whose population is starving and we still can't win, we just sit around waiting for them to nuke up so they can really hurt us.

 

[harmonica]

This thread covers 3 basic areas:

• HARTS
• KN06
• Submarines laying sea-mines

There is a concept most people over-look when discussing anything strategy related: Theory of Victory.

Spoiler Alert, the US doesn't really have a theory of victory in North Korea, but we can get to that later. However, this problem is significant because without a theory of victory there is no way to determine what the appropriate tactical and strategic responses should be. Arguably the US theory of victory in North Korea is to maintain a status quo. A theory of victory framework people often think of is "complete destruction of North Korea" which I suppose means reunification of North Korea on US-South Korean terms unconditionally.

That goes out the window, because China would not accept this outcome, they do have a theory of victory, and if I can post URLs I could link to the lecture sources about what North Korea and Chinese Theory of Victory are. The reason this is worth mentioning is their Theory of Victory is far easier to achieve than the US's. Theirs is to simply keep the Status Quo, which is easy enough, because it's the situation that exists now, and the only alternatives seem to box the US into wars it can't afford or is unwilling to fight.

Enough of that though, on to the meat-and-potatoes. Can the US win a war with North Korea?

Why are the 3 bullet points significant?

1. HARTS - Hardened Artillery Sites. These sites form the nucleus of North Korea's visible strategy to deal with US-ROK forces. In brief, North Korean corps are 2x larger than US corps, and are half comprised of artillery units. What this means is that each corps is expected to act independently with a common objective, like links in a chain, regardless of any command or control in place. North Korea chose this operational strategy because they expected that their top leadership would be decapitated, a decapitating strike will not do anything though to stop North Korea's corps from acting independently and working toward their objectives.
   
   The HARTS themselves form the stronghold around which these Corps and these Artillery units exist. They are frequently built, rebuilt and relocated, and they face away (to the North) from the DMZ. They are positional warfare (think WW1 trench warfare) on steroids. Their survivability against bombing is regarded as high.
   
   Time and space is critical in warfighting, and HARTS buys a lot of time and space. The US for instance may have 500 fighter-bombers in theater. If a turn around time for their sorties is 1 hour, that's only 500 sorties an hour. If a HARTS can survive several hits, and if there are 10,000 HARTS, you can quickly see that these bombing sorties are INSUFFICIENT to deal with the amount of artillery shells North Korea can fire at South Korea and the DMZ.
   
   This gives the North Koreans a significant advantage in forcing the US-ROK into a positional war, a trench war, along the DMZ.
   
   These HARTS extend up the coast line, reducing the possibility of a meaningful amphibious landing. But will be further reinforced by sea-mines, which will be discussed in #3.
   
   
2. KN06 - A more modern, S-300, phased array radar version of anti-Air missiles. This missile is arguably capable of tracking F-22, F-35, and possibly can be incorporated with civilian Air Traffic radars to track B-2 bombers also. The specifics on the KN06 are difficult to figure out (I just couldn't find good available sources on it specifically) looks like the general assumption is it will perform like the S-300, but that the phased array radar is the critical piece and it is difficult to tell but assumed that it is similar in capability of Nebo-M. But the Nebo-M system is a 3 part system capable of tracking B-2 stealth. Likely the North Koreans have the ability to track complex stealth targets like F-22, and F-35. But not to engage B-2s and would have to rely upon a different radar for that that is not integrated to their fire-control systems.
   
   The effectiveness therefore is hard to determine, but the North Koreans are well trained. If their systems are effective, they will be used and used well.
   
   This again, buys time and space for their decision process and their ground armies.
   
   It blunts the impact of US-ROK air forces in striking North Korean targets especially command and control targets which are critical.
   
   It rules out almost completely any chance at destroying North Korea's strategic targets such as Nuclear tipped missiles.
   
   Us Air supremacy may be possible, but would take more time until the KN06 threat is dealt with.
   
   
3. Submarine laid Sea-Mines. This threat is an overlooked mainstay of North Korean strategy. They have 50,000 mines that are modern, in the Korean War they used mines including deep sea bottom laying magnetic activated mines which were of Soviet design. Now they have a more robust and modern equivalent in mine technology that can be most certainly based on China and Russia designs.
   
   The problem the North Koreans and Russians faced in the Korean war was laying the mines when the US had blue-water supremacy. They could effectively mine harbors and prevent invasions like at Wonsan, but they had trouble layering mine fields in depth.
   
   It is self-evident that North Korea's reliance upon a submarine that can't be useful in anti-submarine and surface fleet engagements, but is great at creeping and very silent when running at only a few knots, that their Submarines are intended to circumvent this problem and lay sea-mines in open waters or maybe more strategically.
   
   Such as mining the straits of Korea and Japan, and mining further out on the sea-beds in order to try and do as much threat to the US Navy.
   
   North Korea probably considers that the US is much less likely to tolerate Naval losses than air or ground force casualties. Naval losses are so dramatic and singular, and the US has had barely any damage done by enemy action to its Navy since WW2 that losing a troop ship killing 10,000 marines to a sea-mine would be unfathomable casualty rate in modern US calculation.
   
   Because of this, and experience in Korea shows, the US treats mines like nuclear weapons, and spends all its efforts on ensuring mine-sweeping is finished before moving in troop ships.
   
   This is so significant that it delayed an invasion in Wonsan by 2 weeks, afterwhich the invasion was no longer necessary because of ground developments.
   
   Putting it all together
   
   
   So what does all this mean?
   
   There's a lot of hear-say about what the US can do in North Korea, but the real facts on the ground is...not much.
   
   Going to war in North Korea will be starting a WW1-type war, which was how the Korean war ended, stuck in trenches on the now-DMZ. The geography favors this. And the only way around this is to do amphibious landings, which North Korea has coastal defenses in depth, and multiplied by the effect of sea-mines, which they can lay more effectively using their Submarine's only advantage, stealth.
   
   The air power is thus the US-ROK next best bet, but it is much more limited than it was in Iraq or in the middle east in general, where the US has complete supremacy. At least in the beginning of the war, the skies would be contested because of the KN06. Until those threats have spent their ammunition (North Korea has around 450 missiles), or those threats are destroyed, they will make sorties very dangerous.
   
   There is not enough B52 and B-2s to make any meaningful conventional impact. Their sortie turnarounds are enormous, a B52 flying out of Guam will take 1 full day to do a bombing run.
   
   North Korea has 10s of thousands of targets to bomb. So you can see how these turn around times are not useful in large scale action.
   
   Conclusion

Because of this, I think the US cannot win a war in North Korea. Because this does not meet the criteria of any reasonable US "theory of victory". There is no middle ground where the US goes to war and North Korea conditionally surrenders like the Emperor of Japan, keeping their President Kim Jong Un, but losing their Nuclear Weapons, and returning to a Status Quo.

Since that theory of victory is off the table, it is arguable that given the above problems, the US cannot achieve its only practical theory of victory, total destruction of North Korea, with any reasonable cost.

The cost is so enormous, without factoring in variables such as Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear weapons.

North Korea can Nuke Guam, can Nuke Hawaii, this delays US response even further.

Can North Korean forces push into South Korea? If there's no positional war, can they push to Busan?

If they push to Busan can the US reinforce the Peninsula or will Sea-mines have too great an impact?

Etc.

These problems alone raise the costs so high, that the American people would not tolerate a victory and the US economy may not be able to suffer it.

This conventional problem alone is why North Korea has not been dealt with in 50 years, and why it won't be dealt with now except by a madman who clearly has no understanding of Strategy, costs, and what the end-game should look like in the first place.

The US hasn't won a war since WWII, and even then we needed lots of help. So no, The US can't win in Korea, the South will be destroyed.

so if there still was a South Vietnam after the Vietnam war, that would've been a loss?? !!

There isn’t so it’s a loss. Big time.

exactly--so Korea = win !!!!!
we wanted a SVietnam--no SVN = loss
so the opposite must be a win
we want a SKorea-- we get it = win

You forgot one small detail, the war with NK isn't over, as no armistice or anything like that was ever signed. So we're at war with a country whose population is starving and we still can't win, we just sit around waiting for them to nuke up so they can really hurt us.

you must not read the posts--PG1 ceasefire..Arab-Israeli Wars -ceasefires
a lot of these wars end in ceasefires --that doesn't mean there is not a winner-loser

 

[dannyboys]

This thread covers 3 basic areas:

• HARTS
• KN06
• Submarines laying sea-mines

There is a concept most people over-look when discussing anything strategy related: Theory of Victory.

Spoiler Alert, the US doesn't really have a theory of victory in North Korea, but we can get to that later. However, this problem is significant because without a theory of victory there is no way to determine what the appropriate tactical and strategic responses should be. Arguably the US theory of victory in North Korea is to maintain a status quo. A theory of victory framework people often think of is "complete destruction of North Korea" which I suppose means reunification of North Korea on US-South Korean terms unconditionally.

That goes out the window, because China would not accept this outcome, they do have a theory of victory, and if I can post URLs I could link to the lecture sources about what North Korea and Chinese Theory of Victory are. The reason this is worth mentioning is their Theory of Victory is far easier to achieve than the US's. Theirs is to simply keep the Status Quo, which is easy enough, because it's the situation that exists now, and the only alternatives seem to box the US into wars it can't afford or is unwilling to fight.

Enough of that though, on to the meat-and-potatoes. Can the US win a war with North Korea?

Why are the 3 bullet points significant?

1. HARTS - Hardened Artillery Sites. These sites form the nucleus of North Korea's visible strategy to deal with US-ROK forces. In brief, North Korean corps are 2x larger than US corps, and are half comprised of artillery units. What this means is that each corps is expected to act independently with a common objective, like links in a chain, regardless of any command or control in place. North Korea chose this operational strategy because they expected that their top leadership would be decapitated, a decapitating strike will not do anything though to stop North Korea's corps from acting independently and working toward their objectives.
   
   The HARTS themselves form the stronghold around which these Corps and these Artillery units exist. They are frequently built, rebuilt and relocated, and they face away (to the North) from the DMZ. They are positional warfare (think WW1 trench warfare) on steroids. Their survivability against bombing is regarded as high.
   
   Time and space is critical in warfighting, and HARTS buys a lot of time and space. The US for instance may have 500 fighter-bombers in theater. If a turn around time for their sorties is 1 hour, that's only 500 sorties an hour. If a HARTS can survive several hits, and if there are 10,000 HARTS, you can quickly see that these bombing sorties are INSUFFICIENT to deal with the amount of artillery shells North Korea can fire at South Korea and the DMZ.
   
   This gives the North Koreans a significant advantage in forcing the US-ROK into a positional war, a trench war, along the DMZ.
   
   These HARTS extend up the coast line, reducing the possibility of a meaningful amphibious landing. But will be further reinforced by sea-mines, which will be discussed in #3.
   
   
2. KN06 - A more modern, S-300, phased array radar version of anti-Air missiles. This missile is arguably capable of tracking F-22, F-35, and possibly can be incorporated with civilian Air Traffic radars to track B-2 bombers also. The specifics on the KN06 are difficult to figure out (I just couldn't find good available sources on it specifically) looks like the general assumption is it will perform like the S-300, but that the phased array radar is the critical piece and it is difficult to tell but assumed that it is similar in capability of Nebo-M. But the Nebo-M system is a 3 part system capable of tracking B-2 stealth. Likely the North Koreans have the ability to track complex stealth targets like F-22, and F-35. But not to engage B-2s and would have to rely upon a different radar for that that is not integrated to their fire-control systems.
   
   The effectiveness therefore is hard to determine, but the North Koreans are well trained. If their systems are effective, they will be used and used well.
   
   This again, buys time and space for their decision process and their ground armies.
   
   It blunts the impact of US-ROK air forces in striking North Korean targets especially command and control targets which are critical.
   
   It rules out almost completely any chance at destroying North Korea's strategic targets such as Nuclear tipped missiles.
   
   Us Air supremacy may be possible, but would take more time until the KN06 threat is dealt with.
   
   
3. Submarine laid Sea-Mines. This threat is an overlooked mainstay of North Korean strategy. They have 50,000 mines that are modern, in the Korean War they used mines including deep sea bottom laying magnetic activated mines which were of Soviet design. Now they have a more robust and modern equivalent in mine technology that can be most certainly based on China and Russia designs.
   
   The problem the North Koreans and Russians faced in the Korean war was laying the mines when the US had blue-water supremacy. They could effectively mine harbors and prevent invasions like at Wonsan, but they had trouble layering mine fields in depth.
   
   It is self-evident that North Korea's reliance upon a submarine that can't be useful in anti-submarine and surface fleet engagements, but is great at creeping and very silent when running at only a few knots, that their Submarines are intended to circumvent this problem and lay sea-mines in open waters or maybe more strategically.
   
   Such as mining the straits of Korea and Japan, and mining further out on the sea-beds in order to try and do as much threat to the US Navy.
   
   North Korea probably considers that the US is much less likely to tolerate Naval losses than air or ground force casualties. Naval losses are so dramatic and singular, and the US has had barely any damage done by enemy action to its Navy since WW2 that losing a troop ship killing 10,000 marines to a sea-mine would be unfathomable casualty rate in modern US calculation.
   
   Because of this, and experience in Korea shows, the US treats mines like nuclear weapons, and spends all its efforts on ensuring mine-sweeping is finished before moving in troop ships.
   
   This is so significant that it delayed an invasion in Wonsan by 2 weeks, afterwhich the invasion was no longer necessary because of ground developments.
   
   Putting it all together
   
   
   So what does all this mean?
   
   There's a lot of hear-say about what the US can do in North Korea, but the real facts on the ground is...not much.
   
   Going to war in North Korea will be starting a WW1-type war, which was how the Korean war ended, stuck in trenches on the now-DMZ. The geography favors this. And the only way around this is to do amphibious landings, which North Korea has coastal defenses in depth, and multiplied by the effect of sea-mines, which they can lay more effectively using their Submarine's only advantage, stealth.
   
   The air power is thus the US-ROK next best bet, but it is much more limited than it was in Iraq or in the middle east in general, where the US has complete supremacy. At least in the beginning of the war, the skies would be contested because of the KN06. Until those threats have spent their ammunition (North Korea has around 450 missiles), or those threats are destroyed, they will make sorties very dangerous.
   
   There is not enough B52 and B-2s to make any meaningful conventional impact. Their sortie turnarounds are enormous, a B52 flying out of Guam will take 1 full day to do a bombing run.
   
   North Korea has 10s of thousands of targets to bomb. So you can see how these turn around times are not useful in large scale action.
   
   Conclusion

Because of this, I think the US cannot win a war in North Korea. Because this does not meet the criteria of any reasonable US "theory of victory". There is no middle ground where the US goes to war and North Korea conditionally surrenders like the Emperor of Japan, keeping their President Kim Jong Un, but losing their Nuclear Weapons, and returning to a Status Quo.

Since that theory of victory is off the table, it is arguable that given the above problems, the US cannot achieve its only practical theory of victory, total destruction of North Korea, with any reasonable cost.

The cost is so enormous, without factoring in variables such as Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear weapons.

North Korea can Nuke Guam, can Nuke Hawaii, this delays US response even further.

Can North Korean forces push into South Korea? If there's no positional war, can they push to Busan?

If they push to Busan can the US reinforce the Peninsula or will Sea-mines have too great an impact?

Etc.

These problems alone raise the costs so high, that the American people would not tolerate a victory and the US economy may not be able to suffer it.

This conventional problem alone is why North Korea has not been dealt with in 50 years, and why it won't be dealt with now except by a madman who clearly has no understanding of Strategy, costs, and what the end-game should look like in the first place.

The US hasn't won a war since WWII, and even then we needed lots of help. So no, The US can't win in Korea, the South will be destroyed.

PG1 wasn't a win? if PG1 wasn't a win, nothing is hahahhahahahahha

What's PG1?

Persian Gulf 1
you must really be a war historian

That was ALMOST a win, but they didn't finish the job. Sort of like beating back the Nazis but stopping short of Berlin and letting Hitler live.

That's enough of your grade nine military history lessons taught by your LIBERAL Indoctrination Center teacher who also has a grade nine level of military history.
Permanent Ignore asshole!

 

[dannyboys]

This thread covers 3 basic areas:

• HARTS
• KN06
• Submarines laying sea-mines

There is a concept most people over-look when discussing anything strategy related: Theory of Victory.

Spoiler Alert, the US doesn't really have a theory of victory in North Korea, but we can get to that later. However, this problem is significant because without a theory of victory there is no way to determine what the appropriate tactical and strategic responses should be. Arguably the US theory of victory in North Korea is to maintain a status quo. A theory of victory framework people often think of is "complete destruction of North Korea" which I suppose means reunification of North Korea on US-South Korean terms unconditionally.

That goes out the window, because China would not accept this outcome, they do have a theory of victory, and if I can post URLs I could link to the lecture sources about what North Korea and Chinese Theory of Victory are. The reason this is worth mentioning is their Theory of Victory is far easier to achieve than the US's. Theirs is to simply keep the Status Quo, which is easy enough, because it's the situation that exists now, and the only alternatives seem to box the US into wars it can't afford or is unwilling to fight.

Enough of that though, on to the meat-and-potatoes. Can the US win a war with North Korea?

Why are the 3 bullet points significant?

1. HARTS - Hardened Artillery Sites. These sites form the nucleus of North Korea's visible strategy to deal with US-ROK forces. In brief, North Korean corps are 2x larger than US corps, and are half comprised of artillery units. What this means is that each corps is expected to act independently with a common objective, like links in a chain, regardless of any command or control in place. North Korea chose this operational strategy because they expected that their top leadership would be decapitated, a decapitating strike will not do anything though to stop North Korea's corps from acting independently and working toward their objectives.
   
   The HARTS themselves form the stronghold around which these Corps and these Artillery units exist. They are frequently built, rebuilt and relocated, and they face away (to the North) from the DMZ. They are positional warfare (think WW1 trench warfare) on steroids. Their survivability against bombing is regarded as high.
   
   Time and space is critical in warfighting, and HARTS buys a lot of time and space. The US for instance may have 500 fighter-bombers in theater. If a turn around time for their sorties is 1 hour, that's only 500 sorties an hour. If a HARTS can survive several hits, and if there are 10,000 HARTS, you can quickly see that these bombing sorties are INSUFFICIENT to deal with the amount of artillery shells North Korea can fire at South Korea and the DMZ.
   
   This gives the North Koreans a significant advantage in forcing the US-ROK into a positional war, a trench war, along the DMZ.
   
   These HARTS extend up the coast line, reducing the possibility of a meaningful amphibious landing. But will be further reinforced by sea-mines, which will be discussed in #3.
   
   
2. KN06 - A more modern, S-300, phased array radar version of anti-Air missiles. This missile is arguably capable of tracking F-22, F-35, and possibly can be incorporated with civilian Air Traffic radars to track B-2 bombers also. The specifics on the KN06 are difficult to figure out (I just couldn't find good available sources on it specifically) looks like the general assumption is it will perform like the S-300, but that the phased array radar is the critical piece and it is difficult to tell but assumed that it is similar in capability of Nebo-M. But the Nebo-M system is a 3 part system capable of tracking B-2 stealth. Likely the North Koreans have the ability to track complex stealth targets like F-22, and F-35. But not to engage B-2s and would have to rely upon a different radar for that that is not integrated to their fire-control systems.
   
   The effectiveness therefore is hard to determine, but the North Koreans are well trained. If their systems are effective, they will be used and used well.
   
   This again, buys time and space for their decision process and their ground armies.
   
   It blunts the impact of US-ROK air forces in striking North Korean targets especially command and control targets which are critical.
   
   It rules out almost completely any chance at destroying North Korea's strategic targets such as Nuclear tipped missiles.
   
   Us Air supremacy may be possible, but would take more time until the KN06 threat is dealt with.
   
   
3. Submarine laid Sea-Mines. This threat is an overlooked mainstay of North Korean strategy. They have 50,000 mines that are modern, in the Korean War they used mines including deep sea bottom laying magnetic activated mines which were of Soviet design. Now they have a more robust and modern equivalent in mine technology that can be most certainly based on China and Russia designs.
   
   The problem the North Koreans and Russians faced in the Korean war was laying the mines when the US had blue-water supremacy. They could effectively mine harbors and prevent invasions like at Wonsan, but they had trouble layering mine fields in depth.
   
   It is self-evident that North Korea's reliance upon a submarine that can't be useful in anti-submarine and surface fleet engagements, but is great at creeping and very silent when running at only a few knots, that their Submarines are intended to circumvent this problem and lay sea-mines in open waters or maybe more strategically.
   
   Such as mining the straits of Korea and Japan, and mining further out on the sea-beds in order to try and do as much threat to the US Navy.
   
   North Korea probably considers that the US is much less likely to tolerate Naval losses than air or ground force casualties. Naval losses are so dramatic and singular, and the US has had barely any damage done by enemy action to its Navy since WW2 that losing a troop ship killing 10,000 marines to a sea-mine would be unfathomable casualty rate in modern US calculation.
   
   Because of this, and experience in Korea shows, the US treats mines like nuclear weapons, and spends all its efforts on ensuring mine-sweeping is finished before moving in troop ships.
   
   This is so significant that it delayed an invasion in Wonsan by 2 weeks, afterwhich the invasion was no longer necessary because of ground developments.
   
   Putting it all together
   
   
   So what does all this mean?
   
   There's a lot of hear-say about what the US can do in North Korea, but the real facts on the ground is...not much.
   
   Going to war in North Korea will be starting a WW1-type war, which was how the Korean war ended, stuck in trenches on the now-DMZ. The geography favors this. And the only way around this is to do amphibious landings, which North Korea has coastal defenses in depth, and multiplied by the effect of sea-mines, which they can lay more effectively using their Submarine's only advantage, stealth.
   
   The air power is thus the US-ROK next best bet, but it is much more limited than it was in Iraq or in the middle east in general, where the US has complete supremacy. At least in the beginning of the war, the skies would be contested because of the KN06. Until those threats have spent their ammunition (North Korea has around 450 missiles), or those threats are destroyed, they will make sorties very dangerous.
   
   There is not enough B52 and B-2s to make any meaningful conventional impact. Their sortie turnarounds are enormous, a B52 flying out of Guam will take 1 full day to do a bombing run.
   
   North Korea has 10s of thousands of targets to bomb. So you can see how these turn around times are not useful in large scale action.
   
   Conclusion

Because of this, I think the US cannot win a war in North Korea. Because this does not meet the criteria of any reasonable US "theory of victory". There is no middle ground where the US goes to war and North Korea conditionally surrenders like the Emperor of Japan, keeping their President Kim Jong Un, but losing their Nuclear Weapons, and returning to a Status Quo.

Since that theory of victory is off the table, it is arguable that given the above problems, the US cannot achieve its only practical theory of victory, total destruction of North Korea, with any reasonable cost.

The cost is so enormous, without factoring in variables such as Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear weapons.

North Korea can Nuke Guam, can Nuke Hawaii, this delays US response even further.

Can North Korean forces push into South Korea? If there's no positional war, can they push to Busan?

If they push to Busan can the US reinforce the Peninsula or will Sea-mines have too great an impact?

Etc.

These problems alone raise the costs so high, that the American people would not tolerate a victory and the US economy may not be able to suffer it.

This conventional problem alone is why North Korea has not been dealt with in 50 years, and why it won't be dealt with now except by a madman who clearly has no understanding of Strategy, costs, and what the end-game should look like in the first place.

The US hasn't won a war since WWII, and even then we needed lots of help. So no, The US can't win in Korea, the South will be destroyed.

so if there still was a South Vietnam after the Vietnam war, that would've been a loss?? !!

There isn’t so it’s a loss. Big time.

exactly--so Korea = win !!!!!
we wanted a SVietnam--no SVN = loss
so the opposite must be a win
we want a SKorea-- we get it = win

You forgot one small detail, the war with NK isn't over, as no armistice or anything like that was ever signed. So we're at war with a country whose population is starving and we still can't win, we just sit around waiting for them to nuke up so they can really hurt us.

It doesn't look like the Pervert and his generals are missing any meals. Why is that?
The Pervert's starving population, including his military are 100% the responsibility of the Pervert-In Command'.
Of course some cash must be set aside for the Pervert's Child Pornography video monthly budget and his ten year old 'Sunshine Girls' who he plays 'stinky finger' with must be dressed up like the little Disney 'Musketeers'.
That all takes money.

 

[Taz]

The US hasn't won a war since WWII, and even then we needed lots of help. So no, The US can't win in Korea, the South will be destroyed.

so if there still was a South Vietnam after the Vietnam war, that would've been a loss?? !!

There isn’t so it’s a loss. Big time.

exactly--so Korea = win !!!!!
we wanted a SVietnam--no SVN = loss
so the opposite must be a win
we want a SKorea-- we get it = win

You forgot one small detail, the war with NK isn't over, as no armistice or anything like that was ever signed. So we're at war with a country whose population is starving and we still can't win, we just sit around waiting for them to nuke up so they can really hurt us.

you must not read the posts--PG1 ceasefire..Arab-Israeli Wars -ceasefires
a lot of these wars end in ceasefires --that doesn't mean there is not a winner-loser

Arabs and Israelis are still at war. Now you know.

 

[Taz]

​

The US hasn't won a war since WWII, and even then we needed lots of help. So no, The US can't win in Korea, the South will be destroyed.

PG1 wasn't a win? if PG1 wasn't a win, nothing is hahahhahahahahha

What's PG1?

Persian Gulf 1
you must really be a war historian

That was ALMOST a win, but they didn't finish the job. Sort of like beating back the Nazis but stopping short of Berlin and letting Hitler live.

That's enough of your grade nine military history lessons taught by your LIBERAL Indoctrination Center teacher who also has a grade nine level of military history.
Permanent Ignore asshole!

That's it, pick up your toys and go cry in your room.

 

[Taz]

The US hasn't won a war since WWII, and even then we needed lots of help. So no, The US can't win in Korea, the South will be destroyed.

so if there still was a South Vietnam after the Vietnam war, that would've been a loss?? !!

There isn’t so it’s a loss. Big time.

exactly--so Korea = win !!!!!
we wanted a SVietnam--no SVN = loss
so the opposite must be a win
we want a SKorea-- we get it = win

You forgot one small detail, the war with NK isn't over, as no armistice or anything like that was ever signed. So we're at war with a country whose population is starving and we still can't win, we just sit around waiting for them to nuke up so they can really hurt us.

It doesn't look like the Pervert and his generals are missing any meals. Why is that?
The Pervert's starving population, including his military are 100% the responsibility of the Pervert-In Command'.
Of course some cash must be set aside for the Pervert's Child Pornography video monthly budget and his ten year old 'Sunshine Girls' who he plays 'stinky finger' with must be dressed up like the little Disney 'Musketeers'.
That all takes money.

So you think Trump is a pervert? That's a new one for sure.

 

[harmonica]

so if there still was a South Vietnam after the Vietnam war, that would've been a loss?? !!

There isn’t so it’s a loss. Big time.

exactly--so Korea = win !!!!!
we wanted a SVietnam--no SVN = loss
so the opposite must be a win
we want a SKorea-- we get it = win

You forgot one small detail, the war with NK isn't over, as no armistice or anything like that was ever signed. So we're at war with a country whose population is starving and we still can't win, we just sit around waiting for them to nuke up so they can really hurt us.

you must not read the posts--PG1 ceasefire..Arab-Israeli Wars -ceasefires
a lot of these wars end in ceasefires --that doesn't mean there is not a winner-loser

Arabs and Israelis are still at war. Now you know.

the Six Day War, Yom Kippur, etc wars are OVER....they are not in those wars
those wars have a start and end date

 

[harmonica]

so if there still was a South Vietnam after the Vietnam war, that would've been a loss?? !!

There isn’t so it’s a loss. Big time.

exactly--so Korea = win !!!!!
we wanted a SVietnam--no SVN = loss
so the opposite must be a win
we want a SKorea-- we get it = win

You forgot one small detail, the war with NK isn't over, as no armistice or anything like that was ever signed. So we're at war with a country whose population is starving and we still can't win, we just sit around waiting for them to nuke up so they can really hurt us.

you must not read the posts--PG1 ceasefire..Arab-Israeli Wars -ceasefires
a lot of these wars end in ceasefires --that doesn't mean there is not a winner-loser

Arabs and Israelis are still at war. Now you know.

actually it's a lot different
they are not at war with Egypt--what was a great enemy -- as they used to be

 

[Taz]

There isn’t so it’s a loss. Big time.

exactly--so Korea = win !!!!!
we wanted a SVietnam--no SVN = loss
so the opposite must be a win
we want a SKorea-- we get it = win

You forgot one small detail, the war with NK isn't over, as no armistice or anything like that was ever signed. So we're at war with a country whose population is starving and we still can't win, we just sit around waiting for them to nuke up so they can really hurt us.

you must not read the posts--PG1 ceasefire..Arab-Israeli Wars -ceasefires
a lot of these wars end in ceasefires --that doesn't mean there is not a winner-loser

Arabs and Israelis are still at war. Now you know.

actually it's a lot different
they are not at war with Egypt--what was a great enemy -- as they used to be

Egypt has simply been pacified through war, and things are worse now that the Mango Mussolini declared support for Jerusalem as the Jewish capital.

 

[deltex1]

This thread covers 3 basic areas:

• HARTS
• KN06
• Submarines laying sea-mines

There is a concept most people over-look when discussing anything strategy related: Theory of Victory.

Spoiler Alert, the US doesn't really have a theory of victory in North Korea, but we can get to that later. However, this problem is significant because without a theory of victory there is no way to determine what the appropriate tactical and strategic responses should be. Arguably the US theory of victory in North Korea is to maintain a status quo. A theory of victory framework people often think of is "complete destruction of North Korea" which I suppose means reunification of North Korea on US-South Korean terms unconditionally.

That goes out the window, because China would not accept this outcome, they do have a theory of victory, and if I can post URLs I could link to the lecture sources about what North Korea and Chinese Theory of Victory are. The reason this is worth mentioning is their Theory of Victory is far easier to achieve than the US's. Theirs is to simply keep the Status Quo, which is easy enough, because it's the situation that exists now, and the only alternatives seem to box the US into wars it can't afford or is unwilling to fight.

Enough of that though, on to the meat-and-potatoes. Can the US win a war with North Korea?

Why are the 3 bullet points significant?

1. HARTS - Hardened Artillery Sites. These sites form the nucleus of North Korea's visible strategy to deal with US-ROK forces. In brief, North Korean corps are 2x larger than US corps, and are half comprised of artillery units. What this means is that each corps is expected to act independently with a common objective, like links in a chain, regardless of any command or control in place. North Korea chose this operational strategy because they expected that their top leadership would be decapitated, a decapitating strike will not do anything though to stop North Korea's corps from acting independently and working toward their objectives.
   
   The HARTS themselves form the stronghold around which these Corps and these Artillery units exist. They are frequently built, rebuilt and relocated, and they face away (to the North) from the DMZ. They are positional warfare (think WW1 trench warfare) on steroids. Their survivability against bombing is regarded as high.
   
   Time and space is critical in warfighting, and HARTS buys a lot of time and space. The US for instance may have 500 fighter-bombers in theater. If a turn around time for their sorties is 1 hour, that's only 500 sorties an hour. If a HARTS can survive several hits, and if there are 10,000 HARTS, you can quickly see that these bombing sorties are INSUFFICIENT to deal with the amount of artillery shells North Korea can fire at South Korea and the DMZ.
   
   This gives the North Koreans a significant advantage in forcing the US-ROK into a positional war, a trench war, along the DMZ.
   
   These HARTS extend up the coast line, reducing the possibility of a meaningful amphibious landing. But will be further reinforced by sea-mines, which will be discussed in #3.
   
   
2. KN06 - A more modern, S-300, phased array radar version of anti-Air missiles. This missile is arguably capable of tracking F-22, F-35, and possibly can be incorporated with civilian Air Traffic radars to track B-2 bombers also. The specifics on the KN06 are difficult to figure out (I just couldn't find good available sources on it specifically) looks like the general assumption is it will perform like the S-300, but that the phased array radar is the critical piece and it is difficult to tell but assumed that it is similar in capability of Nebo-M. But the Nebo-M system is a 3 part system capable of tracking B-2 stealth. Likely the North Koreans have the ability to track complex stealth targets like F-22, and F-35. But not to engage B-2s and would have to rely upon a different radar for that that is not integrated to their fire-control systems.
   
   The effectiveness therefore is hard to determine, but the North Koreans are well trained. If their systems are effective, they will be used and used well.
   
   This again, buys time and space for their decision process and their ground armies.
   
   It blunts the impact of US-ROK air forces in striking North Korean targets especially command and control targets which are critical.
   
   It rules out almost completely any chance at destroying North Korea's strategic targets such as Nuclear tipped missiles.
   
   Us Air supremacy may be possible, but would take more time until the KN06 threat is dealt with.
   
   
3. Submarine laid Sea-Mines. This threat is an overlooked mainstay of North Korean strategy. They have 50,000 mines that are modern, in the Korean War they used mines including deep sea bottom laying magnetic activated mines which were of Soviet design. Now they have a more robust and modern equivalent in mine technology that can be most certainly based on China and Russia designs.
   
   The problem the North Koreans and Russians faced in the Korean war was laying the mines when the US had blue-water supremacy. They could effectively mine harbors and prevent invasions like at Wonsan, but they had trouble layering mine fields in depth.
   
   It is self-evident that North Korea's reliance upon a submarine that can't be useful in anti-submarine and surface fleet engagements, but is great at creeping and very silent when running at only a few knots, that their Submarines are intended to circumvent this problem and lay sea-mines in open waters or maybe more strategically.
   
   Such as mining the straits of Korea and Japan, and mining further out on the sea-beds in order to try and do as much threat to the US Navy.
   
   North Korea probably considers that the US is much less likely to tolerate Naval losses than air or ground force casualties. Naval losses are so dramatic and singular, and the US has had barely any damage done by enemy action to its Navy since WW2 that losing a troop ship killing 10,000 marines to a sea-mine would be unfathomable casualty rate in modern US calculation.
   
   Because of this, and experience in Korea shows, the US treats mines like nuclear weapons, and spends all its efforts on ensuring mine-sweeping is finished before moving in troop ships.
   
   This is so significant that it delayed an invasion in Wonsan by 2 weeks, afterwhich the invasion was no longer necessary because of ground developments.
   
   Putting it all together
   
   
   So what does all this mean?
   
   There's a lot of hear-say about what the US can do in North Korea, but the real facts on the ground is...not much.
   
   Going to war in North Korea will be starting a WW1-type war, which was how the Korean war ended, stuck in trenches on the now-DMZ. The geography favors this. And the only way around this is to do amphibious landings, which North Korea has coastal defenses in depth, and multiplied by the effect of sea-mines, which they can lay more effectively using their Submarine's only advantage, stealth.
   
   The air power is thus the US-ROK next best bet, but it is much more limited than it was in Iraq or in the middle east in general, where the US has complete supremacy. At least in the beginning of the war, the skies would be contested because of the KN06. Until those threats have spent their ammunition (North Korea has around 450 missiles), or those threats are destroyed, they will make sorties very dangerous.
   
   There is not enough B52 and B-2s to make any meaningful conventional impact. Their sortie turnarounds are enormous, a B52 flying out of Guam will take 1 full day to do a bombing run.
   
   North Korea has 10s of thousands of targets to bomb. So you can see how these turn around times are not useful in large scale action.
   
   Conclusion

Because of this, I think the US cannot win a war in North Korea. Because this does not meet the criteria of any reasonable US "theory of victory". There is no middle ground where the US goes to war and North Korea conditionally surrenders like the Emperor of Japan, keeping their President Kim Jong Un, but losing their Nuclear Weapons, and returning to a Status Quo.

Since that theory of victory is off the table, it is arguable that given the above problems, the US cannot achieve its only practical theory of victory, total destruction of North Korea, with any reasonable cost.

The cost is so enormous, without factoring in variables such as Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear weapons.

North Korea can Nuke Guam, can Nuke Hawaii, this delays US response even further.

Can North Korean forces push into South Korea? If there's no positional war, can they push to Busan?

If they push to Busan can the US reinforce the Peninsula or will Sea-mines have too great an impact?

Etc.

These problems alone raise the costs so high, that the American people would not tolerate a victory and the US economy may not be able to suffer it.

This conventional problem alone is why North Korea has not been dealt with in 50 years, and why it won't be dealt with now except by a madman who clearly has no understanding of Strategy, costs, and what the end-game should look like in the first place.

You forgot about Mad Dog. The war will be over in a day.