North Korea: Can the US Win?

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Listen rice for brains. You can’t identify a piece of propaganda when you see it. How about checking out the 1980 bronco in the opening or maybe the ultra modern 1950 trucks.

As far as the wars, I would defer to professionals but it was the lack of will in America, not military ability that determined the outcomes. Korea was a draw, Vietnam a loss, and Iraq a win. Why don’t you pull up the highway of hell picture From the Kuwait war and tell me air power in a conventional war is not Supreme.

Highway of Death - Google Search

Yeah, because North Koreans are in a big open desert with no AA, no indirect fire, and not no big giant mountains of solid Granite with thousands of miles of tunnels and bunkers dug out of them.

Why not just go all Nazi on them and bomb them into rubble and win the day? Oh wait, US did, and lost. BIGLY.

Korea was no more a draw than WW1 was a draw. LOL

And it's Imperia Hubris to think that YOU decided to lose the war. No, you LOST, there's a difference, losing means YOU COULD NOT WIN. Under the circumstances.

Korea was a win for everyone except NK
US kept SK from being overrun
SK kept from being overrun
China kept NK from being overrun
NK failed in their attempt to overrun SK

Bullshit.

The US goal was to reunify the peninsula on their terms.

They failed.

So that is why the North Koreans attacked South Korea? They wanted to provoke us into destroying them so we could reunify the country? Right!

You deserve an Olympic gold medal for that leap!

Did you ever study ANY history?

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

I'll ask again. What is your expertise in these matters? You appear to be increasingly clueless.

I'm clueless? But you don't actually provide any retort to what I say, you just say "the US will bomb it".

Sure.

So, you have no expertise in military matters generally, much less the DPRK specifically.

Sure I do, but what's the point of prattling them off. Can you not refute the arguments with basic logic and information?

Do you think that the KN06 radar will underperform?

Do you think the US Navy has sufficient mine sweepers?

Or that the Romeo class submarine can't deliver mines effectively?

What the fuck are your lame ass arguments.

Do you think that the KN06 radar will underperform?- none of us know- but since they rely upon radar- and since the United States tactics specifically target radar- I think that the KN06 would not be effective beyond the first salvo.

Do you think the US Navy has sufficient mine sweepers? Sufficient for what- specifically?

Or that the Romeo class submarine can't deliver mines effectively? I imagine that they can- up to the point that they are sunk. None nuclear subs can't stay submerged forever- and can only carry so many mines

The US likely can't operate around the Naval yards further north along the North Korean coasts, arguably they can keep those areas a safe base for their subs.

But the amount of sea-mines that can be laid by Submarines in their one mass exercise drill is pretty large, especially if they put them in critical areas.

The US needs more mine-sweepers, because right now they only have what? 3 I think it is? And that's nowhere near enough to clear a landing point or operational area.

Only 3 minesweepers? Can you get anything right?

There are 4 Avenger class MCMs stationed in Japan, plus 7 more in Bahrain and San Diego..

LCS class ships are also capable of mine hunting and sweeping.

 

[Syriusly]

I'll ask again. What is your expertise in these matters? You appear to be increasingly clueless.

I'm clueless? But you don't actually provide any retort to what I say, you just say "the US will bomb it".

Sure.

So, you have no expertise in military matters generally, much less the DPRK specifically.

Sure I do, but what's the point of prattling them off. Can you not refute the arguments with basic logic and information?

Do you think that the KN06 radar will underperform?

Do you think the US Navy has sufficient mine sweepers?

Or that the Romeo class submarine can't deliver mines effectively?

What the fuck are your lame ass arguments.

Do you think that the KN06 radar will underperform?- none of us know- but since they rely upon radar- and since the United States tactics specifically target radar- I think that the KN06 would not be effective beyond the first salvo.

Do you think the US Navy has sufficient mine sweepers? Sufficient for what- specifically?

Or that the Romeo class submarine can't deliver mines effectively? I imagine that they can- up to the point that they are sunk. None nuclear subs can't stay submerged forever- and can only carry so many mines

The US likely can't operate around the Naval yards further north along the North Korean coasts, arguably they can keep those areas a safe base for their subs..

Likely why? What would magically protect those Naval yards from attack? Safe from cruise missiles and stealth aircraft? Or an American fast attack submarine positioned and waiting?

 

[Syriusly]

Listen rice for brains. You can’t identify a piece of propaganda when you see it. How about checking out the 1980 bronco in the opening or maybe the ultra modern 1950 trucks.

As far as the wars, I would defer to professionals but it was the lack of will in America, not military ability that determined the outcomes. Korea was a draw, Vietnam a loss, and Iraq a win. Why don’t you pull up the highway of hell picture From the Kuwait war and tell me air power in a conventional war is not Supreme.

Highway of Death - Google Search

Yeah, because North Koreans are in a big open desert with no AA, no indirect fire, and not no big giant mountains of solid Granite with thousands of miles of tunnels and bunkers dug out of them.

Why not just go all Nazi on them and bomb them into rubble and win the day? Oh wait, US did, and lost. BIGLY.

Korea was no more a draw than WW1 was a draw. LOL

And it's Imperia Hubris to think that YOU decided to lose the war. No, you LOST, there's a difference, losing means YOU COULD NOT WIN. Under the circumstances.

Korea was a win for everyone except NK
US kept SK from being overrun
SK kept from being overrun
China kept NK from being overrun
NK failed in their attempt to overrun SK

Bullshit.

The US goal was to reunify the peninsula on their terms.

They failed.

Actually the US goal- as per Harry Truman- was to maintain the status quo.

Initially the goals of the conflict were to contain the war; i.e., to keep it from spreading to Asia and Europe and to bar the Soviet Union from joining the North Koreans.

 

[Syriusly]

North Korea has so many allies in the United States that the idea of the US winning what would amount to both an external and an internal war is very poor.

I doubt North Korea could count on allies like you and your fellow travellers.

 

[Syriusly]

I'll ask again. What is your expertise in these matters? You appear to be increasingly clueless.

I'm clueless? But you don't actually provide any retort to what I say, you just say "the US will bomb it".

Sure.

So, you have no expertise in military matters generally, much less the DPRK specifically.

Sure I do, but what's the point of prattling them off. Can you not refute the arguments with basic logic and information?

Do you think that the KN06 radar will underperform?

Do you think the US Navy has sufficient mine sweepers?

Or that the Romeo class submarine can't deliver mines effectively?

What the fuck are your lame ass arguments.

Do you think that the KN06 radar will underperform?- none of us know- but since they rely upon radar- and since the United States tactics specifically target radar- I think that the KN06 would not be effective beyond the first salvo.

Do you think the US Navy has sufficient mine sweepers? Sufficient for what- specifically?

Or that the Romeo class submarine can't deliver mines effectively? I imagine that they can- up to the point that they are sunk. None nuclear subs can't stay submerged forever- and can only carry so many mines

The US likely can't operate around the Naval yards further north along the North Korean coasts, arguably they can keep those areas a safe base for their subs.

But the amount of sea-mines that can be laid by Submarines in their one mass exercise drill is pretty large, especially if they put them in critical areas.

The US needs more mine-sweepers, because right now they only have what? 3 I think it is? And that's nowhere near enough to clear a landing point or operational area.

Critical areas? There are lots of critical areas- and how many mines can each submarine carry? The Romeo can carry 28- and then needs to be resupplied. The Sang O are 1/6 the size of the Romeo- so can carry maybe 5-8 mines?

Certainly the NK submarine laid mines could be annoying- but that would be about it.

 

[dannyboys]

I'm clueless? But you don't actually provide any retort to what I say, you just say "the US will bomb it".

Sure.

So, you have no expertise in military matters generally, much less the DPRK specifically.

Sure I do, but what's the point of prattling them off. Can you not refute the arguments with basic logic and information?

Do you think that the KN06 radar will underperform?

Do you think the US Navy has sufficient mine sweepers?

Or that the Romeo class submarine can't deliver mines effectively?

What the fuck are your lame ass arguments.

Do you think that the KN06 radar will underperform?- none of us know- but since they rely upon radar- and since the United States tactics specifically target radar- I think that the KN06 would not be effective beyond the first salvo.

Do you think the US Navy has sufficient mine sweepers? Sufficient for what- specifically?

Or that the Romeo class submarine can't deliver mines effectively? I imagine that they can- up to the point that they are sunk. None nuclear subs can't stay submerged forever- and can only carry so many mines

The US likely can't operate around the Naval yards further north along the North Korean coasts, arguably they can keep those areas a safe base for their subs.

But the amount of sea-mines that can be laid by Submarines in their one mass exercise drill is pretty large, especially if they put them in critical areas.

The US needs more mine-sweepers, because right now they only have what? 3 I think it is? And that's nowhere near enough to clear a landing point or operational area.

Only 3 minesweepers? Can you get anything right?

There are 4 Avenger class MCMs stationed in Japan, plus 7 more in Bahrain and San Diego..

LCS class ships are also capable of mine hunting and sweeping.

The NK paid asshole studied in the US then went back to NK. Where he is posting from.
It's his job as part of the Pervert's military.
The US KNOWS where EVERY NK ship/sub is 24/7.
The Pervert is getting ready to launch another missile before the olympics to try to intimidate SK.
Watch Nikki Haley tell SK: "You want to play footsies with the Pervert fill your boots. Just don't come running to the US when the Pervert rolls you......again. Oh and by the way the US is making plans to withdraw all US military forces from SK. Since you're going to be buddies with the Pervert you won't be needing our protection and our defense systems anymore. Maybe you will open up a chain of NK fine dining restaurants".

 

[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.

 

[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.

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

 

[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.

lot's of help?? you must know 0 about WW2
not only did they supply most of the men and material for the Western Front, they also supplied Russia--and the US bore almost all the responsibility of the Pacific Theater

 

[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.

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

What's PG1?

 

[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.

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

 

[harmonica]

to Taz, Technologist, etc---FYI wars usually don't end like WW2 with unconditional surrender/etc!!!!
the Six Day War was clearly a win for Israel--but it ended with a cease fire
PG1--ceasefire-- win........Korea--ceasefire --win
Vietnam was virtually unwinnable

 

[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.

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.

 

[Syriusly]

So, you have no expertise in military matters generally, much less the DPRK specifically.

Sure I do, but what's the point of prattling them off. Can you not refute the arguments with basic logic and information?

Do you think that the KN06 radar will underperform?

Do you think the US Navy has sufficient mine sweepers?

Or that the Romeo class submarine can't deliver mines effectively?

What the fuck are your lame ass arguments.

Do you think that the KN06 radar will underperform?- none of us know- but since they rely upon radar- and since the United States tactics specifically target radar- I think that the KN06 would not be effective beyond the first salvo.

Do you think the US Navy has sufficient mine sweepers? Sufficient for what- specifically?

Or that the Romeo class submarine can't deliver mines effectively? I imagine that they can- up to the point that they are sunk. None nuclear subs can't stay submerged forever- and can only carry so many mines

The US likely can't operate around the Naval yards further north along the North Korean coasts, arguably they can keep those areas a safe base for their subs.

But the amount of sea-mines that can be laid by Submarines in their one mass exercise drill is pretty large, especially if they put them in critical areas.

The US needs more mine-sweepers, because right now they only have what? 3 I think it is? And that's nowhere near enough to clear a landing point or operational area.

Only 3 minesweepers? Can you get anything right?

There are 4 Avenger class MCMs stationed in Japan, plus 7 more in Bahrain and San Diego..

LCS class ships are also capable of mine hunting and sweeping.

The NK paid asshole studied in the US then went back to NK. Where he is posting from.
It's his job as part of the Pervert's military.
The US KNOWS where EVERY NK ship/sub is 24/7.
The Pervert is getting ready to launch another missile before the olympics to try to intimidate SK.
Watch Nikki Haley tell SK: "You want to play footsies with the Pervert fill your boots. Just don't come running to the US when the Pervert rolls you......again. Oh and by the way the US is making plans to withdraw all US military forces from SK. Since you're going to be buddies with the Pervert you won't be needing our protection and our defense systems anymore. Maybe you will open up a chain of NK fine dining restaurants".

You are as much of a loon Tech boy

 

[Syriusly]

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.

While we needed 'lots of help' in Europe- in the the Pacific is was mostly a U.S. show. Certainly there were Dutch, Australian, NZ, Indian and Brit troops involved- but because it was a naval war- and most of the allied naval forces were eliminated early in the Pacific war- the United States did most of the Pacific War carrying the vast majority of the weight.

South Korea alone could probably stop any NK attack- the United States, SK and Japan absolutely could. Successfully invading NK would require a WW2 style commitment and China staying out of it- and I don't see either of those happening.

 

[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.

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.

did you not read my other post?
most wars do not end like WW2
so either most end in a stalemate or you have to define winning
you go to war to accomplish a mission/political mission !!!!
we kept Kuwait as a nation and kicked out Iraq--along with destroying a lot of it's military--mission accomplished..win
our goal in Korea was to keep NK from overrunning SK....mission accomplished--win
....you don't have to destroy-occupy the enemy nation to win a war

Clausewitz cogently defines war as a rational instrument of foreign policy: “an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.

War

 

[Syriusly]

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.

No that was a textbook win- the military forces were defeated- the objectives achieved. And we didn't ruin it by trying to do nation building.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

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.

Sorry! You don't get to define what is a "win" and what is not.

Taking Saddam out would have just accelerated Iran's aims on controlling Iraq by 2 decades.

 

[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?? !!