The new old war in Korea

[Lissa]

Something a lot of people need to realize here, NK doesn't need to use a Nuke to devastate Seoul, Seoul is within artillery range of the DMZ (actually under maximum artillery range). NK could easily demolish Seoul with use of rocket and cannon based artillery without ever going to WMDs.

If the South Koreans and the US just sat there and took it, sure. But the North Koreans would find themselves with a pretty small window of opportunity. They'd lose control of the skies almost immediately. They're already surrounded by sea. The DMZ is, ironically, the most militarized spot on earth, and the pushback by land would happen within a week.

So, they'd have to bring a hell of a lot of artillery to bear on Seoul, because they wouldn't get very long to get the job done before the Americans would be in Pyongyang.

That's the thing, they do have enough artillery within range of Seoul that within 15 minutes Seoul could be devestated before aircraft could be on station. And NK's military is smart enough they would place enough AA equipment in with their artillery to make air strikes painful.

He would definitely go convential on the Korean Peninsula, and, with the fact that he has one of the largest military forces in the world (1.2 Million places him in the top 5, if not the top 3), it would be enough to occupy SK fully and still have enough home guard forces to deal with potential troublemakers in the North. Even though NK equipment is old and outdated, enough equipment can help win.

Sure, North Korea is in the top 5, in terms of deployment. But South Korea is not so far behind, and their principal ally is the US. Modern war is also not primarily about human waves, but about the smart use of combined arms, technological superiority, and supplies. Compare military budgets, rather than troop strengths. There, the South Koreans are far ahead, and that's even before we talk about the US.

North Korea has no chance of holding the peninsula. If things go maximally well for them, they can force a war of mutual devastation, but even that would involve catching the South Koreans with their pants down, which is very unlikely on that most watched of borders.

According to Wikipedia list of Armies SK isn't in the top 5, may not even be in the top 10 with respect to active forces (although they do have 3 million reservist, but NK had 4.5 million reservists). Now, the big question is, what percentage of SKs reservist are in the vicinity of Seoul? A potential artillery first strike could severally degrade SKs reservist forces if enough of them are in the Seoul metropolitan area.

If the NKs are going to go nuclear on this, they're going to use a missile and either hit Japan, some part of western Alaska, or try for Hawaii. We know that their missiles are good enough to hit Japan and could reach some low population areas of western Alaska, but Hawaii is the big question.

While not to minimize the devastation of a nuclear assault, the North Koreans are simply not capable of truly massive destruction in Hawaii. Even if everything goes to plan with their missiles, they just don't have the firepower. They might kill tens or even hundreds of thousands of people, but they would be hard pressed to even decimate (see: other thread) the population of Hawaii, let alone wipe it out. Even if they hit smack dab in the middle of Honolulu, it's just not that large.

-Jester

It isn't devestation they would be after, it would be terror. They would do it just to see if a bloody nose is enough to make the US to turn tail and run. And another thing that no one is looking at here about low yield weapons, they don't seem like they can do much initial damage, it's long term where they can really cause problems. In essence, you don't need much of a pop to create a weapon that makes an area uninhabitable for many years to come, simply building the warhead's skin out of a high absorbtion neutron material that becomes a radioactive isotope after neutron absorbtion (typically becoming a gamma emitter) can cause no end of trouble due to dispersion from the bomb. Co59 is a perfect example (although NK couldn't use it because Cobalt is a fairly dense material, they'd probably use something else, but I don't have my Sergei chart handy to take a look for other possibilities). A 2.5 kt to 5 kt weapon is more than enough to cause longterm issues.