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2017-04-01 China-Japan-Koreas
What would ground combat in North Korea look like?
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Posted by Herb McCoy7309 2017-04-01 00:00|| || Front Page|| [7 views ]  Top
 File under: Commies 

#1 I don't think ground operations in Nork are a good idea, and I'll be surprised if they happen.

All that's needed is too smash stuff above ground, bridges in particular and wait for logistics breakdown and starvation to do it's work. The Nork's only options are to invade the south or go nuclear against the south. I doubt an invasion would get very far against prepared defenders, and I'd assume any delivery capability would be destroyed asap.
Posted by phil_b 2017-04-01 04:22||   2017-04-01 04:22|| Front Page Top

#2 "No war plan survives contact with the enemy."
Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839 2017-04-01 04:33||   2017-04-01 04:33|| Front Page Top

#3 What would be left of Seoul 24 hours after the festivities begin?
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2017-04-01 06:15||   2017-04-01 06:15|| Front Page Top

#4 6. Do not allow your Hubris to engage.
Wireless networks in mountainous regions, won't and all land access from south to north is mountainous. Assume passes are also tunneled and mined. PT and humping daypacks on roadruns will NOT provide the leg and back strength generations of hillclimbing have developed.
Posted by Skidmark 2017-04-01 08:41||   2017-04-01 08:41|| Front Page Top

#5 You kill the snake by cutting off it's head. Pyongyang must disappear. The complicit Chinese should be given but one warning.
Posted by Besoeker 2017-04-01 08:45||   2017-04-01 08:45|| Front Page Top

#6 Of course this all supposes that the Norks do everything right and won't have any significant execution failures either (or political failures - like senior officials concerned about their own hides looking to work a deal rather than fight).
Posted by Procopius2k 2017-04-01 09:56||   2017-04-01 09:56|| Front Page Top

#7 Planners will have to assume the Samson option. North Korea will strike out to take out as many allies as possible. Expect missile strikes for the South and Japan with both nuclear, dirty warheads and chemical weapons. Protection of allies will be critical.

Also the leadership will be as hard to find after the fighting as the Iraqi leadership was. Some will flee to China and others will be in a hole somewhere leading what is left of the resistance.

Expect a humanitarian crisis like never before seen. The population mostly won't be fanatical as say the Japanese were during WWII, but they will be hungry and desperate. Supply lines will be rapidly overwhelmed with the demand for their care as the simple act of feeding them will keep them from going gorilla.
Posted by DarthVader 2017-04-01 10:02||   2017-04-01 10:02|| Front Page Top

#8 The population mostly won't be fanatical as say the Japanese were during WWII

I don't know about that. They have been brainwashed for generations that we are the enemy and the Kims are the saviors.
Saw a documentary of an eye doctor who went to Pyongyang to treat people who had eye problems - in some cases restoring eyesight. I think it was a National Geo. documentary. Keep in mind, only the party faithful and higher-up are allowed to live there.
At the end the people and their relatives thanked, not the foreigner, but Kim, or a picture of him - some even appear to pray to him. It was very creepy.
One might think they would appreciate it after they figure out that they have been lied to all these years - but many, if not most, simply will not accept it.
Posted by CrazyFool 2017-04-01 10:15||   2017-04-01 10:15|| Front Page Top

#9 A dictatorship that starves and enslaves the populace won't hesitate to use them as human shields
Posted by Frank G 2017-04-01 10:48||   2017-04-01 10:48|| Front Page Top

#10 CrazyFool---I saw the same documentary. The end was creepy. It will take several generations to fix this once the NORK dictatorship is gone.

Ground pounding stuff up there will be a meat grinder. We are talking decapitation of the regime and some serious kinetics on missile and nuclear sites. This will be war at its worst.
Posted by Alaska Paul 2017-04-01 15:54||   2017-04-01 15:54|| Front Page Top

#11 A ground engagement is what the NORKS desire. Avoid giving your adversary what he desires. See comment #5.
Posted by Besoeker 2017-04-01 16:08||   2017-04-01 16:08|| Front Page Top

#12 There is no reason to fight Nork ground troops. They can't be sustained or maneuvered. Leave them where they are. Simultaneously, use counter-fire assets to destroy their ranged fires and SOF to clean out high value installations. The first couple of days will be very bad. Probably hundreds of thousands of Sork civilian casualties. Then the Norks will run out of food, ammo, water, nukes and ambition.

At that point leading the charge into Norkland with food trucks would pretty much end the conflict.
Posted by rammer 2017-04-01 19:28||   2017-04-01 19:28|| Front Page Top

#13 Does the North Korean leadership trust the regular troops enough to give them bullets for their guns? I seem to recall that's an issue.
Posted by trailing wife 2017-04-01 21:10||   2017-04-01 21:10|| Front Page Top

#14 NORK Special Purpose Units will be deployed as far forward as possible prior to the initiation of hostilities - overseas if possible. That is another complexity to deal with
Posted by Blossom Hupager6063 2017-04-01 21:37||   2017-04-01 21:37|| Front Page Top

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