Nork Nukes Nearing Nuisance?

[mirth]

Okay, the Macedonians.

[bayonetbrant]

Nork arty doctrine is based on overwhelming barrages, and a willingness to trade tubes with you during the counterbattery fight b/c they have more than you do.

The end result of that is that unless you find some other way to neutralize their arty, which will frequently just line up wheel-to-wheel and shoot at you, there's just so damn much of it that some of it is going to get thru.

Once you add up all those tubes, and do the math that the DMZ is not that far from Seoul, someone figures out that there's enough arty that can get in range to really f' the place up.

========
"Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics"

How do you get 400+ artillery pieces, crews, ammo, POL, etc close enough to Seoul to shoot, without setting off every alarm bell in the West, er... South? 
That's a logistics problem, and that's not a nut that most non-professionals can crack, or would even think about.


{digression}

The reason the Russian seizure of Crimea caught everyone off-guard, and was so devastatingly effective, was that no one saw it coming.  The Russians snuck over 10,000 guys into Crimea, with sufficient uniforms/weapons completely undetected, and when everyone woke up one morning and there were pro-Russian "militia" on every corner, no one could figure out how they got there, and it played right into the Russians' narrative - "well if they were ours, wouldn't you have seen them coming?!"
It was a logistics problem that the Russians solved in such a way that no one could do jack-all about the tactical outcome.

{/digression}

Moving that much artillery that far with no detection, especially in the sparsely-populated and well-surveilled areas around the DMZ is a whole lot different than sneaking in a lot of individuals with contraband suitcases.  We would certainly see them coming and the Norks know that.  The question is going to be "what are they doing to distract us while they wheel their artillery up there?"

[Airborne Rifles]

So an interesting discussion has started on BGG about the Norks and Seoul in this AAR for Next War: Korea
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/26915038#26915038

I, and apparently lots of other people, have long heard that the Norks have tons of arty pointed at Seoul and that they could flatten it at the start of any hostilities with little to nothing we could do to stop it.

A gent chimed in with what appears to be first hand knowledge and makes a very good case that this is BS.

Well there part of the problem since I really doubt that those news writers have ever been there either.

The distance from Seoul to Pan Mun Jeon is approx. 35 miles or around 56 KM's.

US 155mm Arty has a range of around 30 KM's with Rocket assist Round and normal range is 22.4 KM's.

The BM-21 122mm Rocket Launcher has a max range of around 20 KM's

This link has an article about NK Arty

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/4/25/1656090/-North-Ko...

North Korea would have to setup their Arty in/near or south of Pan Mun Jeon and well that would not go unnoticed. Plus Arty is usually setup several KM's behind the lines.

So as I pointed out above most conventional Arty does not have the range necessary to fire 60+ KM's in order to reach Seoul and these Arty pieces would have to be setup to the Northeast of Seoul since the distance from the North along with the terrain blocks Seoul from that direction.

I have had the pleasure of being stationed in Korea for a total of four years; 1977-1979, 1979-1980 & 1990-1991 as an Intelligence Analyst for the US Army.

So I have driven that terrain and those hills north of Seoul would still be where they were 26 years ago.

I know there are some very knowledgeable people on this site about this theatre. If his statements are true, and they certainly make sense to me now that I think closely enough about it, where did this myth of Nork arty come from and why is it so well spread?

A problem with this analysis is that it measures to the city center of Seoul, which, as he notes, is mostly beyond arty range. The outlying areas of the city in the northeast, however, are much closer (within 30km), and hundreds of thousands of people live there.

[mirth]

If shit really kicked off in Korea, you have to imagine the Norks would start shooting off whatever chem/bio stocks they have.

[Gusington]

So N. Korea does have thousands of artillery pieces, but only the outskirts of Seoul are within range?

[OJsDad]

They just launched another missile over Japan

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/n-korea-fires-missile-from-pyongyang-towards-the-east-s-korea/ar-AArWImu?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

[mirth]

So N. Korea does have thousands of artillery pieces, but only the outskirts of Seoul are within range?

They do have thousands of pieces. They are of mixed calibres and ranges. Getting them all within range of Seoul would be very difficult.

[Gusington]

2 out of 5 ain't bad?

[mirth]

No matter what, if shooting starts it will suck for the people of Seoul.

[OJsDad]

I think I posted in the this thread before, but someone pointed out, if their arty is shelling Seoul, then it's not supporting their troops.  And if their arty is supporting their troops, then it's not hammering Seoul. 

[BanzaiCat]

I guess there's a good reason, but given that we were able to knock SCUDs out of the air 25+ years ago in the First Gulf War using Patriot batteries, has it not occurred to anyone to shoot these things down?

Ignorance on my part as I'm totally unaware of how high up these Nork missiles are going, but I imagine a strong message to fat boy over there would be shooting the frigging thing down.

[mirth]

It's better not to reveal what our capabilities are in regard to our ABM systems. And if we tried and failed, it would be a huge win for the Norks and very telling to other potential adversaries.

[BanzaiCat]

Good point. Though I'd have thought swatting one of them down as it lifts off would be a major win. Them NOT doing so tells me someone's not too keen on our ABM capabilities.

I would have thought, too, that our ABM tech would have done nothing but improve in a quarter of a century's time, but I suppose it could go backwards, too.

[OJsDad]

If you took one down and it rained all over Japan, that would be a bad thing.  It's bad enough the NORKS aren't telling anyone they're shooting them or where their aiming so shipping and aircraft can be sure to be out of the way.  But bring down a missile in the middle of Tokyo...

[mirth]

There is that too. Even if we or the Japanese can hit one, the remains have to come down somewhere.