asymetric warfare

In article ,
pervect wrote:

Here's where I disagree somewhat. Let's compare Iraq and Korea

Iraq: "We don't have any weapons of mass destruction". Which
apparently they didn't, at least nobody's found any.

Korea: "Sure we have weapons of mass destruction. Wanna make
something of it?"

Compare the results. Iraq gets invaded. The US says "We will not be
provoked" to N. Korea.

Now allies may have made a difference, but Iraq had French and German
support, while Korea has Chineese support. So they both did have
allies.

One major difference is that Iraq had no capability to cause any kind of
harm to anybody we like, or even anybody at all outside their own
borders. Even in the first war, (skipping the whole invasion-of-Kuwait
thing...) the best they managed was to toss a few missiles into Saudi
Arabia and Israel.

North Korea, on the other hand, has enough artillery on the border to
completely level Seoul within a few hours, from what I understand. That
alone is enough to stop any plans for an invasion. In a way, it's even
worse than the nuclear problem. Unlike a nuke and its delivery system,
there's no possible way to take out mumble-thousand pieces of artillery
before the deed has been done.

In article mail-0E43D5.00500922122003@localhost,
Michael Ash wrote:

North Korea, on the other hand, has enough artillery on the border to
completely level Seoul within a few hours, from what I understand. That
alone is enough to stop any plans for an invasion. In a way, it's even
worse than the nuclear problem. Unlike a nuke and its delivery system,
there's no possible way to take out mumble-thousand pieces of artillery
before the deed has been done.

Kinda makes you wonder how well they can coordinate those artillery
pieces... they can't even feed their troops.

Out of the tens of thousands of cannons sitting on the north side of the
border, anyone want to bet that no more than a couple of hundred
actually get to fire? Especially with a few dozen MLRS launchers and a
couple of hundred attack aircraft cranking out a few million
submunitions across their firing positions... while reducing their
command centers to smoking holes in the ground and jamming
communications.

For reference, look at the "massive" weapons infrastructure in Iraq, and
how they never managed to get more than a few percent of them into play.
And Iraq was in relatively good shape compared to what Korea's going
through right now.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

North Korea, on the other hand, has enough artillery on the border to
completely level Seoul within a few hours, from what I understand. That
alone is enough to stop any plans for an invasion. In a way, it's even
worse than the nuclear problem. Unlike a nuke and its delivery system,
there's no possible way to take out mumble-thousand pieces of artillery
before the deed has been done.

Kinda makes you wonder how well they can coordinate those artillery
pieces... they can't even feed their troops.

Actually their army get's fair chunk of the food, it's the civvies that are
having the worst. So the question would be "How much fuel does the army
have?"

Out of the tens of thousands of cannons sitting on the north side of the
border, anyone want to bet that no more than a couple of hundred
actually get to fire? Especially with a few dozen MLRS launchers and a
couple of hundred attack aircraft cranking out a few million
submunitions across their firing positions... while reducing their
command centers to smoking holes in the ground and jamming
communications.

Koreans have had time to prepare firing positions for their artillery, so
they should have some cover. And using landlines reduces the risk of jamming
and can provide quite secure communications if they have enough of "surplus"
capacity.
But I don't think that that many NK artillery pieces can reach Seoul from
their prepared positions. What is the howitzer/cannon ratio of NK army? And
I doubt that they have newer shells with longer range.

For reference, look at the "massive" weapons infrastructure in Iraq, and
how they never managed to get more than a few percent of them into play.
And Iraq was in relatively good shape compared to what Korea's going
through right now.

You have to take notice of cultural differences. Korean mentality is quite
different from arab mentality.
But it is true that NK wouldn't be able to beat SK, but it might inflict
some really nasty damage to civilians, specially if they can lob chemical
weapons with their artillery and missiles. And if they have working nuke
with delivery method, it can turn quite nasty.

In article , "tadaa" wrote:

cirby wrote:
Kinda makes you wonder how well they can coordinate those artillery
pieces... they can't even feed their troops.

Actually their army get's fair chunk of the food, it's the civvies that are
having the worst.

Even the army is on the short end of the trough right now. North Korea
is in insanely bad shape. Even their border guards are getting on the
scrawny side, and those guys have always been the cream of the NK crop.

So the question would be "How much fuel does the army have?"

Not much, from all reports. The Chinese have apparently cut back, and
are putting pressure on them that way. The best NK pilots get something
like 45 minutes of flight time per month... not too good for training.
Similar for the tanks and other big weapons.

Koreans have had time to prepare firing positions for their artillery, so
they should have some cover. And using landlines reduces the risk of jamming
and can provide quite secure communications if they have enough of "surplus"
capacity.

....and you think the US hasn't scoped out those areas and planned a
firing solution for them? And that the command centers won't be the
first thing on the target list? We have a lot of neato
anti-communications hardware, and some of it will kill landlines quite
nicely.

You have to take notice of cultural differences. Korean mentality is quite
different from arab mentality.

But still human, especially as more and more of them starve to death.
They ceratinly have some "true believers," but they also certainly have
enough folks who will, plainly bug out at the first sign of an attack.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

Chad Irby writes:

In article mail-0E43D5.00500922122003@localhost,
Michael Ash wrote:

North Korea, on the other hand, has enough artillery on the border to
completely level Seoul within a few hours, from what I understand. That
alone is enough to stop any plans for an invasion. In a way, it's even
worse than the nuclear problem. Unlike a nuke and its delivery system,
there's no possible way to take out mumble-thousand pieces of artillery
before the deed has been done.

Kinda makes you wonder how well they can coordinate those artillery
pieces... they can't even feed their troops.

Out of the tens of thousands of cannons sitting on the north side of the
border, anyone want to bet that no more than a couple of hundred
actually get to fire? Especially with a few dozen MLRS launchers and a
couple of hundred attack aircraft cranking out a few million
submunitions across their firing positions... while reducing their
command centers to smoking holes in the ground and jamming
communications.

How do you jam a homing pigeon?

The DPRK is hopeless at economics, yes, but the NKPA does traditional
twentieth-century warfighting reasonably well. I have recently argued
in another post that their ability to destroy Seoul by artillery fire
is vastly overrated, that with few exceptions the guns simply won't
reach.

But what fixed targets are within 15-20km of the border, those are
going to get plastered. The North Korean artillery is seriously
hardened; area weapons like MRLS will not even annoy it, only the
one-on-one attention of guided penetrator munitions. We can't
deliver those fast enough to take out the guns before they shoot
through their ready stocks of ammunition.

And the command and control battle, *on this issue*, favors the
North. Planned bombardment of fixed targets by prepositioned
artillery assets, requires only the general distribution of an
"Execute War Plan A" message in real time. War Plan A itself
can be distributed ahead of time, and as securely dug in as the
guns that will execute it. The implementation order goes out by
general broadcast, landline telephone, bicycle courier, signal
flare, and I wasn't kidding about carrier pigeons. With massive
redundancy in all channels. It will get through.

Once events diverge from War Plan A, yes, the NKPA will be blind,
dumb, and paralyzed. But the first day of battle, on the border,
will probably be theirs.


For reference, look at the "massive" weapons infrastructure in Iraq, and
how they never managed to get more than a few percent of them into play.
And Iraq was in relatively good shape compared to what Korea's going
through right now.

But Korea set everything up when, with Soviet and/or Chinese assistance,
they were in relatively good shape themselves. Given their patrons'
taste for extremely robust hardware designed for operation by illiterate
conscripts, that system will outlast the rest of North Korea by at least
a decade.

And the comparison with Iraq, misses some key differences. The Hussein
regime spent roughly a generation trying to opportunistically exploit
whatever weaknesses or instabilities their neighbors showed, and defend
against whatever threats arose, anywhere on a 2,500 km open desert border.
That requires flexibility at every level; "Execute War Plan A" doesn't
help the Iraqis.

North Korea, has had two generations to dig in and prepare for battle
with one specific adversary, on a 250 km front characterized by mountain
and storm. They know what they'll be facing on the first day of the
war, they are going to smash it hard, and we probably can't stop it.

Doesn't mean they would *win*, just that it won't be Iraq all over again.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

In article ,
(John Schilling) wrote:

How do you jam a homing pigeon?

A twelve gauge.

But the other question you *didn't* ask is "how effective is a homing
pigeon?"

The DPRK is hopeless at economics, yes, but the NKPA does traditional
twentieth-century warfighting reasonably well.

Really? Who have they gone up against in the last twenty years? How
well did they do?

And are you gauging the pre-starvation NK military, or the current one?

North Korea, has had two generations to dig in and prepare for battle
with one specific adversary, on a 250 km front characterized by mountain
and storm. They know what they'll be facing on the first day of the
war, they are going to smash it hard, and we probably can't stop it.

If it ever happens. That "go" order is the hard one to get out, and
it's seeming less and less likely that they'd be able to give it under
*any* circumstances.

Doesn't mean they would *win*, just that it won't be Iraq all over again.

You're right. It might be shorter and less of a fight.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

On 23 Dec 2003 14:43:23 -0800, John Schilling wrote:
Chad Irby writes:
Out of the tens of thousands of cannons sitting on the north side of the
border, anyone want to bet that no more than a couple of hundred
actually get to fire? Especially with a few dozen MLRS launchers and a
couple of hundred attack aircraft cranking out a few million
submunitions across their firing positions... while reducing their
command centers to smoking holes in the ground and jamming
communications.

How do you jam a homing pigeon?

With a hawk or falcon, perhaps?

And the command and control battle, *on this issue*, favors the
North. Planned bombardment of fixed targets by prepositioned
artillery assets, requires only the general distribution of an
"Execute War Plan A" message in real time. War Plan A itself
can be distributed ahead of time, and as securely dug in as the
guns that will execute it. The implementation order goes out by
general broadcast, landline telephone, bicycle courier, signal
flare, and I wasn't kidding about carrier pigeons. With massive
redundancy in all channels. It will get through.

Once events diverge from War Plan A, yes, the NKPA will be blind,
dumb, and paralyzed. But the first day of battle, on the border,
will probably be theirs.

This seems an accurate assessment.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

John Schilling opined

Chad Irby writes:

In article mail-0E43D5.00500922122003@localhost,
Michael Ash wrote:

North Korea, on the other hand, has enough artillery on the border to
completely level Seoul within a few hours, from what I understand. That
alone is enough to stop any plans for an invasion. In a way, it's even
worse than the nuclear problem. Unlike a nuke and its delivery system,
there's no possible way to take out mumble-thousand pieces of artillery
before the deed has been done.

Kinda makes you wonder how well they can coordinate those artillery
pieces... they can't even feed their troops.

Out of the tens of thousands of cannons sitting on the north side of the
border, anyone want to bet that no more than a couple of hundred
actually get to fire? Especially with a few dozen MLRS launchers and a
couple of hundred attack aircraft cranking out a few million
submunitions across their firing positions... while reducing their
command centers to smoking holes in the ground and jamming
communications.

How do you jam a homing pigeon?

Big magnet.


-ash
for assistance dial MYCROFTXXX

On 24 Dec 03 10:27:36 -0500, "Ash Wyllie" wrote:

John Schilling opined

Chad Irby writes:

Out of the tens of thousands of cannons sitting on the north side of the
border, anyone want to bet that no more than a couple of hundred
actually get to fire? Especially with a few dozen MLRS launchers and a
couple of hundred attack aircraft cranking out a few million
submunitions across their firing positions... while reducing their
command centers to smoking holes in the ground and jamming
communications.

How do you jam a homing pigeon?

Big magnet.

More to the point, I thought carrier pigeons were extinct?

I know homing pigeons aren't, but I thought they weren't useful for
communications purposes?

In article ,
Penta wrote:

On 24 Dec 03 10:27:36 -0500, "Ash Wyllie" wrote:

John Schilling opined

Chad Irby writes:

Out of the tens of thousands of cannons sitting on the north side of the
border, anyone want to bet that no more than a couple of hundred
actually get to fire? Especially with a few dozen MLRS launchers and a
couple of hundred attack aircraft cranking out a few million
submunitions across their firing positions... while reducing their
command centers to smoking holes in the ground and jamming
communications.

How do you jam a homing pigeon?

Big magnet.

More to the point, I thought carrier pigeons were extinct?

That would be passenger pigeons, as of 1914.

I know homing pigeons aren't, but I thought they weren't useful for
communications purposes?