North Korea launches Artillery Strike

[wayne19540]

Lil Kim is just showing that he is still relevant and trying not to lose face knowing (or hoping) that the US won't get involved.

I think then its going to be bad news for him then don't you think.

[MaddMoose]

South Korean defence minister just resigned.

[Wyld]

Just a rattling of sabres.

Yes, and No.

When lives are lost, it does cross a line.

However, they dance over that line often .. and nothing seems to happen because of it.

This has to be the slowest war in history.

[MaddMoose]

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiap ... tml?hpt=T1

He resigned after both political parties said SK was unprepared for the attacks (sinking of the SK ship earlier as well). So I'd say the South don't war but will likely hit back harder in the future. Have to wait and see if North are bluffing on their threats or not.

[TheScientist]

sunday will be interesting. The US and South are holding war games in the same area, including an aircraft carrier. This has apparently been planned for months, but the fact they're not moving the location or anything seems a bit silly... very provocational.

almost looks like the US are saying "go on, shoot our carrier, we dare you"

the worrying thing is how likely the North are to take that dare. Then it might become a rapid shitstorm, though i doubt it's really likely. China might step in before that.

[chaff]

Its a game everyone can play

[$had0w]

i dont know all that much about politics..

But people want this resolved in talks?

What? An artillary strike on a country and the most you want in response is to talk?

[FryzieDelta]

sunday will be interesting. The US and South are holding war games in the same area, including an aircraft carrier. This has apparently been planned for months, but the fact they're not moving the location or anything seems a bit silly... very provocational.

almost looks like the US are saying "go on, shoot our carrier, we dare you"

the worrying thing is how likely the North are to take that dare.

I'm betting NK will try to disrupt the games somehow. China did once surface a submarine in the middle of US naval war games to say "W3 PWN3D UR 50N4R N00b!!1!". However I don't think that war games near disputed territory are any more provocational than an artillery strike... Problem is that if NK does try to cause problems they could very well get several of their people killed in the process if it is mistaken for a real threat (which going by their past actions it probably will be). Though I highly doubt they would be stupid enough to say "sorry, we kinda accidentally sunk your aircraft carrier", they might be silly enough to go after smaller SK ships closer to their border.

The games could go off without a hitch, or if everything possible goes wrong the cease fire could end and another country disappears from the map.

[Tastynapalm]

Just a rattling of sabres.

Yes, and No.

When lives are lost, it does cross a line.

However, they dance over that line often .. and nothing seems to happen because of it.

This has to be the slowest war in history.

Perhaps they want to beat the Hundred years war record?

[skitzor]

What? An artillary strike on a country and the most you want in response is to talk?

from what i hear the sheer ridiculous amount of artillery each country have pointed at each other is mind boggling. a war/skirmish would end in a lot of innocent death and destruction. as weak as it looks trying to talk their way out of it, the other option is just bad.

[Axwell]

A conflict between SK and NK (more like NK vs everyone else) is still not something I'm comfortable with, would make rather have it all solved diplomatically.

I'm pretty damn shocked at how NK just seems so...stupid. They're pointlessly aggressive, they resist capitalism like nothing else, all the meanwhile their leader sits on his golden throne all day and the people are dirt poor and hungry.

[MaddMoose]

sunday will be interesting. The US and South are holding war games in the same area, including an aircraft carrier. This has apparently been planned for months, but the fact they're not moving the location or anything seems a bit silly... very provocational.

It's an annual operation. What do you want them to do, put up the white flag and quiver in the corner saying please don't hurt me Kim.

NK don't have anything that could possibly cause any problems for the US carrier group. It has more firepower and strike capability than the entire ADF combined.

[Wyld]

NK don't have anything that could possibly cause any problems for the US carrier group. It has more firepower and strike capability than the entire ADF combined.

Not just that .. I would place serious money on all assets being used now have a complete set of established firing solutions, pre-set and available if required.

NK may be crazy, but they arn't that stupid.

Still .. crazy is as crazy does ..

[MaddMoose]

No doubt. If war does break out again, it would be very short with high casualties. Most of them on the NK side.

[Bronze_D]

Hidden: show

Yeah it is really easy to say big words about a war on the Korean peninsula but there is a very good reason why it is the longest running UN peace keeping operation in history and in a permanent state of cease fire. North Korea has thousands of pieces of artillery covering most of Seoul. The thing with that amount of artillery is that it is extremely hard to bomb, you can't shoot it down and you can't do much to limit damage or prevent casualties after it has been fired. Even if you do strike first there is really nothing you can do about the massive amount of casualties something like that would cause in a city like Seoul.

The last time there was war there it was an absolute meat grinder and another one would be just as bad, if not worse. Technological difference counts for little in this.

If you look at how resource intensive Iraq and Afghanistan are and then expect doing anything in North Korea with less than that then you would be kidding yourself. The fact is that the US aren't going to be doing anything too belligerent and South Korea won't either because the risks of escalation are far too high. An artillery strike sounds bad but in the past there have been axe murders and multiple attempts at tunnel invasions and none of them came remotely close to sparking off hostilities again.

The US lack the political will and the resources to become involved in a massive and bloody conflict again and China is far more willing to use soft power over hard power so I don't see either being too keen on doing much. Even the UN Security Council isn't bothering to do an emergency meeting and if the JSA wants to change footing then the Security Council must support it.

This was all about internally showing the younger, unproven son as a potential leader. From inside North Korea the story would be that South Korea threatened the borders with exercises and the son protected North Korean interests with a show of strength. That is why there is also no mobilisation north of the DMZ that would back up any serious long term offensive.

be careful with figures containing artillery for NK as they often includes the AAA and SPAAG and their older AT guns unless specifically broken down carefully and can be recognized as howitzers and MLRS.

as far as long range artillery is concerned they do indeed have a large number of them given their country size and for a good reason, they rely on artillery as a combat multiplier to offset their drastically out of date hardwares in all aspect. One have to ask if relying on ur artillery is ever a good idea in a real war where u can't expect the battle lines to be static and with air power being very potent at counter artillery these days with guided munitions.

which is why SK bought the US MLRS and ATACSM cruise missiles back a while ago to supplement their own artillery systems, this makes SK the only other country i know of to possess the ATACSM other than the US. If they are going to do an artillery duel, the NK will essentially throw as many as it can over the other fence and hope for the best (which works for static locations like cities, but not very useful against mobile forces like tanks and mechanized infantries), while the SK will throw fewer across but with far more likelihood of hitting critical targets.