What would happen if North Korea waged war against South K?

[Krawu]

LOL no, no it wouldn't... NK's military tech is so hilariously outdated... For example:

1. The most advanced fighting vehicle North Korea has is the T-72, but their armored forces are mostly made up from T-62s, let that sink in... We saw exactly how worthless the T-72 was in both Gulf wars against the M1 Abrams, and South Korea's K1 tanks are every bit as modern as the Abrams...

2. The most advanced aircraft NK has are MiG-29s from the late 70s, something that once again, we saw the hilarious inadequacy of during the Gulf Wars when facing off with US military aircraft, of which South Korea has many, including current generation stealth aircraft like the F-35, which we didn't even field in the Gulf Wars and might as well be invisible to a MiG's ancient targeting systems.

Population matters not when their most powerful weapons are inadequate at best.

I'd say that maybe half of those vehicles are be operational at best. Probably way fewer. Maintaining military equipment is expensive, and North Korea is spending most of it's budget on whiskey and swiss cheese imports for Fat Kim. Those tanks and fighters have been sitting around for about 50 years. I'm willing to bet money that getting them into fighting shape exceeds North Korea's resources and possibly the know-how of most of their maintenance staff by far. They also have a fuel shortage, so they wouldn't be able to move all that around anyways. They're just keeping up a charade. The only thing they have in abundance is lightly armed cannon fodder.

[Flarelaine]

LOL no, no it wouldn't... NK's military tech is so hilariously outdated... For example:

1. The most advanced fighting vehicle North Korea has is the T-72, but their armored forces are mostly made up from T-62s, let that sink in... We saw exactly how worthless the T-72 was in both Gulf wars against the M1 Abrams, and South Korea's K1 tanks are every bit as modern as the Abrams...

2. The most advanced aircraft NK has are MiG-29s from the late 70s, something that once again, we saw the hilarious inadequacy of during the Gulf Wars when facing off with US military aircraft, of which South Korea has many, including current generation stealth aircraft like the F-35, which we didn't even field in the Gulf Wars and might as well be invisible to a MiG's ancient targeting systems.

Population matters not when their most powerful weapons are inadequate at best.

Kim Jong-un, is that you? :P

/facepalm at people who think North Korea's numbers mean anything in a modern day war. North Korea may have a larger military in terms of the number of troops it has, but they are grossly under-equipped, under-fed, and under-trained. They'd be annihilated by US and South Korean forces. This is no debate. No contest. North Korea would be gone forever.

Yes, I've revised my forecast since. Just before the both of you pounced on me, in fact. I still think the Chinese would actually turn on them to beat everyone else to Pyongyang and clean house and North Korea would remain a Chinese satellite/buffer state.

[ParanoiD84]

They would get stomped hard, their tech is way behind.

[Deleted]

Seoul would suffer major damage, South Korea would suffer massive economic damage or even collapse, South Korea and w/e local allied forces are there would destroy the North Korean offensive force (mostly artillery placements) before any other allied forces could reach the area. Extend of damage to seoul would largely be determined by how far away the local US carrier is at the time which would have a large impact on the amount of air sorties the local forces can deploy, and therefore how fast the enemy artillery gets destroyed. (presumably the carrier, japan and south korea are the only allied air forces in range)

China would swoop in and do a land grab "to help our south korean allies", shortly after US/Nato land forces would begin to arrive to try to minimize the Chinese landgrab, possibly resulting in a proxy war like we had in the cold war.

In the aftermath both China and the US increase their military presence in the area, and there is some international help to rebuild south korea to keep a strategic location near china, while china does the same in their own style for the areas they grabbed.

[Macaquerie]

In all likelihood, pretty much everybody with a stake in the region would do everything in their power to PREVENT the North Korean state from collapsing, because if that did happen, somebody would have to take care of those 25 million or so starving and impoverished North Koreans, and I can't imagine anyone really lining up to volunteer for that.

[CostinR]

A nuclear attack would have minor impact on the Seoul Capital Area - which is about 11 thousand square kilometres. A North Korean-nuke would destroy less than one promille of that.

A couple of nukes, biological weapons, chemical weapons and one of the largest artillery forces in the whole world all massed against Seoul.

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres...h-korea-2016-4

The North has the world’s largest artillery force with 10,000 pieces in their arsenal. The bulk of these forces are at the border, with much of the rest around Pyongyang and near Nampo, the site of their electricity-producing dam. It is likely that the South Korean capital of Seoul, just 35 miles from the border, would be the first target and would be devastated in the opening salvos.

South Korea can win if we just compare forces on paper, but the vast bulk of their military is made up of conscripts whose morale would collapse in the first days of artillery shelling and the complete devastation of Seoul. The North Koreans are far more highly motivated due to all the indoctrination they've been through.

The reason the US would wipe the floor with the North Koreans is that the US military is made up of the most determined well trained soldiers in that world. It's not the tech or numbers that make the US military the most powerful in the world, it's the will of it's soldiers to fight hard.

[Phlegethon]

well they still are technically at war with south korea. they never actually surrendered.

Why would they even consider "surrendering" though?

[Raven]

Kim Jong-un, is that you? :P

/facepalm at people who think North Korea's numbers mean anything in a modern day war. North Korea may have a larger military in terms of the number of troops it has, but they are grossly under-equipped, under-fed, and under-trained. They'd be annihilated by US and South Korean forces. This is no debate. No contest. North Korea would be gone forever.

And that is counting on hole NK would be in the fight, part would probably just cross the border and when on the other side surrender.

[schwarzkopf]

South Korea would become known as the Island of Korea.

[Deleted]

LOL no, no it wouldn't... NK's military tech is so hilariously outdated... For example:

1. The most advanced fighting vehicle North Korea has is the T-72, but their armored forces are mostly made up from T-62s, let that sink in... We saw exactly how worthless the T-72 was in both Gulf wars against the M1 Abrams, and South Korea's K1 tanks are every bit as modern as the Abrams...

2. The most advanced aircraft NK has are MiG-29s from the late 70s, something that once again, we saw the hilarious inadequacy of during the Gulf Wars when facing off with US military aircraft, of which South Korea has many, including current generation stealth aircraft like the F-35, which we didn't even field in the Gulf Wars and might as well be invisible to a MiG's ancient targeting systems.

Population matters not when their most powerful weapons are inadequate at best.

it doesn't matter how old their shit is. what matters is they got a lot of it and even if the south can destroy them with complete impunity, they can only do so at a certain speed. before they can all be neutralized, all the important parts of seoul would be in ruins and that effectly means economic collapse for the south.

the north would certainly lose the war, but whether the south can recover from it is another question. it's basically MAD at a local scale.

heck chances are the north will run out of artillery shells long before their artillery gets destroyed.

[haxartus]

Thing is, the North is living in a complete information blackout and it believes that the South is way worse than them. To them, what is on the other side of the border is probably going to look like something from a sci-fi novel.

What do you think will happen to their morale when they cross the border, see the truth and realize they have been lied their whole life ?

[Medusa Cascade]

Seoul would be fucked.

[unbound]

Say the North Korean dictator finally loses his marbles and discards any kind of reason and openly launches a deadly initial assault on South Korea to let them know he's through and they're going to war.

Then what happens? Does the war just proceed and no one else really intervene for either side?

Oh there will be intervention. The US and Japan would immediately help South Korea. China would potentially be a wildcard in all of this though (historically, they have been a strong ally of North Korea, but that has been softening with North Korea's push into nuclear arms).

The problem is that with the US and Japan likely intervening, regardless of the feelings China currently has for North Korea, they aren't going to view a major presence of US and Japanese forces in South Korea very kindly. It will create a lot of tensions. If we have some half-cocked general in charge who doesn't understand diplomacy and appreciate the global view of things, things could get very nasty very quickly.

[Unholyground]

The war would last a few days. The people of NK welcome death at this point.

[Radaney]

The people of NK welcome death at this point.

Lol what the fuck?

[Unholyground]

Lol what the fuck?

The only way they are allowed to leave the country is if they are dead.

[Evilmoo]

Nothing much, but after few years korean RTS / MMO market will be saturated with above-average players.

[Mavett]

North Korea is an absolutely horrible place to fight at, very mountainous landscape aside from the capital area, i bet they have a very formidable tunneling network and underground bases, with a fuck ton of brainwashed zealous infantry that would just duke it out to the death with what they believe is their greatest enemy.

There is no doubt that the combined US SK force would overwhelm NK in retaliation but what follows wouldn't be a walk in a park.

[Deleted]

North Korea would be answering to the United States if they waged war against South Korea. They know that, and it's likely why NK only makes idle threats.

Kim Jong-un has this to say:


There would be nothing left of South Korea.

[Deleted]

A couple of nukes, biological weapons, chemical weapons and one of the largest artillery forces in the whole world all massed against Seoul.

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres...h-korea-2016-4



South Korea can win if we just compare forces on paper, but the vast bulk of their military is made up of conscripts whose morale would collapse in the first days of artillery shelling and the complete devastation of Seoul. The North Koreans are far more highly motivated due to all the indoctrination they've been through.

The reason the US would wipe the floor with the North Koreans is that the US military is made up of the most determined well trained soldiers in that world. It's not the tech or numbers that make the US military the most powerful in the world, it's the will of it's soldiers to fight hard.

Lol 'murica bs! US soldiers won't lay down their lives for another cellphone producer when NK has NUCLEAR WEAPONS. The US presence is just theater, I know you want to think different but Washington don't want to start ww3 with China that don't want US bases in NK.