N. Korea

[Freenhult]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/07/04/korea.missile/index.html

I really wonder what there game plan is now?

[Kraken]

well, i think that thier plan failed actually. the long ranged missle fell into the Sea of Japan, about 375 miles away from the island itself. they have fired a missle over japan once before and it shook the japs up perty badly.
personaly, i think N. korea needs an enema.
when i was in basic training, they told us that the biggest army in the world was n. korea followed closley by China.
they truly are a danger to any and all who love freedom.

[Gen. Volkov]

Er.. no, it's China, then N. Korea, but whatever.

I think it's hilarious. All this furor over the missile and then it fails. Damn Koreans can't make anything that lasts longer than a few seconds. LMAO.

What makes it funnier is earlier they were threatening a "devasting anihilating strike" and "nuclear war" if we made a pre-emptive strike. And I was thinking, 1) the missile might not even work and 2) How exactly were they planning on doing anything to US? Any pre-emptive strike would leave them totally crippled. I knew it was just bluster. The only thing scary to me about the N. Koreans is them giving a nuclear weapon to terrorists. Anyway, they have to know that any nuclear attack on us would lead to their utter destruction. They can't have more than a few bombs, and no way to deliver them reliably.

I wouldn't be surprised though if it doesn't turn out later that we shot their missile down.

[Kraken]

nope, and i am not going to argue with you on the Popov, we were told N. Korea is the largest simply because of sheer numbers. China is huge, indeed, so is Soviet Union, AFrica and Nappy's Bar and Grill. but in N. Korea: evey boy and man and old man is conscpripted into the military.

[Gen. Volkov]

Da facts. China: 2.3 million men in the army. N. Korea: 1.2 million. Both are for the active army. Actually N. Korea is 4th largest in the world.

The conscriptees do not count as they aren't worth poop for anything but mass charges. They don't have the training. The Soviet Union had the same deal. Doesn't mean their general population was worth anything in terms of military ability. China has potentially a billion soldiers as well. Again worthless in military terms.

[Kraken]

maybe, however, tatica in the first world war in which the N. Koreans will rely on is simple: overwhelm by sheer numbers. China has more elilte troops and specialized types whereas korea mostly has Infantry, the largest infantry in the world.

[Gen. Volkov]

Sheer numbers won't mean crud against cluster bombs and claymores. Not to mention artillery, and newer more advanced munitions. They relied on infantry in the First world War, and it got them nowhere. 4 years of horribly bloody fighting for, at times, a few yards of land. Infantry is only effective when well trained and used in conjunction with other forces. Especially mechanized forces. Infantry still has it's place, but there's a reason we use tanks as the spearhead of our attacking forces. In war, the only effective force would be Korea's regular army. Which is not the largest in the world. And China would be a much more formidable foe than N. Korea anyway, whatever the numbers are.

[windhound]

yip. doesnt matter how many people you have if they aint trained and dont have weapons of any decent size
tanks could fairly easily wipe out a charge.. or just drop bombs on them

technically, if every civilian is in the military (?) then there arnt any civilians.. thus no civilian casulties if we just say screw it and flatten the country

*shrug* they're just showing off.. or rather, trying to.

[The Beatles]

"Quantity has a quality all its own." ~Stalin

And mark you, the Red Army did the brunt of the work fighting Nazi Germany. Sure, they lost 15 million people, but it is still a valid result.

[Gen. Volkov]

Yeah, I'd have to agree about them showing off. It's a diplomatic move more than anything else, trying to get the US to agree to one on one talks. They know they'd be helpless against any US strike, and if they went nuclear their country would be a radioactive lake about 5 seconds later. They're just blowing hot air and trying to make the world believe it's firebreath.

Yes, but the infantry part of the Red Army was backed up by ALOT of tanks. So that just proves my point.

Stalin did say that, but he wasn't just refering to the large numbers of soldiers he had. He was also refering to the huge number of tanks and aircraft he had. Which all those farmboy soldier were so well suited to drive. Took abit longer to fly well, but they had a big advantage, the Luftwaffe just did not have that many planes anymore. Not after losing so many in the BoB and losing about half the total force in the initial destruction of Russia's old airforce. AND Russia's factories were safe from German bombing. Meanwhile Germany's factories were getting pounded by the RAF and US strategic bombing campaign. In other words, Stalin was right as far as that went, but quality played a part as well in Russia's side of the victory.

And wondy brings up a good point, if everyone is a combatant, then carpet bombing becomes a viable option. And carpet bombing is exceptionally usefull for stopping mass charges.

[The Beatles]

Tanks, but not the most modern ones. Sure, they had fancy rocket launchers and all but the Germans had better equipment. Not so one-sidedly as against nukes, but don't think that if N. Korea bought a Kalashnikov for all their citizens they couldn't cause major damage in their area of the world.

[Gen. Volkov]

The T-34, while not as good as the Tiger, and maybe the Panther, (there's some dispute between historians over which was better, the Panther or the T-34, I've always said the Panther was better, just not built in large enough numbers and soon enough to make a difference) was a good tank. Better than everything the Germans had except for the two mentioned above. Good enough anyway. Which is all it had to be. Because it was built in very large numbers. The German equipment was better at first yes, but the gap closed fairly quickly to the point where the Russian equipment was good enough that their superior numbers could turn the tide. In some areas of performance, Russian fighters actually outclassed German fighters. For example, later Yaks had better performance below 5000 feet than the FW-190. So you need enough quality that quantity matters.

And if the N. Koreas armed their entire population with AK-47's or 74's, and said, "Go South" they'd get about 3 miles before they started getting hit by devastating airstrikes, and then artillery as they got closer to the DMZ, and then the mines and claymores and whatnot of the DMZ itself, until finally they met with the South Koreans, backed up by the US army. By that point, if they were even still a cohesive force, they'd be ALOT fewer in number and would be shattered by the fresh US and Korean forces. As for the N. Korean tank force, Air Force, and Navy... let's see, the US Navy would sink all their ships the first day, the US Air Force would shoot down every plane they got into the air, and then proceed to pound their tanks into scrap, and the few that did make it to the DMZ would get annihilated by the US Army's M1A2 Abrams main battle tank from beyond the N. Korean own tanks range. In short it would be a slaughter a scale so massive that it would make the first Gulf War look like a picnic. Make no mistake, the US military forces have worked to the point where they so far outclass everyone they might conceivably face to the point that it's suicide to engage them in head to head battle. Now if the Chinese did the same thing, it might be a different story. Because they have something like 500 million men of military age. That's 22 times North Korea's entire population.

[bjornredtail]

Perhaps North Korea ordered the missile to destroy itself?

Also rember that North Korea has a number of batteries aimed as the South Korean capital, Seoul. The city would be leveled within 10 minuates of the start of an attack, even without the missiles.

[Gen. Volkov]

Doubtful, probably a mistake somewhere along the way. It's very easy for a missile to fail, as was proven repeatedly in the early days of the US and Soviet space/missile programs. That comment of mine about shoddy Korean construction was a joke. I do find it funny though.

Missile batteries? Artillery batteries? Rocket batteries? If using nonnuclear methods, it would take alot more than 10 minutes to level the city. And I'm fairly certain that those batteries would be pretty high up on any list of targets for the Air Force. And I'm sure Pynongang(sp?) wouldn't be left alone itself. We probably wouldn't carpet bomb it, but it's not out of the question. We would certainly bomb targets within the city pretty heavily.

[Freenhult]

Pynongang(sp?)

Pyongyang... Close