South Korean ship fires on a ship

[Castout]

South Korea has a good reason why they don't want to act harshly.

North Korea has a large number of artillery pieces pointed at South Korea's capital.

I believe that's their primary concern and scaring off investors would only come second.

But they obviously can't say they're afraid of North Korea's artillery. So it's only understandable that this wasn't mentioned and the economic consequences were put first instead.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Castout

South Korea has a good reason why they don't want to act harshly.

North Korea has a large number of artillery pieces pointed at South Korea's capital.

I believe that's their primary concern and scaring off investors would only come second.

But they obviously can't say they're afraid of North Korea's artillery. So it's only understandable that this wasn't mentioned and the economic consequences were put first instead.

Bingo, and the North is pretty twitchy at the moment because of:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36046278/

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Castout

North Korea has a large number of artillery pieces pointed at South Korea's capital.

Not as many as you might think.

Worth a read:

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?162240-Bluffer-s-Guide-North-Korea-strikes!-%282009%29

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Not as many as you might think.

Worth a read:

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...es!-%282009%29

Very well wortht he read

No doubt they'll be declaring war on Google Earth when they find out

[Oberon]

Here we are, also from militaryphotos, I wondered when they'd appear:











http://www.france24.com/en/20100426-...rals-promotion

[CaptainHaplo]

Yea - little doubt about this - something blew up directly under her from those pictures. Going to be interesting to see what response - if any - comes from this.

[breadcatcher101]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Yea - little doubt about this - something blew up directly under her from those pictures. Going to be interesting to see what response - if any - comes from this.

Well from the looks of those pictures that's only the half of it.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Not as many as you might think.

Their ballistic mobile launchers could prove lethal to population centers in the South. . . .with every one having a probability that it might carry nuclear warhead.

[CaptainHaplo]

The danger isn't nukes - there is still some question as to whether the "nuke" NK has is really even a nuke at all given the dispersal of radiation and strength. However, their chem and bio side is a real danger to the civilian population however.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Castout

Their ballistic mobile launchers could prove lethal to population centers in the South. . . .with every one having a probability that it might carry nuclear warhead.

Which is why the ROK purchased 48 PAC-2 launchers and the US keeps two Brigades of Patriots in Korea.

[TLAM Strike]

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/...042601408.html

According to this from the SUBSIM main page the two submarines that left base on the day of the attack were of the North Korean "Shark" class (AKA Sang O class). This sub class carries two torpedo tubes with 2 reloads.



This is the larger of the two main classes of North Korea midget submarines. Here is the Database entry I wrote for them in LWAMI 3.10:

SANG-O CLASS MIDGET SUBMARINE

D: 256 tons surf./277 tons sub.
S: 7 kts surf./9 kts sub.
Dim: 35X3.6x6 m
Maximum Depth: 152M

ARMAMENT: 2 533mm torpedo tubes. 2-4 torpedoes or 8 mines.


ELECTRONICS:
Radar: Furuno I Band Search Radar
Sonar: Cylindrical array (Copy of 1950's vintage Soviet sonar)
EW: VHF wip antenna.

Crew: 25 incl. Commandos.

Machinery: 1 Diesel, 1 Electric motor. 1 5 blade propeller.

[joegrundman]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Which is why the ROK purchased 48 PAC-2 launchers and the US keeps two Brigades of Patriots in Korea.

and you think teh usa and sk are willing to bet a few ten thousand lives on the ability of these defenses to catch them all?

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by joegrundman

and you think teh usa and sk are willing to bet a few ten thousand lives on the ability of these defenses to catch them all?

It only needs to catch the one with the nuke on it. While you've have probably read about mobile nuclear detectors at ports in the US to detect the emissions of neutron or gamma rays from the nuclear material in a warhead it is feasible that an interceptor missile could be equipped with a radiation detecting seeker to differentiate between a nuclear warhead, additional conventional warheads and decoys.

Also the North has to figure that with ground and sea based interceptors there would be a high attrition rate for the IRBMs meaning that if they chose to fire a nuclear missile as part of a strike there is a possibility that is would be shot down, not 100% but enough that the DPRK's few warheads might not reach their targets.

Its a pycological move much like in Desert Storm when the US publicized the [fictional] success of the Patriot.

[Castout]

The best defense is attack but that would risk retaliatory capital bombardment by the North which in return would necessitate equal bombardment of the North's capital(not that they have much).

The thing is the Cheonan may be sunk by the North but the South's population is not at risk with the North raising the concern whether military retaliatory action would be worth the risk of putting the entire South's population into a war situation.

It would be different had the attack in the first place targeted civilian population or infrastructure. That would probably justify an attack on the North immediately.

So the South is facing a dilemma that if they responded too soft the North and their own population would think the government as being too weak both not advantageous for the return of the North's nuclear talk while at the other spectrum if the South responded too hard they would risk Seoul bombardment which would be putting many many more South population into catastrophe.

So it's best to wait for Kim Jong Il regime to launch a couple of his big rockets over into South Korea before launching an all out attack on the North. If that happened I believe the South would have no choice but to attack the source of their threats in North Korea.

[TLAM Strike]

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/...043000459.html

As I suggested a while back, experts now think it was a PRC manufactured Yu-3 torpedo that sank Chenon. That narrows it down to the DPRK or the PRC as they are the only countries with ships armed with this make of torpedo that could have been operating in the region.



Specs:

• Diameter: 533 mm
• Length: 7.8 meter
• Weight: 1.34 ton (1.2 ton for the training version)
• Warhead: 205 kg
• Guidance: active/passive acoustic homing
• Propulsion: electrical, silver-zinc battery
• Range: 13 km
• Speed: 35 kt
• Depth: up to 400 meters