North Korea

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Pharoh, sorry bro... your going ot have to do your own research. Trying to explain NK and it's "political" stratagy would take a small book.

Maeve. I didn't say the fleet was not sent. I said it's normal. We have had two Carrier Strike groups in the Gulf since the Iraq war started. The Eisenhower has been in dry dock for a like 6 years getting refits. Now that she is done she is just taking her turn in the Gulf. Carriers never go anywhere without the fleet that are the Flag ship of... in this case it's a Strike Group. this is like the 4th or 5th time the Eisenhower has gone to the Gulf.

[maeve]

Maeve. I didn't say the fleet was not sent. I said it's normal. We have had two Carrier Strike groups in the Gulf since the Iraq war started. The Eisenhower has been in dry dock for a like 6 years getting refits. Now that she is done she is just taking her turn in the Gulf. Carriers never go anywhere without the fleet that are the Flag ship of... in this case it's a Strike Group. this is like the 4th or 5th time the Eisenhower has gone to the Gulf.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

With everything thats going on over there.. I don't find reinforcements to be a bad thing. Infact, I think it's a very needed thing at this point in time. I have never been comfortable with the troop levels or the support levels in the area. If the Strike Group is in fact being sent as reinforcements rather than rotating in.. then it's a good thing. Iran and Syria are doing some major saber rattling, not as much as NK, but a lot none the less. Iran has a pretty good Air Force and moderen standing Army. If they attack.. we need to be ready to protect our troops on the ground in Iraq and Suadi Arabia.

[Der Nister]

After NK's threat to the United states yesterday maybe we should asked Japan to talk things over with NK.

Japan can kindly remind Mr. Ment-tallee-ill about those 2 bombs we dropped on Japan during WWII.

[maeve]

After NK's threat to the United states yesterday maybe we should asked Japan to talk things over with NK.

Japan can kindly remind Mr. Ment-tallee-ill about those 2 bombs we dropped on Japan during WWII.

I think that what Mr. Ment-tallee-ill is counting on though is that Japan will remember and therefore be too afraid to impose any sanctions. It seems to me that he has backed himself into a corner and like a frightened animal he just may very well lash out. I heard this morning on NPR that both SK and China are now talking about increasing their nuclear programs as a means of deterring NK. It looks to me like we may be witnessing another nuclear arms race here pretty soon.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

In another 100 years you'll be able to make a nuke with a physics 101 education and $100 bucks worth of stuff bought off the ultranet.

Need to change people's intentions. Cant control access to information (arms tech in this case) forever. History has shown over and over again since the first proto-man tribe discovered the club vs the bare hand, weapons tech will proliferate eventually. We need to "civilize" populations if we want to succeed long term. In the west, violence vs. other westerners as a means of conflict resloution is generally pretty much totally unacceptable. We need to spread this concept over the rest of the globe. Its happening but maybe not fast enough.

Beyond that , we need an escape hatch. Some crazy IS going to trigger armageddon at some point (might not be for 1000 years but it will happen) we (mankind) needs to be able to get off this rock somehow.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

In 100 years? or 100 seconds. It's actually pretty easy to get plans for an atomic bomb... some high school physical science text books have it. You can get plans for a Nuclear bomb on line. There are two hard parts to making either type of bomb...

1. Getting the fuel. Uranium 235 is really hard to get. Come to think of it... so is Plutonium.... Deuterium is kinda easy to extract... and I know where you can get all kinds of depleted uranium for the final stage...

2. Making a perfect ball of C4 around the fuel and making it explode all at once.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Om my... Kim Jung mentalyIll must be shaking in his jack boots. The Un voted 15-0 to impose "tough" sanctions... Wonder if sanction s will work this time.... I'm not holding my breath.

[maeve]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061017/ap_on_.../koreas_nuclear

NKorea: Sanctions are declaration of war

I guess we'll see what happens now?

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

I'll bet $5 on another test bomb within a month. Wild odds on a missle launched at the west coast with a biological or chemical warhead.

[Der Nister]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061017/ap_on_.../koreas_nuclear

NKorea: Sanctions are declaration of war

I guess we'll see what happens now?

What a jack ass they have running things over there.

If I'm not mistaken - NK has stated that only American sanctions means a declaration of war.

How fucked up is that?

This guy is begging for an ass kicking.

[DarkVampire]

I'll bet $5 on another test bomb within a month. Wild odds on a missle launched at the west coast with a biological or chemical warhead.

Our westcoast? They don't have the resources to reach this far yet. And if they did, NK can kiss their ass good bye.

[phee]

Our westcoast? They don't have the resources to reach this far yet. And if they did, NK can kiss their ass good bye.

Hawaii is my guess

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Actually... thier long range missle can hit Alaska, California, Oregon and Washignton.

and Der Nister... NK stated that if anyone actually enforces the UN sanctions, that were pushed by the US, it's a decleration of War by that country.

[phee]

Actually... thier long range missle can hit Alaska, California, Oregon and Washignton.

and Der Nister... NK stated that if anyone actually enforces the UN sanctions, that were pushed by the US, it's a decleration of War by that country.

Interesting times

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

Nk has the largest trained standing army in the world. They also have 40,000 15+ inch guns aimed at South Korea. Any military response with NK is going to cause tens of thousands of civilian deaths in the first hours alone. What would be striking would be to see Japan and China fighting together. China has never really forgiven Japan for what they did during WWII. Japan is kinda seen as slaughtering imperialists.

my own two cents... North Korea does not have any 15" guns, their largest guns are likely 203mm (8") with the majority being 152mm (6") and under. They allegedly have 10000 artillery pieces of all sizes within range of Seoul... those cannons are within the south Korean/USA artillery umbrella as well... not to mention that N. Korea would have no airforce or air defence after about 2-5 days respectively. THey would also have no air cover over any army advancing near or south of the DMZ... so it doesnt matter how big they claim their malnurished and growth stunted army is... unless of course we run out of JDAMs and CBUs (not likely).

Also, the N. Korean army will have to cross the DMZ... this can only be done with mine clearing vehicles. Those would be quickly knocked out with guided munitions from USA and S. Korean assets.

The N.Korean bloodbath will probably make the "Highway of Death" in 1991 look like a minor tiff in comparison.

as for the US military being "stretched to the limit".... it depends on what you call a limit. We are fighting a global war today with Peace time economy. We are only streatched to the limit because we choose to not give anything up for this war. In a real war, like WW2, everyone effectively gives up capitalism and civil rights and we focus on winning the war. The military effort in WW2 was 20 times larger than now. the government even militarized all of the air lines for WW2. As long as we dont have to use ration cards to buy food and goods, we are not really "at war". This sort of thing only happens when national survival is threatened. If the N.Koreans actually have an atomic bomb (I dont believe it) and use it on us, then you will see a real war.

my personal thoughts on the N. Koreans= bomb was 20000 tons of explosives, not an atomic bomb. Why did they set it off underground? to try and hide the fact that there was no radiation. THey dont listen to the rest of the world, so why adhere to the atmospheric/oceanic test ban treaty?

They are only pulling this crap because they have no other options to keep their regime running other than to try and extort aid from the outside world.

[phee]

my own two cents... North Korea does not have any 15" guns, their largest guns are likely 203mm (8") with the majority being 152mm (6") and under. They allegedly have 10000 artillery pieces of all sizes within range of Seoul... those cannons are within the south Korean/USA artillery umbrella as well... not to mention that N. Korea would have no airforce or air defence after about 2-5 days respectively. THey would also have no air cover over any army advancing near or south of the DMZ... so it doesnt matter how big they claim their malnurished and growth stunted army is... unless of course we run out of JDAMs and CBUs (not likely).

Also, the N. Korean army will have to cross the DMZ... this can only be done with mine clearing vehicles. Those would be quickly knocked out with guided munitions from USA and S. Korean assets.

The N.Korean bloodbath will probably make the "Highway of Death" in 1991 look like a minor tiff in comparison.

It's almost as if you have studied military history and statagy.... wow!

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

It's almost as if you have studied military history and statagy.... wow!

shhhhhh, im saving that for the revolution

[torn asunder]

my personal thoughts on the N. Koreans= bomb was 20000 tons of explosives, not an atomic bomb. Why did they set it off underground? to try and hide the fact that there was no radiation. THey dont listen to the rest of the world, so why adhere to the atmospheric/oceanic test ban treaty?

apparently, they are/did pick up small amounts of radiation, which could mean it wasn't fully successful, which might be why they want to do a second test...

[phee]

apparently, they are/did pick up small amounts of radiation, which could mean it wasn't fully successful, which might be why they want to do a second test...

I read that as well

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Zhuk... sorry... those are the number I have read over the years. I do think your not counting the multi-rocket launchers. We know they have those up to 240mm... we also know most of thier heavy guns are on rails deep in moutain caves just north of the DMZ. Not easy to take out without melting the mountains.

Thier tanks have bigger guns (longer range and penatrating power), are faster, they are designed specifically for the NK terrian and with 700mm of armor.. our only anti-tank weapon that can hurt them is a TOW-II

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

Zhuk... sorry... those are the number I have read over the years. I do think your not counting the multi-rocket launchers. We know they have those up to 240mm... we also know most of thier heavy guns are on rails deep in moutain caves just north of the DMZ. Not easy to take out without melting the mountains.

Thier tanks have bigger guns (longer range and penatrating power), are faster, they are designed specifically for the NK terrian and with 700mm of armor.. our only anti-tank weapon that can hurt them is a TOW-II

Their tanks are Junk. The use T-55s and T-62s for the most part... 40+ year old technology. Mountain caves dont do well against thermobaric warheads. the 700mm front armor is a misnomer especially with russain tanks. That is 700mm of angled homogenus protection. at a non oblique angle it is more like 200mm and that is easily penentrated by the TOW, Hellfire, Tankbreaker fire and forget portable AT missile(or whatever they are calling it now). Furthermore, the tops of those tanks are easily penetrated by just about any weapon above 20mm. The guns on their tanks are 100mm in the T-55 and 115mm in the T-62. They are old technology and are not very accurate. They are also very primitively stabilized and can not fire on the move. I will give that they have a lot of tanks... but they are not as modern as Iraqs were during Desert Storm. N.Korea does not have the funding that Iraq had. As for rockets, they have lots of them, but many of them are older than their tanks. Some will work, some wont. And i might add, that they will nto be firing them from inside refugee cities like Hammas did.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

They developed thier own varient of the T-90 in 2002 and have been pumping them out every year since. Noone really knows how many they have or what thier capabilitys are.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-2002

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

the few reasons that the T-90 is popular are:

1. it is cheap

2. it slightly less easy to blow it up compared tot he T-80 (because it has a diesel engine rather than the t-80s turbine)

3. some contries do not have access to modern military technology (north korea for one)

4. it is easy to try and pretend that the t-90 is not really just a T-72 with some new cosmetic features and a few new electronics.

5. wishful thinking on the part of dictatorships and 3rd world nations sometimes trumps reality... The T-90 is no match for the Abrams or the Korean K1 tank.

I have quite an extensive collection of books on the subject as well as the post Chechen war reports that led to the adoption of the T-90 by the Russians... simply because it was cheaper than the T-80 and was less volatile... and thats not saying much. The T-90 stil has an autoloader and seperate ammuntion with the propellent cassete bellow the turret bustle (on the floor) right in the middle of the the tank. This leads to the same catostrophic brew ups that the T-72 suffers. This was proven during the first gulf war and during the Yugoslav civil war where simple anti-tank rockets like the Armbrust and the local Yugoslav shoulder fired "LAW"/Rpg-18 copies were able to destroy T-72s from nearly any aspect.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

In response to Gav's about "100 seconds before they get nukes" comment above:

You cant make a nuke from stuff you buy at wall mart, luckily it still does take some serious resources to create a large weapon-like nuclear reaction, even the "starter kit" (Uranium/Plutionium) bombs.

Its a misnomer that you can get full atomic bomb plans w/instructions and ingredients easily. From what i've read thats just not the case, there are bits and pieces out there, that some very savvy scientists could maybe put 2 and 2 togehter and come up with 4, but there is no "anarchist cookbook kit" for atomic weapons anywhere in the public domain that will fully explain how to go from start to finish to make a nuke with parts.

The "bomb" (detonator & payload) is the easy part. Refinement is the thing that takes teams of sci-tech and lots and lots of resources to make. Thus the whole "awe shit what if they buy it from russia or elsewhere" problem.

But anyway it is still well beyond the capability of a random mad-bomber to create, or we wouldn't have blown up vans we'd have blown up cities every night on tv. But my point was that it wont be this way forever.

Anyhow regardless, weapons tech will proliferate to the random joe eventually. My original "solution" i think is the acurate one at least as of my current understanding.

Technological armageddon, not to be alarmist, just a realist, is coming. Might be 100 or 1000 years from now but it is comming. We need to not be here (at least some of mankind) when it goes down. I often wonder why the space program isnt pitched as being a lifeboat , in part. Seems like a fairly easy sell to me.