How much damage would Seoul suffer in a war with North Korea?

If North Korea attacked South Korea how much damage (casualties/property) would Seoul and the rest of South Korea suffer before the North Korean military is defeated by the US/SK?
 
Depends on when the war starts. If you mean nowadays, it's doubtful that anything south of the Han River would be severely damaged unless biochemical weapons are used.
 
Depend when the war start and if there is not nukes, acording my great grandpa NK were brutal in battle so anything goes.
 
Most people don't realize that the North Korean artilleries on the DMZ are hopelessly outdated and undersupplied. There's always talks of how the North Koreans will shell Seoul back to the Stone Age if a war starts up again because there's thousands of artillery pieces pointed towards Seoul. Except they forget that those artillery pieces are literally from the early days of the Cold War and have very limited range, not to mention the North Koreans probably don't have enough shells to supply all those artilleries. Back in 2012, the North Koreans shelled a Korean island and the shelling killed 4 people. After the shelling stopped, the South Korean government inspected the island and found out that half of the artillery shells were duds and that the artillery pieces were grossly inaccurate.

So if North Korea decided to attack today, I could potentially see the northern suburbs of Seoul being shelled, but most of Seoul would survive and live. Nuclear weapons are doubtful, because South Korea will have total air supremacy and any artillery pieces out in the open will be slammed by the Korean and American air force. Same goes for ships.
 
Probably tens of thousands of casualties. But the physical damage isn't where the real deterrent value is as, while certainly significant on a human level, is rather small when we're talking a city that numbers in the millions. The real deterrent value is on the economic panic that would be caused by the news that one of the worlds foremost industrial-financial centers is under intense shelling. Investors are not any more rational then the rest of us and are liable not to pause to ask themselves "hey, will this really do that much damage?" before reacting to the news.

Nuclear weapons are doubtful, because South Korea will have total air supremacy and any artillery pieces out in the open will be slammed by the Korean and American air force. Same goes for ships.

That's... optimistic. In both 1991 and 2003, attempts to suppress Iraqi mobile launchers were drastic failures, with zero confirmed TELs killed. This against a much more incompetent enemy and in vastly more difficult-to-hide terrain then North Korea. Given that history, the only thing that would be able to stop North Korean mobile nuclear missiles are ABMs and relying on them is a chance game no one wants to risk.

Air supremacy is hardly any kind of magic bullet and the evidence of history is that it won't stop a mobile nuclear missile launcher. Any static launchers are deader then door knobs, though.
 
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Most people don't realize that the North Korean artilleries on the DMZ are hopelessly outdated and undersupplied. ...

Back in the early 1980s the numbers added up to 'Seoul In Flames' but its been 35 years. Unless the NKPA has remanufactored its entire artillery ammunition stock in the past two decades & upped training drastically the physical damage to the city will be on the same scale as a severe weather event of the Century.

Probably tens of thousands of casualties. But the physical damage isn't where the real deterrent value is as, while certainly significant on a human level, is rather small when we're talking a city that numbers in the millions. The real deterrent value is on the economic panic that would be caused by the news that one of the worlds foremost industrial-financial centers is under intense shelling. ...

I'd not predict how the cities population will react. The Koreans I met on my several training visits there were no more stoic or steady than any other modern urban population. In those days I had a sense they did not trust their government & did fear the NKPA.
 
I'd not predict how the cities population will react. The Koreans I met on my several training visits there were no more stoic or steady than any other modern urban population. In those days I had a sense they did not trust their government & did fear the NKPA.

I was speaking more to global economic reaction then that of the people of Seoul, although yeah they too are an unknown...
 
IIRC, 'Urban Legend' holds that the Norks have dug 'War Tunnels' under Seoul, so a 'fifth column' can pop up and wreak havoc...

Still, even a high proportion of 'duds' falling in urban area is going to cause a LOT of damage and chaos. Plus, the SK UXB teams will be run ragged...
 
The tunnels... The battalion staff of 2/12 Marines toured on of those in 1984. Quite the grand Dog and Pony Show the Koreans put on for us. We took it on faith the tunnel they showed us was what they claimed.
 

CalBear

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I am rather surprised at the beliefs being stated here regarding exactly how dangerous a threat the DPRK continues to present. There are a number of issues that seem to have been either forgotten or discounted too quickly.

1. The DPRK leadership, while of questionable mental stability, is NOT stupid. It is very aware that the ROK/USFK will own the skies in short order. It is also aware that it is far on the weak side of the technology scales. That means that any attack from the North will be the international equivalent of a mugging, all all out effort to disable the target before they can react or call for assistance. The DPRK will not provide the ROK and its allies time to build up forces, even time to fully mobilize ROK reserves is very unlikely.

2. The vast majority of the DPRK's artillery assets are sited in very well designed and located bunkers, ones that take full advantage of the rough terrain for which the Korean Peninsula is justly famous. The tubes are indeed old but they are not going to be used to act as counter battery against mobile forces. They will be striking targets that have been surveyed and updates literally for decades. Many of the shelters use natural caves, meaning it is unlikely that even a 2,000 pound LGB will be able to penetrate the overhead, a number of caves are known to have multiple entrances, with the entrances often modified so there is a dogleg, sometimes with the additional protection of blast doors, meaning any strike on the entrance will potentially fail to destroy the tube. Very few of these sites will survive beyond the first 72 hours of any engagement, however, a Koksan SP 170mm piece can fire a round ever 90 seconds and move back into its protected shelter under its own power. The same is true for the numerous 240mm MLR, all of which are designed for "shoot and scoot". Such assets are notoriously difficult to track down, especially in the sort of terrain found on the Peninsula.

3. No one has even mentioned the very substantial DPRK SSM arsenal. Current estimates put the inventory around 1,000 launchers, the vast majority of them mobile (The ROK has 8 PAC-2/PAC-3 batteries). In the 1991 Gulf War, despite a concerted effort by Coalition aircraft operating with virtually no opposition, there were ZERO confirmed kills of launchers (in 42 documented sightings, many by F-15E armed with PMG, only THREE ended with ordnance actually being released, in none of these cases were positive results obtained). These launchers, while not invulnerable, are nonetheless very difficult targets, virtually invisible until firing, and able to exits an area within five minutes of launching.

Of the ~1,000 missiles, around ~700 have enough range to strike anywhere in the ROK from north of Pyongyang, with around 200 able to strike all of Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku from sites near the Yalu (the same missiles, the Rodong-1, is believed to have sufficient range to strike U.S. bases on Okinawa). The DPRK has effectively taken out an advertisement bragging about its possession of VX nerve agent with the assassination of Kim's brother. Keeping mind my comparison to a mugging, there is little reason to expect the DPRK to withhold the most effective (short a nuclear device) weapon in their inventory. Perhaps even more worrisome than the nerve agent, is the strong evidence that the North has large stocks of persistent agents like mustard gas that would be an immediate and catastrophic medical disaster far beyond the capacity of any country to manage.

While it is striking unlikely that the DPRK will ever attack the ROK, any such assault would devastate one of the world's largest economies.
 

I tend more towards agreeing with you, but how does ammunition quality affect all of this? As someone said upthread, at one point half the shells they threw at Yeonpyeong were duds. That would significantly lower the destructive potential.
 

CalBear

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I tend more towards agreeing with you, but how does ammunition quality affect all of this? As someone said upthread, at one point half the shells they threw at Yeonpyeong were duds. That would significantly lower the destructive potential.

If they hit Seoul with 1,000 170mm shell in the first five minutes, and 500 are duds, that means that 500 120 pound HE (or, more likely, a mix of HE, VX and Mustard) rounds have hit the city (this assumes 1/2 of the M-1978 and M-1989 are used and each gun fires its initial round and one reload before withdrawing under cover) and another 1,000 240mm and 300mm rockets (and this is a very conservative figure) the city will be largely destroyed by the combination of blast effect and fire, without even considering the high probability of CW (and the considerably lower, but still very worrisome, chance of BW). If Mustard gas was used, even in a single large volley, the city will have to be decontaminated before the residents could be allowed back (mustard likes to linger, undersides of fence rails, the underside of door knobs, car doors, benches, etc. can be contaminated for weeks, if not longer). Think about that for a second, how long would it take to decontaminate a blistering agent from every door knob, fence, bench, roof overhang and car from even a square mile of an urban area?
 
I would say CalBear is severely overestimating the current KPA's ability to launch such an attack. We're talking about a "force" that spends almost all its time farming or stealing, buying watered down gasoline from the black market, and generally living in the gutters. If this was even ten years ago I would agree with the assessment, but now.....
 
As soon as use of VX gas shells on civilian targets are detected, the US 'A WMD is a WMD is a WMD' policy comes into play, and Pyongyang get nuked.

Lather, rinse, repeat.
 
As soon as use of VX gas shells on civilian targets are detected, the US 'A WMD is a WMD is a WMD' policy comes into play, and Pyongyang get nuked.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Yes, let's nuke the enemy civilians, expose South Koreans or Japanese citizens to fallout while doing nothing to the North Korean military. Excellent idea.

The only thing that might get nuked in North Korea are the underground bunkers storing their nuclear weapons or protecting the military leadership.

Then again, with the current President, you are probably right that we will nuke Pyongyang.
 

CalBear

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Since you're using conservative figures, what would the higher end estimates be for the number of shells/rockets that could potentially fired by the North Koreans?
Over what period?

In 72 hours (after that I would expect most of the tube artillery to have been neutralized) I would expect Seoul and the region between the city and the DMZ to take 8-10,000 rounds of artillery and MLRS. The amount of damage from tube artillery will drop off fast as the days go by, the MLRS will take longer to suppress, although I wouldn't give them more than a week. The REAL danger is from the combination of FRoG-7, Hwasong 5/6 (Scud) and the Rodong-1. The FRoG is very difficult to intercept, the Hwasong 5/6 is mobile and available in large numbers, and the Rodong-1 presents a severe threat all the way to Okinawa (in a lofted flight path the launcher trades range for resistance to intercept, reaching 160KM and losing range to 650km, this gives the inbound much greater speed) and is nuclear capable.

Pyongyang knows that once it starts the war it has to win, win fast, and do it with sufficient violence that it dissuades the U.S. from expanding the engagement beyond the on site USFK. That is likely to mean they leave nothing in the storeroom once a fight starts. The U.S. WMD is WMD is WMD actually works against things in this case since it implies that there is no reason NOT to extend beyond CW to Nukes and/or bio-weapons. The DPRK would have to be crazy to engage at all, so there is no upper limit on where they will go.
 

gaijin

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I would say CalBear is severely overestimating the current KPA's ability to launch such an attack. We're talking about a "force" that spends almost all its time farming or stealing, buying watered down gasoline from the black market, and generally living in the gutters. If this was even ten years ago I would agree with the assessment, but now.....


And I think you are, just as you did in the China related threads, gravely underestimating those whom you dislike (the Cinese then and in this case the North Koreans).

Your view of North Korea is 10-20 years out of date, you are thinking of the 90’s. In reality, North korea’s economy seems to be on a mild upward trend. Of course, I am not the type to simply expect to be taken on my word, I provide sources.

http://www.economist.com/news/finan...-numbers-scholars-try-new-forms-guesswork-how

Assuming the numbers bear some relation to reality, they put North Korea in line with countries such Uganda and Haiti, and suggest that North Korea’s purchasing-power-adjusted income per person was somewhere between $948 and $1,361 in 2008.

North Korea’s economy has made great strides since the country’s famine in the 1990s. The government has tacitly allowed the market economy to grow. Although the rest of the country is still indisputably poor, visitors to Pyongyang, at least, cannot help but note the rise of shops and taxis.



There is obviously no denying that life for the average North korean is very very slowly improving. North Korea is still a massively uppressing dictatorship, but the popular image that it is starving to death is outdated. However, ask yourself this question, do you think that North korean civilians get higher standards of live while the army doesn't get extra funds??? This is North korea we are talking about.
 
And I think you are, just as you did in the China related threads, gravely underestimating those whom you dislike (the Cinese then and in this case the North Koreans).

Your view of North Korea is 10-20 years out of date, you are thinking of the 90’s. In reality, North korea’s economy seems to be on a mild upward trend. Of course, I am not the type to simply expect to be taken on my word, I provide sources.

http://www.economist.com/news/finan...-numbers-scholars-try-new-forms-guesswork-how





There is obviously no denying that life for the average North korean is very very slowly improving. North Korea is still a massively uppressing dictatorship, but the popular image that it is starving to death is outdated. However, ask yourself this question, do you think that North korean civilians get higher standards of live while the army doesn't get extra funds??? This is North korea we are talking about.

No one has mentioned the elephant in the room. After an attack starts IMH China will attack NK from north. They do not want US forces on their border and other then fight the US this is their last chance to avoid it.
 
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