WI: North Korea invades South Korea in 1975

Towelie

Banned
Apparently, Kim Il-Sung wanted to invade South Korea after the Fall of Saigon, seeing (rightfully in my opinion) that the US military was at its lowest state since WW2, and attempted to get Chinese support for the plan.

Considering the greivous losses of the first war in Korea that the Chinese had suffered, and the fact that the country from the Cultural Revolution up until the fall of the Gang of 4 was undergoing significant political and social turmoil, not to mention the newfound thaw in relations with the US, the Chinese were not interested.

If they were, however, and North Korea invaded the South in 1975 with Chinese support (and I know that this politically does not make sense), how would the conflict have looked?

The US were off of conscription by this point and its armed forces were a drug addled demoralized mess. I know that there were political issues with Park Chung-hee's dictatorship, but I am not sure how strong the ROK Army was at that point in time. The Ax murder incident a year later would reveal that at the point of attack on the border, North Korean artillery held a decisive advantage in terms of quantity and firepower when retaliatory strikes were discussed.

Is this the best possible time for DPRK to try to take over the South after 1953? Would they be able to do it?
 
In spite of the political fallout of Vietnam in the USA, and the problems with the US military (not quite as bad as you describe but serious enough) the USA simply cannot abandon the South Koreans. A lot depends on how much the USSR & China "support" the DPRK. Unless the NORKs can clear the ROK forces and the USA off the peninsula completely and try and present a fait accompli, anything longer means the Chinese have to physically intervene. Absent major support from the USSR and China, with lots of weapons, probably troops (Chinese) and Russian help with SAMs etc I don't see the DPRK winning.
 
an important point... there were a lot of tactical nuclear weapons assigned to US ground and air forces in South Korea during that decade (indeed until 1989)

If the South Koreans look like they are in trouble, things get very ugly very quickly
 
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