WI: South Korea though Yeonpyeong shelling was an invasion?

[Pellegrino]

As many of you are aware, in November of 2010 North Korea responded to a South Korean training exercise by shelling nearby Yeonpyeong Island, hitting both military and civilian targets. It was a disturbing event and was referred to as one of the most “serious incidents” since the end of the Korean War. Naturally, there has been speculation regarding the reasoning behind the bombing, and South Korea’s slow response to the shelling. But rather than ask the question of “what if North Korea took it a step further?” let me propose something else.

What if South Korea mistook the shelling as the first stage of an invasion?

What would South Korea’s response be in such a situation? Would they strike at North Korean artillery positions all across the DMV? Would they take steps to “neutralize” the leadership of the North Koreans in an attempt to complicate the planned invasion? Let’s say South Korea, erroneously assuming that they were about to be invaded by the North, decided to launch a preemptive strike on the North Koreans. How successful would that strike be? It is quite possible that the North Koreans would be completely unprepared for such a forceful escalation from South Korea.

Let’s take this a step further. What if it appears that the South Koreans (targeting the North Korean lines of communication, artillery on or near the DMV, and perhaps the leadership of North Korea) have a badly disoriented and confused opponent that appears “ripe for the taking.” Needless to say this may not be the case. But assume that the South Koreans realize that a ceasefire now could lead to a North Korea that is bitter and determined to even the score. Do they move North in an attempt to take out the DPRK? How does the US and China respond? How successful or disastrous would this invasion be?

 

[kspence92]

The South would most likely have known it wasnt an invasion as their intelligence agencies have round the clock surveillance on NK positions so they would immediately know if the north was mobilizing for war.

 

[Daztur]

Yeah this sort of thing has happened to many times that without a further POD it's hard to imagine the South jumping the gun.

 

[Sharunaku]

If the Nork is serious, Seoul would be the first target. Instead they shelled a rural island, so I don't think anyone would made that mistake.

 

[sharlin]

The build up for a major military event is always very very obvious now days thanks to recon and electronic data gathering. The NKPA could not move its troops quietly enough to not be noticed and this would mean that the South Koreans would step up their alert state.

But assuming the South does feel like being hair trigger during the bombardment and attacks with aircraft and missiles/its own artillery. In reality the North has an utterly out dated air defence system and whilst;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ0BIVbFGc4

looks impressive against a modern airforce its mostly useless and the NKPA has to rely on AA guns as well as 1st generation SAM's that probably have not had much of an upgrade or update since they were made.

Most of those Iraqi guns in that video were just blazing away at where their radar thought the targets were, if it was working over the jamming and were resorting to just filling the sky with as much flak as possible in the vain hope of hitting something. It would be the same for the South Korean jets, they can fly over the majority of the AA guns and the SAMs whilst dangerious are beyond obsolete against modern jets.

Priority targets would be the HARTS for known locations of long range rockets and the Kaeson guns the only ones who can reach Seoul and of course any nuclear or long range rocket launch facilities and sites.

 

[Pellegrino]

The South would most likely have known it wasnt an invasion as their intelligence agencies have round the clock surveillance on NK positions so they would immediately know if the north was mobilizing for war.

Yeah this sort of thing has happened to many times that without a further POD it's hard to imagine the South jumping the gun.

OK, how about the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan happens the same time as the shelling? Coupled with a more hard line response from President Lee Myung-bak (he did take a more hardline approach in regards to dealing with DPRK). Let's say several generals, with these two incidents just happening, misread some movement north of the DMZ for a possible invasion? If we had Lee overreacting what would have happened if the South struck first?

 

[Pellegrino]

The build up for a major military event is always very very obvious now days thanks to recon and electronic data gathering. The NKPA could not move its troops quietly enough to not be noticed and this would mean that the South Koreans would step up their alert state.

But assuming the South does feel like being hair trigger during the bombardment and attacks with aircraft and missiles/its own artillery. In reality the North has an utterly out dated air defence system and whilst;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ0BIVbFGc4

looks impressive against a modern airforce its mostly useless and the NKPA has to rely on AA guns as well as 1st generation SAM's that probably have not had much of an upgrade or update since they were made.

Most of those Iraqi guns in that video were just blazing away at where their radar thought the targets were, if it was working over the jamming and were resorting to just filling the sky with as much flak as possible in the vain hope of hitting something. It would be the same for the South Korean jets, they can fly over the majority of the AA guns and the SAMs whilst dangerious are beyond obsolete against modern jets.

Priority targets would be the HARTS for known locations of long range rockets and the Kaeson guns the only ones who can reach Seoul and of course any nuclear or long range rocket launch facilities and sites.

What I often hear is that a second Korean war would involve massive damge to the South in the opening hours from North Korean artillery on Seoul, followed by a lightning strike in an attempt to seize Seoul. The North would then try and secure a Un brokered ceasefire since they would know that the war would turn fairly quickly for them. From what I can tell, the sucess of such a conflict would depend on the element of suprise. But I also assume that the South recognizes that as well, and may choose to strike first and try and take out North Korean artillery positions if they thought a war was imminent.

 

[Pellegrino]

Basically, what I'm curious about is this: what if South Korea struck first?

 

[Orville_third]

Aggressors are almost always seen as the bad guys. South Korea might be an exception as North Korea has been demonized and rightly so.
If they ask the US to help, it's game over for NK. Of course, the US would be dealing with two to three wars at the time...
Expectation: Lots of casualties among the South, though slightly less civilian casualties. North takes the brunt of it.

 

[Pellegrino]

Aggressors are almost always seen as the bad guys. South Korea might be an exception as North Korea has been demonized and rightly so.
If they ask the US to help, it's game over for NK. Of course, the US would be dealing with two to three wars at the time...
Expectation: Lots of casualties among the South, though slightly less civilian casualties. North takes the brunt of it.

Very true, but I think the world would give South Korea the pass, or accept the South Korean line that North Korea was the agressor in that they shelled Yeonpyeong. The thing is, I really think that South Korea may have more of a hair trigger than the world realizes for the reason you mentioned above. They know that North Korea will try a lightning strike and may look to destroy North Korea's ability to shell Seoul as soon as they get even the slightest hint that North Korea will attack. And as crazy as this sounds considering how paranoid North Korea is, I wonder if they really have a plan B for the possibility of a South Korean preemptive strike. From what little is known about the DPRK's military from defectors, and the assumption that South Korea is desperate to avoid a conflict for obvious reasons, I wonder how they would respond if suddenly South Korea was shelling their artillary positions on the DMZ.

 

[EternalCynic]

South Korea *did* respond by shelling northern artillery positions ans apparently inflicting some losses. Nothing happened other than rhetoric afterwards.

 

[General Tirpitz]

How dangerous NK's artillery forces are in reality? While they would probably cause great destruction, I have actually never seen a real analysis about about their capabilities, only claims that they "would flatten Seoul".

In addition, it seems that 25% of rounds they fired to Yeonpyeong were duds and about half of them missed their target which doesn't give a very efficient picture of NK's military capabilities.

 

[Heisenberg2013]

As many of you are aware, in November of 2010 North Korea responded to a South Korean training exercise by shelling nearby Yeonpyeong Island, hitting both military and civilian targets. It was a disturbing event and was referred to as one of the most “serious incidents” since the end of the Korean War. Naturally, there has been speculation regarding the reasoning behind the bombing, and South Korea’s slow response to the shelling. But rather than ask the question of “what if North Korea took it a step further?” let me propose something else.

What if South Korea mistook the shelling as the first stage of an invasion?

What would South Korea’s response be in such a situation? Would they strike at North Korean artillery positions all across the DMV? Would they take steps to “neutralize” the leadership of the North Koreans in an attempt to complicate the planned invasion? Let’s say South Korea, erroneously assuming that they were about to be invaded by the North, decided to launch a preemptive strike on the North Koreans. How successful would that strike be? It is quite possible that the North Koreans would be completely unprepared for such a forceful escalation from South Korea.

Let’s take this a step further. What if it appears that the South Koreans (targeting the North Korean lines of communication, artillery on or near the DMV, and perhaps the leadership of North Korea) have a badly disoriented and confused opponent that appears “ripe for the taking.” Needless to say this may not be the case. But assume that the South Koreans realize that a ceasefire now could lead to a North Korea that is bitter and determined to even the score. Do they move North in an attempt to take out the DPRK? How does the US and China respond? How successful or disastrous would this invasion be?

I don't see the South thinking that at all.95% of the DPRK's military sucks and was made in the '50's and 60's. However, they have one trump card they can play and its not nuclear weapons. Since the 1970's at least, the DPRK has had the ability to virtually destroy Seoul within 24hrs. They own, at last count, somewhere around 10-12,000 pieces of artillery situated in revetments or even dug into the side of a mountain at various points along the DMZ. The shortest range from Seoul to the DMZ is about 16 miles and the North has somewhere around 1-2000 guns and rockets that could pound that city into rubble. Even if every plane in the south were dedicated to wiping those guns out, it would take weeks You'd actually have to consider using smaller tactical nukes because a majority of them are that well dug in and protected.

 

[Saladan]

I don't see the South thinking that at all.95% of the DPRK's military sucks and was made in the '50's and 60's. However, they have one trump card they can play and its not nuclear weapons. Since the 1970's at least, the DPRK has had the ability to virtually destroy Seoul within 24hrs. They own, at last count, somewhere around 10-12,000 pieces of artillery situated in revetments or even dug into the side of a mountain at various points along the DMZ. The shortest range from Seoul to the DMZ is about 16 miles and the North has somewhere around 1-2000 guns and rockets that could pound that city into rubble. Even if every plane in the south were dedicated to wiping those guns out, it would take weeks You'd actually have to consider using smaller tactical nukes because a majority of them are that well dug in and protected.

Yeah I've read stuff like this and I can't help but wonder just what percentage of those guns even work? Or even have ammo? Like NK's resources are stretched razor thin at best and I wouldn't be surprised if a good number of those guns aren't even functional or if they are, they're wildly defective to the point they're a greater danger to their operators then South Korea.

Plus based on other thing's I've heard from defectors, it's very common for officers to straight up lie to commanders and the higher ups about the capability of their military in order to avoid being punished for relaying unpleasant news.

I wouldn't be surprised if even those guns are more hot air then actual threat.

 

[Herzen's love-child]

I don't see the South thinking that at all.95% of the DPRK's military sucks and was made in the '50's and 60's. However, they have one trump card they can play and its not nuclear weapons. Since the 1970's at least, the DPRK has had the ability to virtually destroy Seoul within 24hrs. They own, at last count, somewhere around 10-12,000 pieces of artillery situated in revetments or even dug into the side of a mountain at various points along the DMZ. The shortest range from Seoul to the DMZ is about 16 miles and the North has somewhere around 1-2000 guns and rockets that could pound that city into rubble. Even if every plane in the south were dedicated to wiping those guns out, it would take weeks You'd actually have to consider using smaller tactical nukes because a majority of them are that well dug in and protected.

This has been discussed in another thread quite recently. There have been rebuttals by some analysts that have called the ability to destroy Seoul an exaggeration. Damage? Yes. There would be thousands of casualties. But no levelling of.

http://atlanticsentinel.com/2012/06/north-korea-cant-really-turn-seoul-into-a-sea-of-fire/

 

[Heisenberg2013]

This has been discussed in another thread quite recently. There have been rebuttals by some analysts that have called the ability to destroy Seoul an exaggeration. Damage? Yes. There would be thousands of casualties. But no levelling of.

http://atlanticsentinel.com/2012/06/north-korea-cant-really-turn-seoul-into-a-sea-of-fire/

I gotta disagree on that. The article talks about "Dud Rates" but doesn't mention rate of fire. Take your average Soviet era artillery piece, the D-30 122mm. Its rated as having a ROF of around 10 rounds a minute and has enough range to hit Seoul. Lets say the ROF is 7 rounds a minute due to exhaustion of crews and reloading, that's 700 shells from one gun in one hour. The weapons the article uses are all SP guns which, while they can move, are much easier to detect and destroy as well. Non SP artillery, like I mentioned earlier is said to be dug into the sides of mountains, some are even like what the Japanese did on Mnt. Surabachi. Put them on rails which allowed them to fire and hide while reloading. I would expect that the batteries themselves are already stocked with huge amounts of shells as opposed to having to wait for resupply. They know we'd own the air pretty quickly and anything on the ground like a resupply convoy would be a sitting duck. They're not stupid. If they can dig huge, multi mile long tunnels under the DMZ, they can dig large artillery magazines into the ground or mountains.

 

[Heisenberg2013]

Yeah I've read stuff like this and I can't help but wonder just what percentage of those guns even work? Or even have ammo? Like NK's resources are stretched razor thin at best and I wouldn't be surprised if a good number of those guns aren't even functional or if they are, they're wildly defective to the point they're a greater danger to their operators then South Korea.

Plus based on other thing's I've heard from defectors, it's very common for officers to straight up lie to commanders and the higher ups about the capability of their military in order to avoid being punished for relaying unpleasant news.

I wouldn't be surprised if even those guns are more hot air then actual threat.

Well, artillery pieces aren't tanks or APC's, they don't require massive man hours for maintenance and they're easy to make. I'm also talking non SP guns. The SP guns you have a valid point, but The shells, could be a different story as the article that was just given to me mentions a "Dud rate" of 25%. While that is certainly high, maybe its a simple as only 3/4 of Seoul is destroyed instead of the majority of it.

 

[Herzen's love-child]

I gotta disagree on that.
etc.

This is becoming a departure from the OPs theoretical, but I could cite other analysts, like Anthony Cordesman of the Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The "Sea of Fire" scenario seems to be more of an assumed narrative in the US than possibly in Korea (though I'd like one of the boards Korean residents to chime in, here). What is most important is what narrative the actual policy makers are going by. I would be interested in what the ROK military operating assumptions are.

Seoul, in addition, has de facto bomb shelters for all of its citizens (including subways) and then some. I suspect the body count would not be as high as some assume, if, forbid, a saturation attack be initiated by the PRK.

Of course, if the North used WMDs (either nukes or chem weapons) all bets are off in terms of death and destruction, but that would mean the instant obliteration of a regime for which survival is its paramount interest.

 

[fscott]

Well, artillery pieces aren't tanks or APC's, they don't require massive man hours for maintenance and they're easy to make. I'm also talking non SP guns. The SP guns you have a valid point, but The shells, could be a different story as the article that was just given to me mentions a "Dud rate" of 25%. While that is certainly high, maybe its a simple as only 3/4 of Seoul is destroyed instead of the majority of it.

I think at most the shelling would last an hour. The US has many weapons that are close to nukes in the damage they cause fuel air bombs napalm and I would not be surprised if the US used tactical nukes. The American public after seeing the horrible destruction that NK did in an hour would proably have a greater then 50% approval rating. As for China and Russia they will bitch and moan but not be very upset that we killed a rabid dog. SK has the right to live and peace and the part of the world who bitches about tactical nukes can pound sand. I am tired of the world letting NK do what they want with no negative action for its leaders.

 

[gaijin]

I think some people here are massively underestimating the difficulties involved in silencing several thousand guns, many of which are placed in hardened positions. To think that can be done in an hour seems massively optimistic to me. I am going to make the wild assumptions here that the North koreans have noticed that the US and south Korean airforces exist. My second assumption is that they stopped drinking lead paint and actually put a little thought into countermeasures (hardened firing positions, tunnels, locating South Korean and US counter fire batteries and targeting them in the first wave, etc. etc). In short, I assume they are not completely braindead, but a thinking opponent who is trying to optimize the scarce resources he has at his disposal.
It took several weeks in the first gulf war and that was with the Iraqi's being so friendly as to park all their gear in the open in a desert. I have been to Korea once and the geography leads itself well to concealment and tunneling. I think it is a safe assumption to make that after having seen US air power in action on several occasions, they have taken this in account.