Well, this isn’t encouraging:
SEOUL, Oct. 4 (Yonhap) — Seoul would fall to North Korea within 15 days from the outbreak of a war with the communist state, if South Korea has to defend itself without U.S. troops, an opposition lawmaker claimed Monday.
“In the event the South Korea-U.S. alliance deteriorates to the extent that the South Korean military alone has to guard against an enemy attack, the defensive lines of the capital Seoul would collapse within 15 days,” said Park Jin of the opposition Grand National Party.
“That means the loss of the Seoul metropolitan area,” Park said during a parliamentary audit of the Defense Ministry.
Park attributed his claim to a report by the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, which examined various war scenarios on the Korean Peninsula in early 2003.
“According to the report, if all the enemy’s long-range artillery pieces are fired, 25,000 shells per hour would rain down and destroy one third of Seoul within one hour,” Park said.
The damage on the South Korean capital would be enormous in a case of the South Korean military having to independently fight North Korea as it lacks the capability to conduct precision attacks on the North’s artillery batteries.
Not all agree with Park’s decidedly gloomy assessment:
At the parliamentary audit session, a ruling party lawmaker disputed the claim by Park that Seoul is vulnerable to North Korean artillery attack.
Rep. Im Jong-in of the Uri (Our) Party said the range of most North Korea artillery pieces was not enough to strike into the heart of Seoul.
“Seoul is out of their artillery range. Even if they hit some parts of northern Seoul, there will not be massive damage because they lack precision,” Im said.
Gee, thanks, Rep. Im. I’m sure the people in Uijeongbu were relieved to hear that. Of course, why should he give a shit? He represents Sangnok-gu in Ansan.
Oh, and while we’re dealing with military/geopolitical scenarios, Budaechigae points out that S. Korea does have contingency plans to deal with a possible N. Korean collapse and/or civil war.
24 Comments
Robert,
On a totally unrelated issue - Not sure if it’s an I.E. 6.0 problem or what but every now and then when I open your blog, your links appear for a second then get placed on the extreme right bottom of the page.
Yes, and we’ve heard the same dire warnings many many times before. Look, South Korea spends 18 billion dollars a year on defense - that’s probably more than the entire North Korean economy put together. And this has been the case year after year for decades. North Korea may have the advantage from the start especially with the element of surprise on their side which will cause a lot of damage including human lives. But in the long run South Korea will easily defeat North Korea, even without the US help.
Nobody was talking about the long run. Even if only 25% of the NK launchers work, that’s still over 6,000 shells an hour into a congested city like Seoul. Where to go? Where to hide? And if some of those shells carry chemical or biological payloads…
Personally, I don’t think this would ever happen unless NK is totally desperate (i.e. imminent collapse or strikes by the U.S.) but a part of me wonders if SK would have the will to keep fighting after witnessing the destruction of their capital.
Same old story. Been hearing this for ten years now.
North Korea has a lot of artillery sitting on the DMZ and yes, they’ll have time to launch an attack on Seoul….again, but NK will be a dust bowl long before they ever get a chance to destroy Seoul.
This isn’t news, the USFK and ROK have been working out the counterattack for over a decade now.
Kimbob - When Japan attacked the United States, their GDP was 7% of the US GDP. Seven percent! But it was a long, dirty fight before we were finished with them!
Kimbob and other wishful thinkers: strategic planning requires planning for worst case scenarios. It is better to prepare for the worst than to wish for the best.
As for long-run victory with or without US help, I suppose that is possible if far-fetched considering how the South is outmanned. But that is not what defense is about. Defense is about saving lives in the event of attack rather than engineering a victory for a few privilledged survivors.
This underscores the fact that our people are largely incapable of logical and strategic thinking and planning.
This underscores the fact that our people are largely incapable of logical and strategic thinking and planning. But you are, Misfit5? One suggestion, don’t put the word “our” and “we” in your filthy mouth.
Uri Pary = Commies - WJK
GNP = Fascists? How childish to play with comparisons like Communism to disregard Uri-dang.
Listen, Seoulties are living with the North Korean artillery threat for decades, and frankly, most of them don’t give a shit. If lil KJI decides to attack the Southern capital, his days would be numbered. Even without US military assistance and intelligence - it would only take a longer time of warfare and result in higher death tolls and destruction, but the outcome of the war is clear as mountain water.
Everything, from military hardware to strategic planning is totally outdated in the North. Urban warfare in a metropolitan hell like Seoul? Good luck, KJI, it would take months to kill all the Taxi ajeoshis…
With this topic, cannot but be reminded again of the scenarios presented as Java art at Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries:
OPERATION NUKOREA, and the same in Korean.
Remember to turn on the speakers.
Better to prepare than to fret.
I think for all their criticizms against them, Uri is doing right by increasing defense spending. I also agree with their moves to decrease the manpower reliance while increasing the high tech purchases. It’s a smart move to take the money that is needed to feed and cloth those soldiers and invest it on hardware that will last. South Korea’s military is too big and burdonsome especially in light of SOuth Korea having the lowest birth rate in the world, cut it down drastically then take the money and spend it on high tech weapons that will overwehlm North Korea.
[...] damu: Liked your comment about experts….The Marmot: Kimbob, as the man who…Shangri-La: I think if [...]
[...] reserves, Id have to believe its a lot.[END NOTE] As to the afore mentioned [...] reserves, Id have to believe its a lot.[END NOTE] As to the afore mentioned http://blog.marmot.cc/archives.....n-15-days/“ target=”_blank” title=”Marmot: Without U.S. help, Seoul falls in 15 da [...]
A detailed military discussion of the “artillery” threat to Seoul can be found at this link:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....85-mrl.htm. According to it, the chief threat for such an intense sustained bombardment of Seoul would come from multiple rocket launchers (designs of Soviet origin). The largest are two models of 240 mm caliber, range approx 30 km. You guys in Korea can presumably pull out your own topograhic maps and decide exactly what parts of Seoul are in range.
These launchers are usually truck mounted. According to the link, in this situation the launchers are concealed in caves/underground structures and are driven out to firing positions, fired and then quickly returned to concealment, to avoid counterbattery artillery or tactical air strikes.
I presume these would supplemented by large amounts of gun tube artillery, which unlike the multiple rocket launchers can be fired from inside caves. I didn’t find any discussion at Global security of the NorK firing positions, but I presume that with 50 years NorK has had time to prepare such underground firing positions, similar to the ones the North Vietnamese prepared at Dien Bien Phu.
The largest caliber tube artillery gun in the Nork arsenal (152 mm) has a range of approx 17.2 km
http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....a/d-20.htm. However, an older and smaller caliber gun, the D-30 130 mm, has a range of 30 km; 34 km with rocket assisted projectiles http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....30-spg.htm. I’m pretty sure that the RAP’s can’t be fired at a high sustained rate. In fact with all tube cannon artillery, you can figure a sustained rate of fire of not more than 1 round per minute; any faster and the gun tubes get too hot.
I think I recall that the D30 is well known to veterans of the last part of the Vietnam war, when the North Vietnamese used them effectively in their final offensive to conquer the South.
Anyway, only multiple rocket launchers could sustain such a high rate of fire over time as discussed by the ROK legislators. The first link above talks about the planned use of counterbattery against them, by the modern US multiple rocket launchers (the MLRS, multiple launch rocket system, link at http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....d/m270.htm). The US 2nd ID Divisional Artillery contains 2 battalions of these (link at http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....t-usfk.htm). Presumably this is what the South Korean legislator in your post is referring to, when he speaks of the essential US capability which ROK cannot now duplicate.
BTW, it seems to me that NorK would not need to undertake such a bombardment of Seoul for any reason of military necessity (ie as part of a June 1950 invasion style attack by NorK aimed at taking over the South). If such an invasion was planned, the artillery/rocket fire would be concentrated against military targets.
An overwhelming use of artillery and short-range rockets against civilian municipal Seoul would be seen mainly in political terms, as a preemptive (or reactive) response to an expected (or actual) US/ROK attack.
These tactical multiple rocket launchers are not nuclear capable (though the Soviet ones are chemical agent capable). I presume NorK nuclear devices are not yet small enough to be deliverable by cannon tube artillery; the US has deactivated all of its cannon tube nukes worldwide.
So any discussion of the use of nuclear weapons by either side, or the use of tactical conventional airpower by ROK/US vs longer-range ballistic NorK missiles with conventional warheads, takes the discussion to a hypothetical political arena and out of the realm of lower-level tactical conventional warfare action/counteraction.
I think if the North Koreans starting shelling Seoul one day, there would be alot of South Korean confusion for the first few hours/days. They simply don’t believe that North Korea would ever attack. They think its more likely that North Koreans will charge over the hills to hug them rather than fight them.
And even if Uncle Sam intervened and saved Korea, I think theres a strong likelihood the South Koreans would find some bizarre way to accuse the USA of starting the war (maybe the USA didnt bribe Kim Jong Il enough?) and they could hate us even more.
Shangri-La, there’s a real difference between what is emotional projections like your post above, and what we call “reality”.
It’s all happening
There’s plenty of interesting Korea news at the moment and it can’t wait for the next Asia by Blog. Marmot comprehensively covers reports that China would send up to 400,000 troops to support North Korea in a war, including the US plan that called fo…
Im Jong-in, represents my woman’s parent’s area.
Im seems to forget one little detail; one chemical missile can ruin your whole day anywhere from Seoul to Taegue (maybe even Pusan by now).
If the North Koreans attack, everyone in Seoul is dead. The problem for the North Koreans is that their tanks don’t have enough fuel to get past Suwon. Plus we’ve all seen in Iraq what happens to crappy Soviet military hardware when it goes up against the high tech U.S. stuff. North Korean tanks and planes are from the 1960s-70s. The South may not have the cutting edge stuff but still has some pretty modern U.S. military hardware. Artillery into Seoul is one thing but I’m guessin a North Korean T-62 tank from the 1970s wouldn’t fare to well against a modern S. Korean M-1.
Asia by Blog
Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature, posted on Monday and Thursday, providing links to Asian blogs and their views on the news in this fascinating region. Please send me an email if you would like to be notified of new editions. Previous editions ca…
Some serious blogging going on in Kland
While I have been dorking around with the US election, some of my fellow IKK members have been doing yeoman’s work bring us the goods on the situation in Korea. Some of this stuff is so good that I feel
Sugar Shin, do the gratuitous insults indicate uncertainty? If so, that’s good.
“Listen, Seoulties are living with the North Korean artillery threat for decades, and frankly, most of them don??t give a shit”
It’s called denial and wishful thinking. We’re good at living in la la land. But statistics show that we’re aware of our instability nonetheless and a majority of us are prepared to emigrate.
By the way, Sugar, if you have a problem with the word ????? then you can’t really be one of us…
Mizar5, don’t you have anything better to do?
He’s a professional “We”-sayer, Wooj. I’m laughin’ my ass off.
I insult you, Dimwit5; in contrast to you - you’re constantly insulting OUR people.
don’t you two have anything better to do than insult people you don’t know anything about while discussing subjects you know nothing about?