North Korea News

[Smitty-48]

Likely Argentina wouldn't have invaded a Place that is under control of an Superpower.

Hey, great, now you don't even have to send the Green Beret's, it's actually King Dollah and the Empire of Liberty which is the source of American power and not the military at all, who knew?

Yet still without naval involvement, it would be extremely difficult. Because that bombing run would have been quite a show (as it was now, actually) from Ascension Island. B-52s could be shot down by Argentinian aircraft, hence you likely would have to have F-15s escorting them from Ascension Island too. And Ascension Island is quite small. So a carrier would be far more usable.

Don't be silly, the Air Force would have tanked a squadron of F-22's down to the South Atlantic for sweep and escort, the Argentines would actually decline to fly against them, knowing full well that they stood no chance whatsoever and thus would just get the heck out of the way, to try to preserve their air force to live to fight another day.

Ascension Island RAF airbase. Not much room for many B-52s.

That's funny, because that 3,000 ft runway and ramp was specifically built to accept B-52's for the Strategic Air Command, which is in fact the only reason there is a base there in the first place, but hey, don't worry, a single flight of B-52's would be more than enough to get the job done.

Or they could just come striaight from the CONUS, Prompt Global Strike, right round the world, without having to land anywhere at all, ain't no thang.

And you have to assume that the Argentinians would have simply given up and could have been destroyed by massive B-52 bombing. And not have fought at all.

After a B-52 rolled through, there wouldn't be many Argies left to do any fighting, one B-52 packs more firepower than the entire British Task Force, the Argies couldn't dig in deep, because the terrain was so rocky, so one pass from a B-52, and it's pretty much all Argie Burgers with a few pituful survivors crying "no mas" from smouldering debris field.

If you don't have triple canopy jungle to hide in, and soft terrain in which you could dig down deep, but rather are sitting in the open exposed on a rocky mountaintop, you do not want to be fucking, with a B-52 in Arc Light mode, to wit, if North Vietnam was a rocky windswept moor, the NVA wouldn't have lasted a week.

Pretty sure the Afghan Mujahadeen are a fuck of a lot tougher than Argentine Conscripts, but what happened in Afghanistan when the B-52's went into Arc Light Mode? Oh yeah, that's right, they ran for their lives, and were promptly overrun by the Northern Alliance, backed by a handful of Green Beret's. What? No triple canopy jungle this time? Uh-oh, little fellas, here it comes...

[ssu]

F-22s?

Ok, we were in the present and not the 1980's. Then simple Cruise missiles and some B-2 bombing mission at night could be less dangerous than sending the B-52s to bomb the island. Of course a submarine launched Cruise missile would do the job too... and a modern attack submarine could sink any Argentinian ship carrying supplies to the Falklands.

a single flight of B-52's would be more than enough to get the job done.

So a force of 12 000 would surrender after one flight? In reality, the five Black Buck raids made by Vulcans didn't get the job done. (Two were canceled because of weather, so in all there were seven flights planned)

The difficult coreagraphy of the refuelling plan on a Black Buck mission:


One Vulcan had to divert to Brazil, btw.

[Smitty-48]

Well, if it was the 80's then the Americans would just have sent F-15's and the Argentines would have been no more likely to get in their way than they would now with the F-22, the Argetines were getting shot down by a handful of Sea Harriers, they had nothing which they could have put up to fight the USAF, and as for the British and their tanker shortage, luckily for the Americans, they have no such shortage, there's enough tankers to fly a round the world strike against the entire Soviet Union, shaqing the Falkland Islands wouldn't even break a sweat.

As for the B-2's, that would be total overkill, the likes of the Argies have no defenses which could threaten a B-52, particularly the way the B-52 is now, dropping J-DAM's, which are actually precision tageted and launched from high and stand off, the Arc Light now, it's not even carpet bombing, these days, they don't have to waste a single bomb, as each can be specifically targeted, so once the Air Force has the sattelite recon of the Argie positions, they are literally pegging them down to the exact bunker and trench.

[Smitty-48]

The B-52 is back, baby, better than its ever been, it ain't going nowhere, they will fly them for a hundred years, they're just going to re-engine them and update the avionics, because with stand off precision guided and electronic warfare, anything short of Mr Ivan himself, is going to be getting shaqed with impunity, go ahead, deploy those S-400's, B-52 will shaq them too, with JSOW and JASSM, and then; it's punishment time.

[Speaker to Animals]

Nothing brings people to Jesus faster than a sky full of B-52 bombers.

You do not want to be one of those guys on the ground looking up at the angel of death.

[Speaker to Animals]

People have this idea that the Air Force is like the knights of the air. The Air Force is like a factory of death. It's killing on an industrial scale. We measure success in the same way that GM might measure factory output. How many waves can we launch during a surge, how much ordinance delivered, total casualties inflicted, etc.


When we launched air campaigns against North Vietnam, we killed over a million people without really breaking sweat.

I don't think many people grasp the actual potential of our Air Force to inflict human suffering and death on our enemies. For the Navy to match that, they'd have to launch their nuclear missiles.

[Smitty-48]

So a force of 12 000 would surrender after one flight? In reality, the five Black Buck raids made by Vulcans didn't get the job done.

Ah, well, shows how little you know, because Operation Black Buck wasn't targeting the Argentine troops, Black Buck raids were an attempt to render Stanley airfield out of action, so that's nothing like an Arclight Strike, Finnish Pogues be up in here trying to pretend that the Vulcan bombers came in to pound the Argies, Khe Sanh style, when in fact the British went out of their way to avoid bombing the Argies at all, because the British were hoping to resolve the conflict without having to fight, as it took the RN six weeks to get into position to do so.

The Americans of course, don't play like that, you get your chance to capitulate, when they issue their ultimatum, if you don't take the chance when they offer it, then it's punishment time, and since the Argies were sitting right there out in the open, with sufficient separation from the civilian population down the road in Stanley, they would be sitting ducks for an Arclight Strike, and thus rendered into Argie Burgers soon after.

[The Conservative]

We have something like 30K troops at the DM zone. NK has 1.2 Million plus another 7.5 Million in reserve... the US military may be some of the best out there, but at a minimum of 40/1 odds, I don't think we would do much agains those odds.

We'd put up a fight, but like the ocean, the troops would be overwhelmed in time. And not enough time to get reinforcements.

Remember, deploying 1,2 million and especially the 7,5 million reserves isn't something that you mobilize instantly. That simply cannot be done secretly. Yes, the artillery is there, ready to start the initial barrage and likely level Seoul, or at least some parts of it. That initial first strike can be deadly, but then the difficulties start to be on the side of North Korea. And how well can North Korea maneuver and use the men it has? Can it really drive through Korea like it did during the start of the Korean war? A big question.

If North Korea could hold it's own against South Korean and US land forces, the real problem is how it could defeat the USAF (and USN & USMC air power) in the long run. Because it's destined to lose air superiority, even if it gains it at any time. Achieve strategic surprise and being successfull in the initial strike doesn't mean that the war is lost. If South Korea is too dangerous to operate, then there's the airbases/airports in Japan.

North Korean artillery in excersize. Not very smart positioning in wartime, but great line up for propaganda purposes:

I don't disagree. If this is going to happen, it's not going to happen quietly.

[Speaker to Animals]

North Korean artillery in excersize. Not very smart positioning in wartime, but great line up for propaganda purposes:

That's Air Force woody material right there.

[The Conservative]

North Korean artillery in excersize. Not very smart positioning in wartime, but great line up for propaganda purposes:

That's Air Force woody material right there.

This is A-10 woody material. The AF would have a field day shooting anything at this point in time.