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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (12774)	12/4/2001 9:42:49 PM
From: 49thMIMOMander	Respond to of 281500

Yes, North Korea is a true problem.

To: unclewest who wrote (12774)	12/5/2001 12:14:28 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

There entire population is about 22 million. If they have 8.5 million soldiers including reserves then the reserves are every able bodied man in the whole country. Actually that probably wouldn't be enough they would have to add women, children and or old men to reach that number. They don't even have 6 million men between 15 and 49. When you subtract those that are sick or crippled or starving I don't think they would have even 4 million. So if North Korea is sending poorly equipped starving women, children, and old men, against front-line US army units what do you think the kill ratio? Our reserve forces may have readiness problems but I would bet they are more ready to fight then many listed in North Korea's active army. I'm not saying North Korea is not a threat, but it has an 8.5 million men army in about the same way that the US as a 70 million man army. The 7.5 million in the reserves might be subject to being called up but I'm not even sure if they would have rifles for them all. If they do they probably would run short of ammo quickly and would have a hard time feeding them as they would have to pull all of the men and probably some of the woman or children off the farms to deploy that many and the country already has problems feeding itself. From your link - Ground troops are equipped with 3,800 tanks, 2,300 armored vehicles, 12,000 artillery pieces. Not a lot of equipment for an 8.5 million man army is it? Also a lot of the tanks are very old designs T-55's and T-54's or even T-34's which Russia made in the 40s. They also have T-62s but they don't match up well against M1s. South Korea has 2,050 tanks, 2,250 armored vehicles and 4,700 artillery pieces according to koreascope.org The US has more of such equipment then either country. The Navy has 990 ships Thats BS. They might have 990 boats. Here is a list of what the North Korean Navy has broken down by class hazegray.org A lot of these could not be considered ships. Less then 30 are over 1000 tons. One aircraft carrier displaces about as much as their entire navy. Here is a listing of Soth Korea's navy hazegray.org Air Force has about 2,000 aircraft including 850 fighters, 840 support planes, and 320 helicopters. russia.shaps.hawaii.edu "The majority of North Korea's combat aircraft consists of about 700 Soviet-era MiG-15 FAGOT, MiG-17 FRESCO, MiG-19 FARMER, MiG-21 FISHBED, Su-7 FITTER, and MiG-23 FLOGGER aircraft from the 1950s to 1970s. North Korea has added 30 modern Russian MIG-29 FULCRUMs in the 1990s, along with about 50 Su-25 FROGFOOT ground attack aircraft. The MiG-29 is equipped with the advanced AA-10 ALAMO air-to-air missile (with beyond-visual-range capability) and provides Pyongyang with an improved air defense posture. Still, overall modernization has been modest at best. In the event of war, North Korea would quickly be dependent upon obsolete aircraft." Of course 700 obsolete fighters can still cause some problems and I believe that North Korea may have added a couple of squadrons of modern aircraft since this report. And 100 or 150 or so of the fighters are resonably up to date. What I am concerned about is more the 1.1 million active, or probably just the best trained and equipped half of them. A lot of those half million + are right near the DMZ and they could make a strong attack into South Korea, just possibly strong enough to defeat South Korea before American reinforcements and South Korean reserves could join the battle. I think it is unlikely that they would win but the fact that it is even possible has to be a big source of concern IMO. Other sources of concern are the nuclear weapons program, and the possibility that the US could continue to shrink its armed forces or that South Korea might start to do so. And even if North Korea invades and loses big it will still be bloody Tim