TOP 5 WEAPONS OF NORTH KOREA AND HOW U.S CAN TACKLE THEM?

North Korean crisis has taken a new turn with North Korea threatening its
long-term ally China.
Pyongyang warned China of “grave consequences” for betraying North Korea in a rare and explosive
statement. As the regime find itself increasingly isolated,
the chances of it taking military option increases. North Korea does possess a decent arsenal
of weapons and can be tricky adversary for even a superpower like United States.
In this video, Defense Updates looks at 5 key weapons of North Korea and how US can
tackle them. So, lets get started.
While North Korea’s massive forces are largely primitively equipped, Pyongyang possesses
the capacity to launch a devastating artillery strike on the city of Seoul.
The opponents' capitals are just 120 miles apart, with Seoul within 35 miles of the border.
Most of the artillery pieces—numbering in the thousands—are already in place, camouflaged
and dug in. North Korea’s artillery pieces include the
170 mm Koksan, which has a range of about 25 miles, using conventional projectiles.
However, the Seoul is well within range of the Korean People’s Army rocket-assisted
shells—which have a range of just less than 40 miles, if the guns are stationed near the
border region.
In this scenario, the US may choose to employ massive aerial bombardment around the border
region with B 52 being the weapon of choice. B 52 has an excellent payload of 70,000 lbs
(31,500 kg), hence will be apt for this kind of operation.
North Korea has more than 1.2 million active soldiers, and a further 7.7 million in reserve,
making its ground force one of the largest in the world. Its troops are bolstered by
200,000 highly trained special ops soldiers.
These 200,000-odd special operations forces are tasked to carry out attacks on major South
Korean and American facilities in South Korea, as well as assassinations of government officials.
The commandos would infiltrate the South by using underground tunnels, mini-subs and Russian
Antonov An-2 biplanes during a war.
The best way to tackle this massive ground force is to employ 'Shock and Awe', as done in Iraq.
Shock and Awe (technically known as rapid dominance),
is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular
display of force to destroy enemies will to fight.
For this US could use high precision tactical strike from air and sea to take out vital
infrastructure, key assets and important personnel in the opening moments of the conflict. This
can be carried out by strike aircrafts like F 35, with supporting fire from Tomahawk cruise
missile launched from navy destroyers.
The MiG-29 is the KPAF's most modern fighter and North Korea operates approximately 40
of these. The Mig 29 is a very capable fighter and can
reach South Korean capital in about 10 minutes. As in any modern conflict, air supremacy is
must, and US will have to take out the North Korean air force on ground with preemptive
strike, or engaged them on skies.
F 22 & F 35 are a generation ahead of Mig 29, and are stealthy. In this scenario, the
North Korean pilots will find it very difficult to detect and target them.
Also, U.S aircrafts are equipped with modern air-to-air missile and coupled with U.S fighter
pilot's better training and strategy, is expected to quickly get air superiority over North Korean skies.
The North Korean military is in possession of a fleet of about 70 submarines, comprised
of approximately 20 Romeo class submarines (1,800 tons), 40 Sang-O class submarines (300
tons) and 10 Yono class submarines (130 tons).
These submarines being small and fairly silent, have the potential to sneak in close to the
enemy vessels and cause lot of damage.
A classic example of this was the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan in 2010,
in which 46 South Korean sailors were killed. While no submarine was ever detected at the
scene, a Sang-O and a Yono class submarine were thought to be in the area prior to the
attack. Debris retrieved from the site indicated the weapon used was a North Korean CHT-02D
heavyweight acoustic homing torpedo.
The US is expected to deploy their own hunter killer submarines to neutralize them before
surface vessels enter those waters. U.S have 13 VIRGINIA class of nuclear-powered
fast attack submarines. The submarines are designed for open-ocean and littoral (shallow
coastal water) missions making them ideal for this task.
North Korea is dependent on land based missiles for nuke delivery, as it has no aircraft capable
of carrying nuclear bombs and has no ballistic missile submarines.
It has a fairly significant ballistic missile capability. Some estimates show that North
Korea has over 600 short-range Scud missiles, more than 200 Nodong missiles, and about 50
Musudan and Taepodong missiles. These weapons could be used to deliver nuclear weapons to
targets around the Korean peninsula and beyond.
But the missile tests have been unsuccessful many times, showing that it has long way to
go before mastering this technology. Also since the missiles are land based only, they
remain vulnerable to preemptive precision strike. U.S has multitude of aerial option
like drones & satellites, which can provide precise location data of these assets for targeting.
Also recently operational Terminal High Altitude
Area Defense (THAAD), can take out the once which are successfully launched.
THAAD is an anti-ballistic missile system, which is designed to shoot down short, medium,
and intermediate range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase. THAAD uses a hit-to-kill
approach that is the missile carries no warhead, but relies on the kinetic energy of impact
to destroy the incoming missile.
North Koreans have a dense and interlocked air defense network, but the force is obsolete
and largely incapable of adequately defending against or even detecting full-spectrum stealth
aircraft such as the U.S. B-2 bomber. Each B-2 would deploy with either 16 900-kilogram
GBU-31 JDAMs or a pair of massive 13,600-kilogram GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators to reach
deep underground bunkers. In addition to the guided bombs dropped by U.S. stealth aircraft,
the United States can rely on large numbers of Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles to
fly in on the heels of the stealth aircraft and strike remaining targets.
These are more than enough to dismantle or at least severely damage North Korea's known
nuclear production infrastructure, as well as associated nuclear weapons storage sites.

TOP 5 WEAPONS OF NORTH KOREA AND HOW U.S CAN TACKLE THEM?

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