The information I have on this subject indicates that step 1 would be N. Korea firing an enormous amount of artillery at Seoul, with the intent of maximizing civilian death and injury. They would also rapidly launch some large number of tanks and other motorized armament across the DMZ, in some cases through tunnels, along with a large number of foot soldiers. China would not intervene until they perceived a definite threat to themselves or their interests. They might find a loss by N. Korea to be against their interests because the mineral resources that they depend on from N. Korea would probably begin to cost more or become unavailable. I don’t know much about our response plans, but it would make sense for us to launch overkill attacks on all military command centers and known fixed armament.
I can’t imagine Obama being the first to use nuclear weapons of any sort. NK isn’t a NPT signatory, but still isn’t he too much of an internationalist to be the first to cross that line?
Yes and no. In the case of the X Corps and 1rst Marine Division in particular, yes, more or less. In the case of the Eighth Army and the Second Infantry Division in particular, no, more or less.
The fact is the Chinese could generally afford more casualties and their tactics and relative resources almost demanded them. At Chosin and the aftermath, it wasn’t worth it as the Chinese 9th Army Group was rendered virtually combat ineffective in driving south. But in the west, with the Eighth Army, whether it inflicted much more than it took or not ( and it did, at least in concert with the air force ), they were pretty comprehensively beaten, until Ridgeway took over and managed to stiffen the lines.
So it’s actually a mixed picture.
Now that the threat level in SK has been raised to Watchcon 2 the possibility of a truly surprise attack is minimal at best. With the heightened surveillance we know about troop and armor movement almost as soon as they start the engines. All known artillary and missile facilities are pre-targeted, and as long as we’ve been watching them I’ll venture that number is greater than 90%. 30 minutes after start of hostilities NKs long range capacity will be rubble. Also targeted will be military infrastructure especially communications.
Iffy as to whether civilian power and water facilities would be taken out in the opening rounds. I suspect it would be over before that card needed to be played.
And as Chefguy suggests, I wouldn’t be surprised if China sent in a team of advisors who would then depart with a heavily sedated Kim. “Suffering from previously undiagnosed mental illness.” China doesn’t want a unified democratic Korea, but they also don’t need the political fallout they would suffer from supporting Kim. By replacing them they get to garner some support and save face. Sure, everyone knows the truth, but politics is a very complicated game.
Seoul would be leveled in a couple days. That’s about all I’d be positive about. I think that’s about all NK could do before they got conventionally defeated within a few weeks but the shelling of Seoul would be catastrophic.
OK, this is clearly a thread manned by people whose knowledge of Korean history and politics go beyond MAS*H. However, I am not one such, and therefore I have a question:
It’s clear from the majority of these posts that Seoul would be the major target of any North Korean military action. Why, then, does it seem like (if MAS*H is to be believed, and I’m certainly willing to be told that I shouldn’t take a sitcom as being reality) Seoul was a place for R & R for US/UN troops during the Korean War? I realize that it was probably a good way behind the actual raging battle front on the ground (for that matter, so was the 4077th), but China and North Korea certainly had air resources. If targeting Seoul is a good idea (as a battle tactic) now, why did it seem so safe then?
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IIRC, North Korea and China had virtually zero bombers/ground attack aircraft at the time.
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Attacking Seoul is a lousy battle tactic. It may or may not be an excellent strategic move, but tactically it’s not worth much.
And why would it do that? It’s a signatory to the NPT. Part of that says you don’t use nukes against a non-nuclear power. NK is a nuclear power; SK isn’t.
I don’t think he’s a fool. Besides, the NPT allows the use of nukes against a nuclear power and NK qualifies as such.
I wonder how much greater our technological advantage is now versus then. I’d hazard that its orders of magnitude greater now and that it can offset a lot of the numerical advantages enjoyed by NK or even the Chinese.
I don’t see this potential conflict setting up as one like we’re seeing in Afghanistan or Iraq now with guerilla tactics, IED’s, etc…it will be quite Cold War-ish in terms of large armies of scope squaring off, with all manner of mechanized armor/artillery and air power carrying the day.
silenus:
Really? So if we had air superiority, what stopped us from raining death on of their positions in the North?
OK, then, strategic - whatever you want to call it, it seems that’s what everyone expects North Korea to do immediately if they decide it’s time for war.
We did. We re-activated a bunch of P-51s and B-29s for the effort. The 9th, 22nd, 92nd, 98th, and 307th all used B-29s. The 3rd, 17th and 452nd used A-26 Invaders. The P-51s were used mainly as ground-attack aircraft once we got jets deployed as air-superiority fighters (primarily the F-80, F-84 and F-86, although the F-84 was used more as a fighter-bomber).
Several reasons: it ties down enormous numbers of ROK troops and artillery, it serves as a constant reminder to the “peace at any cost” folks that Seoul will pay if the North gets mad, and the North isn’t out for conquest any more. They can’t conquer South Korea, so they go for MAD instead.
We did. And when opposing the very Soviet-style conventionally-organized forces of the NKPA it worked very well indeed. General Walker of the Eighth Army gave credit to the air force for probably saving his forces from collapsing when they were bottled up at Pusan. It has been estimated that over half the NKPA’s equipment losses and a third of their personnel losses were suffered to aircraft.
However, much to the U.S. command’s very unpleasant surprise, it failed to have as big an impact on the Chinese PLA given the technology of the day.
The Chinese did indeed respect American air power, but their organization and tactics allowed them to minimize its impact. By operating off the roads, at night, and close-in against UN forces, they negated much of the advantage of enemy air superiority. Their superlative camouflage and march discipline ( soldiers stood stock still when an enemy airplane came into view, and officers had authority to shoot those that moved ) hid them from aerial observation. In the short term, at any rate, and so long as they did not have long supply lines to maintain, the Chinese could conduct an offensive against American and ROK forces that the more conventional NKPA could not. They made of their material weakness, in other words, an operational strength.
From Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War by Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch ( 1990, 1991 Vintage Books ).
I don’t think you have a good picture of the airpower technology increase between the Korean war and today. There was no really effective guided weaponry, and not a lot of targets that were both susceptible to massed air attacks ala WW2 and that were politically acceptable, especially given the Chinese threat and the question of nuclear exchanges.
The US, once we put the F-86 Sabre into action, trounced the NK fighter threat. The other problem was that Chinese pilots and Soviet “honchos” could be based in China itself, where they were effectively immune to counterattack.
With modern air power, guided weapons, and the much greater information gathering capacity of the military, we can easily strike specific gun positions with high effectiveness. But in the just-barely-post-WWII Korean war period, airpower was not nearly as decisive in land warfare as it is today.
ETA: and what both Silenus and Tamerlane said.
Thanks, interesting stuff to know.
I would add that I don’t think anyone believes that the NK army would ever actually get to Seoul, just that they can shell the crap out of it. Which capacity they maintain for deterrence purposes. For much of the Korean War, Seoul was further behind the lines than it is now, and I’d think that the opposing forces didn’t have a lot of extra-long-range artillery pieces set up to shoot at it.
During a war you do what’s militarily effective. Trying to build up a lot of long-range arty to shell an already war-torn city seems like a waste of resources - kind of like the Nazi’s V weapons. You’re much better off shooting your howitzer at the tank that’s attacking you than you are trying to hit the civilians 30 miles to the rear. After the shooting stops, however, you can dedicate a bunch of resources to setting up a shelling of a major population for the purpose of making a return to war extremely costly. That’s what makes Seoul a strategic target now, but not during the Korean War.
Sure, I agree it was mixed. And sure, the Chinese had the ability and the willingness to sustain huge causalities to achieve their goals. But as I said, it’s a bit like beating someone up using your face…if you are willing to take the punishment then I guess you can claim to have kicked their ass. The thing is, no matter what the other guy looks like after the fight, your face is still going to be pretty busted up. 
As you said, it was miles behind where the lines firmed up after the US and UN forces retreated and after the Chinese ran out of gas in their own country push. The NK’s and Chinese certainly had air craft, but in the NK’s case most of them had been expended earlier in the war, and in China’s case they didn’t have anything like the numbers or training they have today. Remember, this was the very early 50’s…not so long since China had finally come together as a nation and before they really had the ability to put together any kind of technology base (or even get goodies from the Russian’s). The biggest thing, though, is that at the time the NK’s and Chinese didn’t have anything like the artillery capabilities that the NK’s have since built…and THAT is the biggest threat to Seoul today. They have 10’s of thousands of arty tubes that have been locked in for decades now, and huge numbers of shells…literally mountains of the things. They have been preparing for this eventuality since just after the armistice, and while feeding their people hasn’t been big on their priority list, building a shit load of gun tubes (and dug in fortresses, rail heads, protected fighter bases, C&C structures, and every thing else you could think of that could be built by the NK’s using their own resources) has been.
-XT
Just in passing, I did horribly screw up the chronology of the Korean War. My main point in listing it, however, remains valid: North Korea tended to be tissue paper in a firestorm against the U.S. (and its allies; people forget that other U.N. countries sent combat detachments as well), and it was only with China’s (plausible deniability) entry into the conflict that it stopped being one-sided. I would like tp think we would not be so foolish as to offer China sufficient reason to get involved if a new Korean conflict arose.
I can’t seriously think of any reason China WOULD involve itself in a conflict against the North, not if NK opened the ball. Only if the US/SK attacked the North could I see China involving itself…and even then, I think that with sufficient incentives they could be persuaded to remain at worse hostile neutrals. If the NK’s attacked unilaterally, or forced the US/SK’s into having to retaliate for something worse than the crap they have already pulled, then I think the Chinese response would be to mobilize and move toward the border…not to attack, but to prevent the flood of NK citizens from fleeing their country and running to China.
-XT