08-29-2016, 12:41 PM
(08-28-2016, 08:12 PM)mallorian69 Wrote: It's very true. My brother has spent at least half of the last 25 years in Korea either in the army or NGA as a korean interprter. The general concensus is that best case we can hold for 3-7 days with the forces we currently have there and the few we could bring in in that time frame.
We only have around 25k troops there most of the time and of those generally only 5-10k are combat troops. At best we can get another 5k light infantry there in the first 3 days.
South Korea has over 600k active duty personnel in their military but that is all branches combined. Can't find numbers for just their army. Generally speaking though most militarys combat troops are only 10-20% with the rest being support troops.
North Korea has nearly 1 million troops most of which are stationed in the southern 1/3 of the country, easy striking distance from the DMZ. They have double the number of tanks and greatly outnumber the combined forces in the south in regards to artillery.
In addition to this we are constantly finding tunnels under the DMZ that they have dug for troop transport. Most are smaller only allowing a platoon or company to move through rapidly but there are some capable of allowing an entire batallion to move through in a matter of minutes.
They also use small planes that are made mostly of wood and canvas that are nearly undetectable to radar that can carry small special ops teams that can infiltrate the south and take out key communications and infrastructure targets.
The major weekness of the north's military is their logistics. They don't have to food or fuel for a long drawn out campaign.
While we would ultimately win, we would lose the entire Korean peninsula in the first few days of a conventional war and have to retake it.
You are nuts if you think an army not even twice the size and far less trained and equipped can over run a country entrenched in a defensive position in 3-7 days. We have been reviewing our response plan for a rapid respond in case of invasion and they feel confident they can hold. There would be massive casualties on both sides....but they wouldn't take South Korea.
