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Originally Posted by IliketoPuck
I don't think a nuclear strike is feasible. Even in retaliation against a NK nuclear strike. Going down that road is something I don't think major powers would do unless faced with their own countries being seriously threatened.
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North Korean missiles are designed to primarily hit South Korea and Japan, they can also reach into China. The question is how many functioning war heads does Noth Korea have? I've heard up to 11.
You can bet that if North Korea hits South Korea or Japan with a nuke, or with chemical or biological weapons that the American's under their treaty obligations would treat all three as if they were nuclear strikes and they would respond. Probably not with city busting ICMB but with field tactical weapons that they would use against Military bases and formations, air fields, key road and rail junctions and naval bases. The Americans would probably use a high altitude airburst nuclear device of significant mega tonnage first though to warn the North Koreans.
In terms of a conventional battle between North and South Korea, the hinge point is North Korea's hardened artillary designed to smash Seoul. The American's and South Korean's would have to take that apart in the opening minutes of the war, and with the highly sophisticated American survaillance satellites, and side lookdown technology I would bet that the majority of these artillary pieces have been targeted for one massive time on target strike from the air, from the sea and from the ground within seconds of the first NK artillary flash.
While NK certainly has a larger army, they don't have the same kind of battlefield intelligence that the SK and American's have. And they are woefully outclassed in terms of tanks, armoured vehicles, aircraft and anti armour technology. The standard NK conscript is poorly trained and must depend on his revolutionary zeal to survive, and this is against the American military tactic shared by the South of killing the enemey long before he even see's you.
On the Navy side, there is little that the North and even China could do against American task forces, and these task forces can certainly project a lot of power over the mainland. The other issue is that both the NK's and Chinese Navy are still not well versed in night operations, wheras the American Navy is extremely good at night operations. The American's have also improved their abilities to use and support amphibious operations once they have established seas superiority.
North Korean subs are a poor comparison to the American Los Angeles, Seaworf and Virginia class submarines, who's first targets would be the Chinese Ballistic missile boats. The NK boats are small, slow and are forced to snorkel, they are designed for special operations insertions instead of convoy destruction.
The big question remains what to do about the hardened NK bases and airfields. It used to be safer to have bases under rock, but the American's learned during the two gulf wars that they needed to improve their penetration bombs, and they have done that extremely well. The American's have also worked hard on deep penetration tactical nuclear weapons.
I'm not saying it would be easy for the SK and American's to beat down North Korea, but the expectation is that the NK airforce and Navy would be taken out as a first priority so that they SK and American's could hunt down the artillary nests.
If the American's and NK can establish air superiority they'd grind down the NK military before it got anywhere near its objectives.
The question as always though is whats China going to do.