Quote:
Originally Posted by FlameOn
It would be a bloodbath by all accounts considering the NK and SK have million man standing armies plus both having 8million man plus reserves. Though I think the battle might be a little more lopsided in favor of the South. If you recall Iraq also had modern arms, combat experience and a million man army. In contrast we have a North Korean army that can't maintain their equipment due to supply shortages, suffers from malnutrition and have very little training on said equipment due to lack of supplies and fuel.
They can't even afford to give all their soldiers rifles during the military marches.
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I don't know if I agree with your evaluation.
I haven't seen anything about Supply shortages to the North Korean Military, you might have a point with thier airforce, but the airforce wouldn't be a key part of North Korea's war plans with an invasion.
All food goes to the military first so the nutritional deficiencies that the average citizen suffers through aren't applicable to their military.
China continues to supply North Korea with supplies and parts, you could argue that they might have trouble with fuel, but ammunition is well supplied for example.
Iraq was literally the perfect war for the States at the start, it's dry and the hardened ground is perfect for the American armor and mobility based doctrine. North Korea is mountainous, and where it isn't mountainous its rice paddies and swampy ground, North Korea isn't really armor and mobility friendly.
There's no comparing Iraq's military readiness and training with North Korea, with the exception of the republican guard in Iraq there was an expectation that Iraq's military would collapse very quickly when confronted.
North Korea's readiness is excellent, their diciplinary system while brutal creates a well diciplined fanatical army that can fight on their feet.
In Iraq you could take out infrastructure, food power, water, etc and make the people suffer into submission, or rob Iraq of its at the time advanced command and control communications systems.
You can't rob North Korea of what it doesn't have, the majority of their people live outside of the city, they don't have the same kind of reliance on infrastructure systems, so bombing power and water stations is going to hae a minimal effect.
Iraq's military outside of the republican guard weren't what you would call committed to the fight, they surrendered at the first sign of trouble. While Saddam had cowed his people he hadn't really subjugated people. In North Korea after 50 years of harsh dicipline, extremely effective propaganda, those people for the most part and especially in the military are ultra nationalist.
And last but not least, up to a quarter of North Korea's military are highly trained special forces units that train as individual commando units, they'd go after America's very long supply chain.
An invasion of North Korea would be a brutal war, it would be far worse then the Vietnam War, North Korea would want to bleed the American's til they give up.