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The unfortunate reality is that a "threat" of war, or even a war itself, is what it might take for real changes to take place in the country. That sucks for th
by tatsuke95 14y ago
The unfortunate reality is that a "threat" of war, or even a war itself, is what it might take for real changes to take place in the country.
That sucks for the people in the short run, but might change the game for their future.
- arethuza 14y agoThreatening a nuclear strike is pretty serious stuff - I hope the North Koreans are sensible enough not to fuel up any rockets in the near future... I also wonder if there is a back channel somewhere where they tell the Chinese, who would then presumably tell the US, that they really are just posturing and there is no real threat.
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoThat makes more sense. The game of politics is many-layered, and we're just seeing the top layer.
- bayesianhorse 14y agoThe nuclear strike isn't an immediate threat. They don't have the means to put the weapon where it actually hurts. The more serious threat is the artillery pointed at Soeul...
- pilgrim689 14y agoCouldn't Seoul protect itself like Isreal did with the Iron Dome?
- icegreentea 14y agoSeoul is close enough to the DMZ to be within range of more or less standard artillery pieces. These things either shoot shells (giant bullets), or wickedly hilarious amounts of rockets. Even if they were interceptable (I doubt it), the sheer volume of fire would overwhelm pretty much anything.
- flyingbuttress 14y agoThe "Iron Dome" is an anti-missile system. Artillery shells are a lot harder to shoot down. Last I heard, the US military was working on a laser-based system to heat the shells mid-flight and cause them to detonate prematurely. I don't know if this technology is mature enough for actual use, or if it's likely to be deployed to SK.
- pilom 14y agoIron dome shoots down rockets with other rockets. The US has some tech in forward operating bases in Afghanistan to shoot down rockets and mortars with 300 round/minute 50 caliber Gatling guns (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-RAM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-RAM). Both of these technologies only work against explosive/fueled rounds because you can blow them up. The artilery that North Korea has pointed at the south could be just slug launchers i.e. imagine a giant sized bullet. Because a slug has not fuel or explosives to detonate you can't really stop it by hitting the round with something else.
- bd_at_rivenhill 14y agoArtillery doesn't fire slugs unless you count tank rounds that are designed to kill other tanks (e.g. discarding sabot depleted uranium rounds). Most artillery rounds are fused for air burst to spread shrapnel around efficiently.
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- vegardx 14y agoArtillery fires projectiles, which are hard, if not impossible to stop mid flight. They are actually consideres so stable that many shooting ranges cross over towns.
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- otoburb 14y agoThis is one of the reasons why South Korea created a special administrative region to house a sister-capital city and relocate several ministries and agencies[1] in the next couple of years. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sejong_City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sejong_City
- phon 14y agoI believe Iron Dome is designed to deal with what would be traditionally termed short range weapons like mortars and light-rockets. These weapons are light weight, can be fabricated in comparatively primitive conditions and can be deployed by irregular forces. The conventional weapons that North Korea could use against Seoul are from the other end of the spectrum. Nearly all of them are patterned after Soviet versions which were designed to fit in a doctrine that favored the deployment and use of large numbers of heavy tube and rocket artillery. North Korea possesses large numbers of 153mm and 170mm guns and 240mm multiple unguided rocket launchers. Many of these are in fortified positions that are within range of Seoul. Source: http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/north-korean-dossier/north-koreas-weapons-programmes-a-net-asses/the-conventional-military-balance-on-the-kore/ http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/north-ko...
- ctdonath 14y agoIsrael is protecting against at most a few rockets at a time. Shoot the rocket, and it disintegrates into relatively harmless pieces. Seoul is under continuous threat of thousands of artillery guns, basically lobbing enough boulders to level the city (which contains 1/4 the population of South Korea) in about a half-hour. No modern technology is capable of stopping that kind of low-tech assault on that scale. North Korea is akin to a drunk with a double-barreled shotgun and Tourette Syndrome: acts irrational, says disturbing things, can cause a lot of harm to one person, and will be put down fast once he does - but can't be stopped prior because attempting to will cause him to harm someone. The hope is to keep him just content enough, as long as it takes, that he'll give up or self-destruct on his own.
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoA volkswagen beetle and about 5 gallons of gas would do the trick, no?
- uxp 14y agoIf there is one thing that marathoning Mythbusters on Netflix has taught me its that gasoline is a poor explosive for everything except looking pretty.