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North Korean state media claims that it can hit anywhere in the world with its new missile. Others say that it is capable of reaching Alaska:
North Korea said on Tuesday it successfully test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time, which flew a trajectory that experts said could allow a weapon to hit the U.S. state of Alaska. The launch came days before leaders from the Group of 20 nations were due to discuss steps to rein in North Korea's weapons program, which it has pursued in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.
The launch, which North Korea's state media said was ordered and supervised by leader Kim Jong Un, sent the rocket 933 km (580 miles) reaching an altitude of 2,802 km over a flight time of 39 minutes.
North Korea has said it wants to develop a missile mounted with a nuclear warhead capable of striking the U.S. mainland. To do that it would need an ICBM with a range of 8,000 km (4,800 miles) or more, a warhead small enough to be mounted on it and technology to ensure its stable re-entry into the atmosphere. Some analysts said the flight details on Tuesday suggested the new missile had a range of more than 8,000 km, underscoring major advances in its program. Other analysts said they believed its range was not so far.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:23AM (34 children)
I think your math needs work. That or you have no idea of the effectiveness of artillery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:30AM (33 children)
Don't get your point. Seoul is one of the most populated regions in the world. A few hundred artillery shells can cause a lot of damage. Figure if we missed that artillery battery in the first strike it's cuz we didn't know it was there, guessing they can get 3-4 more artillery rounds off before we can find/destroy it.
I don't have a problem imagining a million or so Seoul residents dead in the first 10 minutes of any kind of war. Of course, after 10 minutes the norks are out bitches, but how is South Korea gonna feel about that?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:47AM (31 children)
Yes, yes they can. They cannot, however, kill millions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by arcz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:53AM (10 children)
Are you stupid? North Korea has NUKES. A nuclear cannon has been done before and there's nothing to suggest that NK does not have them. Even if they can't fit one on an ICBM they can definitely hit South Korea with nukes.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:58AM (9 children)
We were talking about artillery, slappy. Get with the program.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:37AM (4 children)
NK will not have much trouble delivering a nuke into Seoul. They have lots of short range missiles. But who can say that they haven't already delivered one or two just by sea and trucks? The area is chock full of small fishing vessels; any of them can be overtaken by NK, driven to any of SK's ports and unloaded without too much attention.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @10:29AM
Oh I expect they can. We were talking artillery though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by EvilSS on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:04PM
(Score: 1) by JNCF on Monday July 10 2017, @07:59PM (1 child)
Hey dude, this is super off-topic but I can't reply to this old post of yours [soylentnews.org] anymore. I just wanted to explain that while Bitcoin fees could theoretically be based on any criteria, in practice miners are demanding that fees scale with the size of the transaction in informational bits, not the monetary worth or number of Satoshis. The informational size of a transaction increases when you attach extra data (as with OP_RETURN, for example) or script things like multisig outputs, but as long as you're recording a simple transaction you can have a large amount of value sent for the same cost as a small amount of value. I think core defaults to 1000 Satoshis per kilobyte.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday July 10 2017, @08:19PM
Oh, and another common reason for transactions getting larger is extra input or output addresses.
(Score: 1) by In hydraulis on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:11AM (2 children)
Operation Upshot–Knothole [wikipedia.org]
Artillery and nuclear weapons are not mutually exclusive concepts.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @10:27AM (1 child)
You reckon NK has managed to go through the trouble of making a nuke that can survive being used as artillery? It's not a simple thing. One solder joint dislodged and no earth-shattering kaboom.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @03:31PM
There is no way north korea has built a nuke small enough to fit on a shell unless they have some sort of saddam hussein mother of all guns or some shit. Snotnose is a pure moron I was enjoying his stupid shit but then remembered he's probably normal and now I'm going to have a bad day.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:26AM
I have it on good authority that cannons are artillery.
(Score: 1) by arcz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:57AM (6 children)
Nuclear cannon:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c0MytMHwzAM [youtube.com]
Tell me North Korea certainly has not developed this technology? It's much simpler than an ICBM. North Korea only needs a few nuclear cannons to kill millions of South Koreans.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:17AM (3 children)
One thing to note is that many of their tests are estimated to have had sub-10 kiloton yields. Miniaturizing the weapons might make the yields even worse. Although if they can fire 20-30 of them into the Seoul Capital Area, maybe it won't matter.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @09:09AM (2 children)
Did you ever hear of a place called Hiroshima? Nagasaki? In each case, a single explosion of around 15 kilotons killed around 100,000 people. Per inverse square scaling, a couple of kilotons could easily kill tens of thousands. Twenty to thirty of those? Are you kidding? In a city like Seoul tat could easily take out millions.
Get real. Christ, people have no idea what real war is any more. It's not like playing pattycake with a few terrorists.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:43PM (1 child)
You get real. The yields on NK's weaponizable nukes could easily be less than 2 kilotons each. There are less wooden buildings in Seoul. 20-30 nukes is the high estimate. And I never said millions wouldn't die.
Maybe the Cold War has addled your brain.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @10:45PM
Or they could just as easily be considerably more than 20 kilotons. What's the point of completely unsupported wild-assed guesswork? You plan based on what you know is possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:47AM
Suppose they have. How many nuclear shells do you suppose they have? if you take out 90% or more of their artillery emplacement, how many do you expect will be on hand at the remaining emplacements?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @09:19AM
Nuclear cannons are simple in concept but pretty sophisticated in actual execution. First, your warhead needs to be miniaturized far smaller than it does for a missile. More importantly, you have to arrange for it to survive the terrific concussion of being fired, and still be intact enough to operate perfectly on hitting the target. It's challenge enough to guarantee a real non-dud nuclear explosion every time in an ordinary free-fall bomb not subject to any rough handling at all.
You know what IS simple in concept AND in execution? A nuclear explosive device (not even a polished packaged bomb) in a delivered shipping container. Or a nuclear explosive device in a fishing boat visiting a harbor.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:09AM (11 children)
25 million population in the Seoul Capital Area, with 10 million of those in a crunchy Seoul center.
Last time I checked, experts guessed that North Korea had about 10 nuclear bombs. Here's a recent estimate [isis-online.org] that guesses 13-30 (great name btw).
There's questions over whether or not their nukes are miniaturized enough. While North Korea may be stretching it to reach Alaska with anything, I think they could hit Seoul just fine.
They have lots of conventional weapons that would obviously do a lot of damage to the densely populated Seoul. They may have chemical weapons that could do significant damage (let's rule out biological since those aren't going to kill instantly).
More estimates:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/could-north-korea-annihilate-seoul-its-artillery-20345 [nationalinterest.org]
Stratfor's analysis shows not a lot of the artillery hitting Seoul, and describes the chemical weapons they have as aging and limited:
https://worldview.stratfor.com/analysis/how-north-korea-would-retaliate [stratfor.com]
Somebody using the word "millions":
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-20/what-can-north-korea-already-do-without-nuclear-weapons/8543532 [abc.net.au]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:22AM (10 children)
Again, we were talking about artillery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @09:23AM (6 children)
Your point is? What difference does it make whether they use missiles, artillery, or ballistae? Or whether they deliver nuclear mines into harbors using submarines?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @10:24AM (2 children)
Potential damage. The amount of artillery they have simply is not capable of killing millions unless they stand there going lalala waiting to be killed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:07PM (1 child)
Yeah, that WWI thing was overrated, right? 8 million military combat deaths, almost all of them from artillery and machine guns, with some crude chemical weapons thrown in, while NK almost certainly has nerve gas, and quite possibly biological weapons. And let's not forget nuclear artillery shells. The US and the Soviets had those 50 years ago.
In North Korea you are looking at around 12,000 pieces of artillery dug into mountainsides. Artillery is a hard target to begin with. Even machine tools were surprisingly resistant in Germany. The factories were turned to rubble, but the tools could be back in operation under tents very quickly. Stuff made out of great hulking pieces of steel doesn't just vaporize graciously from a few bombs. From experience in WWII, particularly Italy and the Pacific, prepared positions are extremely difficult to neutralize. You look at the pounding of the Pacific Islands from heavy gunfire and sustained air attack, and you wonder how anything could resist, but they did. That stuff had to be taken out one strongpoint at a time by point-blank assault, and it often took ten or more times as long as planned.
12,000 pieces of artillery can fire over 100,000 shells, which is thousands of tons of explosive, per hour and keep that up for days, weeks, months. It would make the destruction of Hamburg or Dresden look like a firecracker.
Turning Seoul into hell would strike a devastating blow to the entire world economy. An incredible amount of consumer and industrial goods are manufactured there. The entire population attempting to flee would create staggering dislocation, starvation, and misery.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:54PM
You're comparing an entire world war to the expected initial artillery strike here? Really? Come on...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:15PM (2 children)
With artillery they need to fire a lot which means it's a lot easier to find and wipe out the shooter.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:11PM (1 child)
Ask the US Marines how tough it is to find and wipe out fortified positions. Caves and cocoanut-log pillboxes had to be assaulted individually at point-blank range. Heavy naval gunfire and sustained air attack just didn't do squat.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:54PM
Are we talking WWII marines or modern ones that have access to equipment from 2017?
(Score: 2) by infodragon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:31PM (2 children)
Pack a bunch of plutonium in a shell; dirty artillery. They could easily contaminate anything their artillery can reach and they would have plenty of non-weapons grade, not capable of critical mass, radioactive material as a byproduct of production of weapons grade radioactive material.
The result would be a catastrophic impact on SK economy.
Don't settle for shampoo, demand real poo!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:38PM (1 child)
Yup, it'd be nasty. Might cause quite a lot of radiation sickness, cancer down the road, and some amount of extra death. Still not capable of killing millions though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by infodragon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:04PM
Killing millions via a dirty bomb *MAY* be an over statement. The economic impact of a dirty bombs, i.e. artillery packed with dirty material, would eventually cause millions of deaths.
1. All of Seoul could be irradiated quite easily, only 10s of shells needed and dirty material is abundant for NK.
2. Mass panic due to being hit with dirty bombs
3. Mass migrant displacement. It would be more than the Syrian migrant crisis x10! Logistics don't scale linearly so the more migrants deaths increase non-linearly.
4. Infrastructure for feeding/watering dense population stops over night.
5. economic impact destroys companies that could step in to deal with the crisis.
6. Disease starts to tear into the survivors within 1-2 weeks.
Easy to consider 20% of the population dying after the above takes place within 2-3 months. Feel free to look up dirty bomb scenarios for NYC and whatnot.
Don't settle for shampoo, demand real poo!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday July 05 2017, @08:54PM
Target that high-density metropolis with explosive and incendiary warheads, and you essentially get into the five figures in the first hour. Probably six figures shortly thereafter, if you blow up enough hospitals as people are trapped surrounded by burning everywhere, not enough firemen, and the water supplies got hit too.
Assuming massive bombing by the US/Korea and friends, fighting stops quickly before people starve or get sick, but the SK economy takes a major hit at a time when China will happily step in any market space that opens.
Suicidal move by the Norks, so Kim isn't dumb enough to do that unless cornered.
The primary question obsessing the people in Seoul is whether they can prevent retaliation orders from reaching the DMZ, or prevent them from being executed. Nobody is moving on anybody until they are sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:24AM
They can cause a lot of chaos, yes. It'd take awhile (weeks) for them to cause a lot of damage.
The chaos, though, would be incredible, at least initially.
The disruption on global markets, especially in the US, would be HUGE. Way bigger than the Orange One's great hands.