Garry–yes, interesting stuff at Stratfor. I do find the “H.E. per square km,” stuff to be pie-in-the-sky type calculations, but it does give me a relative-measure by which to judge.

I believe the key point with NK is that they already have workable warheads, and have had for some time. They desperately want fusion weapons, but may just be able to boost their fission warheads. (which is a higher level of technology within the operation)
Concurrently, they have only to mate a warhead with one of their medium-long range rockets, to be in business.
(They aren’t necessary saber-rattling, they are testing.)
I’m surprised the NK’s haven’t sold a warhead to the Persians.

The US could win the Korea war today, if the political will to do it was in place.

The result: the North vs adversaries who are lowered to the North’s level. A real asymmetric strike.

To understand the implications read William Forstchen’s One Second After with afterward by Newt Gingrich. The US report on this threat was ignored since it was published the day the 9-11 report came out.

If Kim or Iran for that matter were to get miniaturized warheads that they can hurl GENERALLY toward us and Europe – the game is up. They reduce/eliminate our technology and can meet us hand-to-hand.
Our society is in utter chaos with ALL government and normal societal systems removed.

This threat must be prevented by whatever means necessary.

Remember to thank the presidents of Jimmy Carter through Barrak Obama for this situation.

The last tests were done before fuses were even common in homes let alone appliances, cars and electronics.

His best bet would be to use a ground based system like they used to do for water craft and shipping. Sort of like an updated LORAN system.

Just set up several transmitters around the country that he can use it just like GPS uses satellites.

If you want to get real tricky use the Japanese and SK civilian TV and radio transmitters to home in on.

Thanks, I’m surprised they have something apparently so sophisticated.

Still, GPS guided means that they have to have very accurate targeting information to make a direct hit on something. I would guess that this means they can only attack fixed targets, and not military units that have moved. Seeing that their only conceivable plan is to strike as much terror as they can in a short time, they would probably target fixed military installations and civil facilities in Seoul and other cities.

Also, as you mentioned previously, if we have enough warning we (meaning the US and nations in the area) can probably disable the GPS they are using.

Today I found other videos of their artillery barrage; didn’t see anything new with artillery itself, but saw a whole bunch of rockets launch, and it was much more impressive than the cannons. I can’t imagine that they shot off a lot of GPS guided rounds, as I would guess that they are precious. I would guess that either they shot mostly earlier models of rocket artillery, or the rounds for the new one come in GPS and unguided variants.

I say this is all really about making threats and noise as the Chinese to what ever degree they are turning the screws on North Korea. Trump is going to double talk the situation, as is the Trump way, with the end result being something more positive than negative. It is not in the Chinese interests to allow this to get too far out of hand to the point of a launch and I just do not believe that the North Koreans will do much more than they have done without Chinese sanction. No Chinese support, no North Korea.

South Korea isn’t unarmed. They have 21 months conscription and can mobilize almost 4,000,000 soldiers. They have 5,800 artillery pieces, 2,700 armored fighting vehicles, 2,500 tanks whereof 880 are old M48 Patton. 5,800 pieces, if ready along the border, should be able to quiet the noise quickly.

The graphic showing Artillery Concentration is interesting, and very pie-in-the-sky. The authors admit that the graphic is based on unrealistic assumptions, such as zero failure rate and use of all assets simultaneously.

However, they don’t mention the most important point: the graphic apparently represents the maximum concentration of fire for each small area; the scale goes up to 981,804 kilograms of explosives per square kilometer per hour, which may be achievable for a short time if they concentrated all their assets on a very small area. There’s no way all the artillery in the world can deliver the maximum concentration simultaneously to all areas on the map, or even a significant portion of them.

The article rings true when it states that North Korea would have to ration its assets carefully. Our challenge would be to counter the sheer numbers in a short time. I have no doubt we could quickly take out a lot of enemy artillery in a short order, but if there are hundreds in a small area, real-time targeting becomes a problem.

The mission of artillery is to “shoot, move, and communicate,” with shooting probably being the easiest of these three. If they don’t move, our counter battery radars quickly lock in on their location. Communication within the battery area is probably by wire, but communication with observers, with higher headquarters, and for coordinating movement is probably by radio, which we can easily jam.

With our modern precision targeting capabilities, I would be ready to strike their ammunition storage areas.

In some ways, the rockets pose a bigger threat than the artillery; they can get off a large amount of rounds very quickly. However, I’m under the impression these are similar to World War 2 vintage rockets, which are unguided and very inaccurate, better suited for harassment and terrorizing soft targets.

As I’ve said before, once the shooting starts, North Korea can do a lot of indiscriminate damage in a short time, and maybe even overwhelm local forces, but they have no realistic road to anything resembling victory, so long as South Korea, the US, and Japan are determined to win.

I hope it doesn’t come to that.

Actually, there are 2 altitude ranges in which atmospheric pressure makes EMP possible from a nuke. The high altitude range is from 25 kilometers to 450 kilometers. The low altitude range is from 3 kilometers to sea level. The EMP pulse affects everything not inside a Faraday Cage within line of sight, so the low altitude range is not much talked about, as the horizon is relatively close. The limits on the high altitude range give a good idea why the old Sprint ABM had a maximum altitude of 25 kilometers, and its long range counterpart, the Spartan, had a maximum range of 750 kilometers, to give coverage higher than 450 kilometers.

The test may be significant in this tech, or may be something else.

As I recall, we had a lengthy thread on EMP’s a few months ago.

-Even though that Fishbowl film I referenced is circa 1962, I guarantee– anyone who watches it will know more than 99% of all Talking Head News Readers on cable/network, as it concerns nuclear bombs exploding at altitude.

tangentially– If we tell the people in Hawaii, that the Super-Massive-Gigantic-Telescope, they all hate, is good for defending against NK missile attack, would they allow it?)

wayne,
And they could do it above their own territory, out of reach for THAAD and other air defense. An EMP nuke just needs to go up up up, an interceptor would have to catch up and the decision to fire over NK territory has to be made immediately. And nuclear size doesn’t matter much for the EMP effect, no need for a fusion bomb. Other bomb design factors do matter, a neutron bomb is for example not optimal since neutrons aren’t electric. But everyone knows that a bomb like Starfish works, without need of knowing exactly how or why.

At a certain altitude, like 400 km where the ISS is and the furthest a sounding rocket has been launched is 1,000 times that altitude beyond the Moon’s orbit, the radiation from the nuclear explosion interacts with an atmospheric layer of ions and a storm of electrons follow the magnetic field lines down to the ground in a wide area. Even from above North Korea, all the 200,000,000+ who live in South Korea and Japan, and as many in Northeastern China including Beijing, would have all their unprotected electronics fried. So buy your next Samsung gadget already today!

Referencing Operation Fishbowl;
Starfish Prime was the highest (400 km) and at 1.4 MT, but Test Yucca was a 1.7 KT airburst at 26 km.

This version is shorter & with beautiful-crisp Color.
Starfish Prime Test
-Interim Report (1963)
https://youtu.be/Fts8iIwn5HE
(7:09)

Operation Fishbowl-
High altitude Nuclear Tests
1962
https://youtu.be/WA4-tdBCmBg
(28:08)

>of particular interest is the Starfish-Prime test, detonated at 250 miles, and the subsequent electromagnetic-pulse generated.