North Korea

Combat has a tendancy to sort out the true leaders. The man who when turning to charge the hill who does not have to turn around and check to see of his men are there at the command of "Follow Me", is a leader, the one who has to intimidate and force his men to follow usually does not get far. Stress and fear are the true indicators of a leader, one who leads and can make the hard decesions under these conditions usually excell, those who hesitate, infect the men with the same fear the leader feels at that moment. I have had Lt's that I would not trust to lead me to the latrine, who were West Pointer's and just too full of themselves and saw his men simply as career stepping stones. And I have had young Lt's that were willing to listen and learn, and climbed the ladder more successfully than the previous type. It is the strong quiet but resolute leader than can inspire his men to great things, the boa**edited**ll better than the rest of us type, usually end up in a body bag.

ParielIsBack wrote: Rofl_Mao wrote: I know that we are not ready as far as 5th generation aircraft goes, but again they are pretty dang good even with the small numbers we have now. As wiki said they are 4 times better than the 4th generation. I agree that we would most definitely take casualties but not in the MASS NUMBERS that you are portraying. ParielIsBack wrote: Just given the failure rate of the F-22s in peacetime use, we would probably lose F-22s over the DPRK even if the enemy never fired a shot at them. Please elaborate. I agree, not in mass numbers, not against the DPRK.  When we were discussing the use of our 5th generation fighters before, it was in the context of a war with the Chinese air force, against which we would see much greater losses.We've lost 2 F-22s in crashes already, in peacetime.  In war time, we're not going to be losing less, we'll be losing more, just given the greater demands on the aircraft.  Losing a half dozen $138 million dollar fighters would be a big deal, especially when they've gotta last at least 10 - 15 years.  Or, I guess we could just keep funneling more money into the military.  That seems like a smart move.  Not.

I never said we wouldn't take losses. What I said was that we would achieve air superiority over the battle field, which we would given the fact that we wouldn't actually be fighting on foreign soil to the extent that we have been since WWII. We have established, permanent bases in the ROK and Japan and don't have to rely on long supply chains given our current stockpiles in those areas. Furthermore, our naval anti-air capabilities in littoral waters give us a marked early-warning and action advantage over the Chinese AND the DPRK. It wouldn't be the turkey shoot that we had in Iraq, but it'd be pretty damned close once we knocked the current/last gen air superiority fighters out of the sky. I guarantee you that we wouldn't be required to do a lot of dog-fighting given the current SAM capabilities of the ROK/US forces and the SAM capabilities of our naval vessels. Not to mention the BVRAAM capabilities which would aid our fighters in combat. While the PRC and DPRK have limited BVRAAM capabilities, most of theirs rely on active heat-seeking capabilities with limited radar guidance.

The fact of the matter is that he who controls the skies controls everything else these days, and despite the impressive specifications of the Sukhoi based airframes, they go down just as harshly as a MiG-21 when nailed with an AMRAAM or BVRAAM from over 20 nautical miles away.

But if the aircraft is stealth and flies at night then they would have no idea where to shoot because they can't see the damn thing.

oldsoldier wrote: If you put up enough BB's, even in the dark....Mr Murphy is out there no matter how stealthy your aircraft is.

4 words:

High

Altitude

Carpet

Bombing

If we were to go to war with the DPRK, it wouldn't be anywhere near as humanitarian as the last few wars we've fought. Civilian casualties would almost have to be encouraged given the fact that the vast majority of the country actually believes in their leader's message. It'd be like fighting the Japanese in WWII all over again, but without a supreme leader like Hirohito that actually has some bit of compassion for his people.

Funny enough, our cold-war weapons are better suited for a war against the DPRK (so long as China doesn't get involved) than most of our current generation stuff. Back then, it was about taking on a force of superior numerical strength. Today it's about precision. We'd be fighting a war of brute strength just like the old days. the B-52 with cluster bombs would be the great equalizer.

how are we to counter North Korea's Advanced Hovercraft program?


fixed

Edited by Evil Elvis - 18 June 2009 at 9:20pm

Rofl_Mao wrote: ParielIsBack wrote: We've lost 2 F-22s in crashes already, in peacetime.  In war time, we're not going to be losing less, we'll be losing more, just given the greater demands on the aircraft.  Losing a half dozen $138 million dollar fighters would be a big deal, especially when they've gotta last at least 10 - 15 years.  Or, I guess we could just keep funneling more money into the military.  That seems like a smart move.  Not. I sense a great negative attitude towards our technological advances in our military or at least our air force from you. It's this same mentality that can keep us from excelling into tomorrow. In Canada, former Prime Minister Jean Chretien never kept the military up to date and now Stephen Harper is finally doing that. Part of the reason why Canada has a bad reputation for a weak military is because of bad (liberal) Prime Ministers that can't defend the country. It does take money, but at what cost for freedom? There are a lot of bad people who would like to take that away from us. Our defense budget is $651.2 billion. Is that too much? Obama's stimulus plan was $787 Billion. So I don't think it is too much. EDIT: I love how war and politics can mix.

I am wary of $138 million dollar aircraft, mainly.  Seriously, what can you do with $138 million?  A lot, that's what.

That said, there's a good chance I'll be designing 6th-generation aircraft when I get out of college, since my major is aerospace engineering, and military aircraft would really be the only thing I'm interested in.

We spend 20% of our budget on the military, and we spend half the world's military budget.  That seems hugely significant to me.  Personally, I'd prefer not to be able to project force as much.  Make the UN more powerful, work with NATO, whatever it takes.  We really should not be the world's policeman like we have been since '91.

tallen702 wrote: I never said we wouldn't take losses. What I said was that we would achieve air superiority over the battle field, which we would given the fact that we wouldn't actually be fighting on foreign soil to the extent that we have been since WWII. We have established, permanent bases in the ROK and Japan and don't have to rely on long supply chains given our current stockpiles in those areas. Furthermore, our naval anti-air capabilities in littoral waters give us a marked early-warning and action advantage over the Chinese AND the DPRK.

I'd definitely agree with that.

It wouldn't be the turkey shoot that we had in Iraq, but it'd be pretty damned close once we knocked the current/last gen air superiority fighters out of the sky. I guarantee you that we wouldn't be required to do a lot of dog-fighting given the current SAM capabilities of the ROK/US forces and the SAM capabilities of our naval vessels. Not to mention the BVRAAM capabilities which would aid our fighters in combat. While the PRC and DPRK have limited BVRAAM capabilities, most of theirs rely on active heat-seeking capabilities with limited radar guidance.

Against the DPRK, I think we'd have a pretty rapid air victory.  Frankly, the newest planes they're fielding would have trouble against the planes we're phasing out (ie: F-18, F-16).  In terms of missile technology, well, we're well ahead.  But, as OS noted above, AAA and surfaced based AA missiles still represent a threat, even to 5th gen. aircraft.  If anything, I'd expect them to down more aircraft than the KPAF.

The fact of the matter is that he who controls the skies controls everything else these days, and despite the impressive specifications of the Sukhoi based airframes, they go down just as harshly as a MiG-21 when nailed with an AMRAAM or BVRAAM from over 20 nautical miles away.

Can't disagree with that.  Given how well the F-22 is doing in exercises against our own fighters, I can't imagine the DPRK fighters would present much of a threat, but they would probably have the home court advantage, and as the USAF learned over Hanoi, that's just bad for business.

I now realize that I pretty much wrote an essay in the course of one day...in this thread.

And you can criticize all you want slacker.  The irony stays.

Evil Elvis wrote:    The 6th generation aircraft wont have pilots. Combat UAV's are cheaper and can out preform any human piloted aircraft.

I like the picture choice.

I hope that next generation UAVs will be far more interesting than the Predator though.

That thing could give watching paint dry a run for it's money in terms of design interest.

ParielIsBack wrote: We spend 20% of our budget on the military, and we spend half the world's military budget.  That seems hugely significant to me.  Personally, I'd prefer not to be able to project force as much.  Make the UN more powerful, work with NATO, whatever it takes.  We really should not be the world's policeman like we have been since '91.

Is this a serious statement?  We already pay a HUGE percentage of the UN's budget, and the UN doesn't have the force to be the world's "police."  That's why you will rarely, if EVER see them out of their blue helmets, no matter where the troops involved are from.  The UN is a joke, and needs to be reworked.  Whether or not it's a good thing, we ARE the world's police, only for now, we've made the decisions mostly about where we act.  The UN steps in by using the forces of it's member countries. Where do you think most of those troops will come from if the UN decides to act en masse?

Since 1945 American military power has been the dominant UN military force, up until 1949 most European nations did not even have any form of effective and current militaries. And now only small forces relieing on the US military as thier "proxy" force if a military action is ever needed. One of the reasons for the quick economic recovery of Germany and Japan after WW2 was we carried thier military load and protection against aggression by the Soviets well into the 1970's.
The UN hates America until it needs our money or our military, whwn is the last time in a disaster area that you saw a UN aircraft with relief supplies, it is always that big USAF transport, with the hated Americans on board, overhead.
If we pulled out of the UN, told them to move thier HQ to Geneva, they would be on thier knees begging for us to reconsider. Many of the mud hut country ambasadors, as well as those from other countries that "hate" America, love living cost free in NYC, considering thier options at home.