Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Israelis draw a line in the sand

To the best of my knowledge, the Iranians still have the jets the Iraqis flew there in 1990 plus aircraft of there own. If one launched from Iran today would it make it to Israel before we could shoot it down?. Plus, how many nukes are gone from Russia at the end of the cold war and who has them? I doubt every Russian was thrilled with the breakup of the USSR and still holds a grudge against the west. What a better opportunity than to sell nuclear technology to a renagade country that has money.

I think Syria will be more formidable than some of you think. They are motivated zellots and they will fight to the bitter end.

The best thing we did was separate Iran and Syria by invading Iraq. Could you imagine the coalition if Saddam were still in power and allowed Iran to cross into Syria or flat joined in the battle. Regardless of whether there were WMD's; tactically, invading Iraq was a good decision. I haven't heard much from the WMD naysayers lately. Look at the big picture. kwg

Someone said the Iranians are 'a few years from crossing the line'...NOT TRUE. The line exists where the capability to enrich uranium is. That isn't far away-like maybe a few months NOT years.

I believe the Israeli's will strike, touching off a war not just limited to that region, but the Gog-Magog war predicted in the Bible. All the players are assembled, most of the peices have fallen into place..all that remains pretty much is just for the first shot to be fired.

I kinda think of this as 'gut-check' time for the world. Once these events BEGAN years ago, it was time to start looking to the skies. The longer the clock ticks just means the more important to consider the signs and get right!

I agree with you Pyledriver. A war with Iran is the beginning to something much much bigger than what some of you are thinking.

A few carefully chosen head shots could go a long way toward avoiding a war

How about this scenario: We start rattling the missiles until it looks to all the world we're going to hit Iran at any moment. Then....we blow the crap out of North Korea with a hail of missiles followed by a blitzkreig raid on Pyongyang by a joint strike force of U.S. & S. Korean troops, hang that little nut of a president, and leave.
Then Condi Rice could say to that little nut of an Iranian president, "Any questions?"

Of course, it wouldn't be that easy because the U.S. will never use the force at it's disposal. Even when we should.
Then again, if we ever did something like that, there would be a lot fewer libs in the country - they'd all be dead from strokes!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Looks like there'll be some good TV footage soon....the Iraq stuff's getting old anyway...

Iran's nuclear sites will be almost imposible to destroy. They are widely scattered with considerable redundancy. They are buried deep underground, so deep that even bunker/ground penetrating bombs will probably not reach them. The Iranians learned their lessons from observing Israel's attack on Iraq's nuclear program.

Unless we want a widespread confligration, we need to consider any military action on these sites as a last resort. Also, Pakistan is a nation that is always on the brink of civil war and Musharraf may find himself unemployed (i.e., replaced by a fundamentalist government). An attack on Iran may spark a civil war leading to Musharraf's replacement. Pakistan's nuclear weapons will then be in the hands of the new government!

I'm afraid that the US is in no position to attack Iran or North Korea. Iraq and Afghanistan presently account for over 1/3 of our troop strength. Any available reserves are needed for replacements and necessary training. Additional US troops are committed in Korea, Bosnia, counter-terrorism activities, etc. We just do not have enough troops to do anything now.

I want to go on the record,saying that you are full of [bleep]!!!
Bart

And what do you think the 4 million man North Korean Army would be doing while we engaged in this little jaunt?

I know that you are not seriously serious, but some of you have a totally inflated idea of our capabilities.

Our ace in the hole is air superiority. If we ever face someone who can deny us air superiority, even for a short time, our troops will be in big trouble.

Both Iran and North Korea probably have the most sophisticated air defense networks in the world right now. Iran is probably working hand in fist with the Russians on theirs. Despite what we may think, the Russians make some very good stuff.

In the 73 war, Israel would have gone under but for us because of the unexpected effectiveness of the Arab air defenses. The Iranians will have the Russians' latest stuff.

Iran would be our worst nightmare as far a war goes. There is the very real possibility of taking a beating, at least in the short term. Then, if we start kicking Iranian ass, expect the Russians and the Chinese to intervene. You could also expect an Islamic Revolution in Pakistan and maybe Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Pakistan has the bomb, so then the new Islamo crazy state of Pakistan would be nuclear armed. They might decide to bomb us and India at the same time. In the words of Fred Sanford, "This could be the big one!"

Actual question to Israel concerning Iran, "How far are you willing to go?"

Actual answer: " About 2,000 Kilometers." (the distance from Israel to Tehran).


Any questions?

And let's not forget Iran's bug f**k president is one of those who held our embassy people for far too long (over 10 seconds).

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I must concur with Bart, despite that he is from Texas. There are few targets that exist in the world that we MIGHT ever have to hit that we have not analyzed and determined solutions for. We have done WAY more than that for targets of such a high priority as nuke sites in Iran.

Expat

My thought is the coordinates to each site have already been programed into an onboard computer in a cruise missle on several different submarines already in an ocean somewhere. kwg

To Bart and other readers:

I probably have more experience in planning things like this scenario than most readers. Believe me, we will get lost in a real quagmire if we take action - we are VERY thin in reserve ground and air capability. Our penetrating bombs (e.g., GBU-28 w/ BLU-113 penetrator) may not penetrate deep enough through deep rock to reach Iran's labs and facilities. Besides, we have a finite (classified) number of these weapons and there are many targets.

From a diplomatic angle (and I know you really don't care about this angle), we will loose many marginal allies - there are a number of nations that help us behind the scenes so their populations do not become "restless" and over throw the government.

Pakistan is one such government - it is a politically unstable government and President Musharraf
has turned to repressive measures to keep the population in check. Even so, there are many tribal areas (home to Osama Bin Laden and others) into which government troops do not venture (they do not control their own territory). Now, suppose President Musharraf�s government is overthrown, how do you think the following government will use Pakistan's nukes?

North Korea has an army of over 700,000 troops, 10,000 artillery pieces and 2,000+ tanks. There are over 11,000 underground, protected facilities nationwide; 4,500 of them are within 100 Km of South Korea. Do you believe that North Korea will just sit still?

Our air power is better than anyone else and will dominate in any area we can get a sufficient number of front-line combat aircraft. But to win a war you need to conquer and occupy territory and that takes ground forces (that are now tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan and other US committments). Also, the US population (you excepted, of course) will probably get tired of large-scale military casualties.

djs, I find your analysis accurate. Too little too late.Peace comes when one has no enemies. Patton wanted to square it away, Mac Arthor wanted to square it away, as did Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush 1&2. The defeatist's have done us in.

Good analysis, although your figures on the North Korean Army are a bit low. Those figures you cite are the ones who are just a few klicks from the border and ready to "jump". The active duty army is a little over one million and the rest are as follows:

The Reserve Military Training Unit consist of approximately 1.7 million persons (men 17-45 and unmarried women 17-30) who are not either in active duty or important rear area personnel. They are mobilized under supervision of provincial military units, for a total of forty days' training out of the year.
The Worker-Peasant Militia is a combination of older men aged 45-60, along with men ages 17-45 and unmarried women ages 17-30 who are not included in Reserve Military Training Unit. They train for a total of thirty days out of the year. Their current numbers stand at 4.1 million.
The Young Red Guards consist of 1.2 million male and female Higher Middle (High) School students aged 14-16. They are subject to a mandatory four-hour drill session every Saturday and a total of 160 hours of on-campus drills annually. A total of 450 hours of off-campus training is also mandatory.


So, if you count active duty and first line reserves, the North Korean Army is nearly 3 million strong. If you count the rest, it is huge. Either way, it is a formidible force with huge numbers of good, if not great, equipment. They are also very "hard" people.

djs,

The deep penetrating weapons we've been developing over the past few years weren't for caves in Afghanistan -- they have hardened underground targets in North Korea, and now Iran, written all over them.

Unless you have access to highly classified information, you don't know the capabilities of our "bunker-buster" penetrating weapons, just like I don't. For all that those of us outside the "need-to-know"-realm know, our Air Force might be capable of taking out every hardened nuclear facility in both Iran and North Korea within a matter of hours. On the other hand, we might not be able to do that right now either -- but I don't know, and the Iranians don't know, either.

Additionally, some of the most brilliant scientists of the 20th Century were Jewish (many of them played a big role in our development of the first nuclear weapons), and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Israel was developing bunker-busting bombs to rival any of ours. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

For those who want more detail than Joe's excellent summary on the NoKo order of battle and capabilities, here's a link to a whole bunch of links on the subject.

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/northkorea/

What do you suppose the kill ratio would be between, say, the 82nd Airborne and its tactical air support versus the starving coersced members of the Great Leader's Worker Peasant Battalions? A thousand to one? 5,000 to 1? It would be very, very ugly.

The NoKos are indeed a hard people, as are the southerners. Remember the lefties tried to argue against both wars with Iraq because the Iraqis had such a large, battle tested army and all those freaking Soviet weapons. Remember the "experts" saying we'd need 50,000 body bags before we got to Baghdad? Third world armies just can't cut it in the face of a modern, high tech army with ovdrwhelming technology and firepower. They may be brave, and they may even be true believers, but that just means more of them die.

Their hardness and courage wouldn't count for much when the first few hundred thousand are incinerated by stealth bombers and cruise missiles, the C3I structure is decapitated, and special ops people seize the airfields. The outcome of the initial military confrontation is a foregone conclusion---the ultimate consequences are not. And nobody wants to see hundreds of thousands of more or less innocent Korean civilians killed because their masters are depraved.

But none of that would ever happen unless the ChiComs give their blessing, and if they come around it will be handled in a more discrete, Oriental way with only a little, carefully selected blood shed. One hopes.

BTW I can never hear that little prick referred to as Dear Leader without thinking of Boris Badenov's boss, Fearless Leader.

NoKo has traded food and medicines for military equipment. Gotta wonder how many would defect for some hot meals?

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