American first strike @ North Korea EW + SAM

[Dutchie999]

Hi guys,

I basically wanted to see how an American stealth strike would work against North Korean EW and SAM sites in a first strike scenario. So I loaded every known radar and sam site from the C:MANO database. I used 9 B-2 and 1 SSGN to take out 99% of the North Korean IADS in 20 minutes. I used about 325 GBU-38 JDAM's (Mk82) and about 70 Tomahawks.

So my conclusion from this is that it is in fact possible to blind the north koreans very quickly (20min!!) in a hypothetical first strike. It can certainly be done without casualties with limited hardware and ammunition use. It only requires that all EW and SAM sites are known before the strike (which can be done by satellite?) because the B-2 can only use the GBU-38 and not GBU-53 at this moment.

If you guys wanna see what I did, just download the scenario, load it up and press play and enjoy. Everything is already set so you only need to watch it.

[Dutchie999]

And the .zip and after action report.

SIDE: North Korea
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------
12x 23mm ZU-23-2
2x Building (Odd Pair HF [PRV-13])
4x Building (Square Pair [5N62])
2x Building (Tall King C [P-14])
2x Radar (Back Net [P-80])
15x Radar (Bar Lock A [P-37])
1x Radar (China JY-8A Wall Rust)
2x Radar (Flat Face B [P-19])
1x Radar (Odd Pair HF [PRV-13])
6x Radar (Spoon Rest D [P-18])
2x Radar (Tall King A [P-14])
1x Radar (Tin Shield B [5N59S/36D6])
230x SA-2f Guideline Mod 1 Single Rail
40x SA-3b Goa Quad Rail
24x SA-5c Gammon Single Rail
146x SA-7a Grail [9K32 Strela-2] MANPADS
39x Vehicle (Fan Song F [RSNA-75M])
10x Vehicle (Flat Face B [P-19])
10x Vehicle (Low Blow [SNR-125])
39x Vehicle (Spoon Rest C [P-12])

EXPENDITURES:
------------------
117x SA-2f Guideline Mod 1 [S-75M2 Volkhov, 5YA23 / V-759]
90x SA-3b Goa [5V27, V-601P]
24x SA-5c Gammon [5V28M5]

SIDE: USA
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------

EXPENDITURES:
------------------
327x GBU-38(V)1/B JDAM [Mk82]
70x UGM-109E Tomahawk Blk IV TACTOM

[magi]

This is a very interesting notion and I'm going to have to check your scenario well… But I have a strong suspicion in real life this would be a complex and difficult mission and rather improbable to do in 20 minutes…I will bet their integrated air defense system is extremely complex and redundant and some of it hidden and some of it mobile so even being able to get target information on some of the sites would be extremely difficult..... In the first strike scenario or a one strike scenario… It would take so many assets to prosecute I'm sure they would know some of it's coming their way.......

[NickD]

Very interesting - thanks for posting it. Given that most of North Korea's air defence hardware dates from the 1960s and 1970s, state of the art US systems should be able to defeat it fairly easily. The only unrealistic thing here is the prospect of 9 B-2s being operational at the same time, but even then B-1s and F-22s would be a potent threat.

The problem, of course, is that if the US did this the DPRK would retaliate by shelling Seoul and unleashing its missile arsenal at various targets, and potentially also trying to deploy their nuclear weapons.

[MR_BURNS2]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I wonder what they would do to hit the mobile ballistic missile launchers before they launch. Send in low flying fighters? Hit them with ATACMS or tomahawks as soon as satellites or drones spot them?

[Vici Supreme]

soon...

[magi]

Supreme ..... Cool...... This will be a big fight.......

[Dutchie999]

Hi guys,

I did some research on the matter and I have basically come to the conclusion that a conventional (non nuclear) pre-emtive strike on the DPRK is impossible to do with acceptable losses. Even for the US with all its military might I would say it is impossible. The problem is that there are just too many targets you need to hit within the first 30 minutes of combat operations to prevent the North Koreans from doing some unacceptable damage to South Korea.

If you want to do it the very first thing you need to do is take out their ballistic missiles. Now I don't how much the US intelligence has the ability to track these things but I guess it would be possible to hit 75+ percent of these things. And it would need to be done absolutely simultaneous to make sure no missiles are fired between strikes. If the North Koreans have the ability to put a nuclear warhead or biological/chemical weapon on their missiles and you only take out 75% of their ballistic missiles then you can basically say goodbye to all the 25 million people who live in the capital Seoul. And of course the North Koreans will try to hit Guam and Alaska (but these can be easily defended with a THAAD or maybe a CG nearby). Maybe they will try to hit Japan too.

So basically the list of targets that need to be hit within the first 30 minutes of combat operations looks like this:
- 1.000 ballistic missiles
- 100 radar and SAM sites
- 100 runways (all military, civilian and highway strips) to make sure there will be no air war (you can use your aircraft then for attacking other ground targets and use them for close air support, which you will need to compensate for the enormous North Korean army!) and to make sure there will be no air support for North Korean ground operations
- All submarine bases need to be hit to make sure that no special operations forces will be dropped in behind enemy lines South Korea
- All strategic targets like railways and highways going south, all kinds of headquarters, communication stations, power plants etc etc
- And then of course you will need to hit all major artillery pieces which are in range to hit Seoul (5.000?)

Now as you can see that is a awful lot of targets to hit in a 30 minute strike. And the problem is of course that in any pre-emptive strike you can't use all your assets. If for example a Chinese satellites spot that all B-2 bombers are missing from their base in the US and they find them parked on Guam, well that sends a message. Maybe they will even think that the US is planning to hit them in a first strike! So you can maximally only use half your assets. So in stealth strike on North Korea the US is limited to 10 of its 20 B-2's and 93 of its 187 F-22's. That is nowhere near enough to hit 7.500+ individual targets.

Now a follow up airstrike (which can start within 15 minutes of the start of the stealth strike since the North Koreans by then would know what is going on) done by non stealthy aircraft like the B-52's and B-1's from Guam can take care of a lot of the targets that the B-2's and F-22's couldn't hit. But the aircraft from this strike would probably all be needed for bombing North Korean ground forces which will by then hit the DMZ in mass.

The problem is just that there are too many targets to hit in a very short time to stop the North Koreans from retaliating and for example levelling Seoul.

[Tomcat84]

ORIGINAL: Dutchie999

It only requires that all EW and SAM sites are known before the strike (which can be done by satellite?)

Good luck with that! [:)]

[Dutchie999]

ORIGINAL: Tomcat84

ORIGINAL: Dutchie999

It only requires that all EW and SAM sites are known before the strike (which can be done by satellite?)

Good luck with that! [:)]

Well if I look at for example the Planeman's index of North Korean SAM sites and I look through different times Google Earth has obtained satellite imagery then most SAM sites look to be permanent sites.

[Dutchie999]

I am started to question a bit the fact that you read everywhere that the DPRK has more then 10.000 artillery pieces along the DMZ in reach of 'levelling' Seoul. If you look up what artillery assets the DPRK posses then only the self propelled howitzer M-1978 (Koksan) is within range of hitting Seoul. And only partly since it's range is somewhere between 40km (full-bore hollow-base) to 60km (RAP) it really depends on where they are deployed. As you can see on the picture below only M-1978 placed south of Kaesong would be able to target the centre of Seoul. Artillery deployments more western or eastern along the DMZ would only be able to hit the very outskirts of Seoul. I read somewhere that the best guess is that the DPRK has 500 of these. Lets just say that only half of those are placed close and south enough to hit the centre or outskirts of Seoul. That reduces the target-list in a first strike scenario quite a bit. My guess is that most of these are placed within hardened shelters or bunkers but F-22's loaded out with GBU-39 would be able to deal with these easily considering the 6ft reinforced concrete performance of the SDB.

[NickD]

From memory, I've read the the ROK military has looked into what would be needed to knock out the hardened DPRK gun positions, and concluded that by the time they were destroyed Seoul would have suffered severe damage. Bear in mind that a) the DPRK has lots and lots of gun positions which would have to be destroyed (each requiring a PGM to be delivered to it) and b) each gun can fire several shells a minute...

[Tomcat84]

Mobile SAMs are notoriously hard to detect and keep track of. Especially the newer generation systems can make life miserable [:)]

ORIGINAL: Dutchie999

ORIGINAL: Tomcat84

ORIGINAL: Dutchie999

It only requires that all EW and SAM sites are known before the strike (which can be done by satellite?)

Good luck with that! [:)]

Well if I look at for example the Planeman's index of North Korean SAM sites and I look through different times Google Earth has obtained satellite imagery then most SAM sites look to be permanent sites.

[Dutchie999]

So far I have been able to identify 26 DPRK airbases and 2 helicopter bases. And then a whole lot of highway strips and other mostly unpaved runways. I am quite sure that I got all of them. I will add the .kmz file if anyone would like to take a look or use it to implement in the C:MANO database. If I missed anything please let me know. Maybe @Supreme 2.0 you can use this to check if you didn't miss any airbases for your upcoming scenario?

So that reduces the target-list a bit futher. Now there are only 28 airbases, 500 long range artillery pieces in reach of Seoul, 50 SAM sites, 30 EW radars, 1.000 ballistic missiles, a few submarine bases and some strategic targets to hit.

Lets say you need 4 JDAM's to disable a runway (2x2) just to make sure that for a few hours planes can not launch or land. After that a follow-up airstrike can destroy them completely. So that is 104 total for the airbases, but some airbases have two (or even three) runways and some also have a taxiway that can be used to launch/retrieve aircraft. And then there are the helicopter bases ofcourse. So lets say you need 200 JDAM's to temporarily block the DPRK from using aircraft. 200 + 500 GBU-39 against artillery assets + 200 bombs to disable SAM sites (4 per site?) + 30 for the EW radars + 1.000 for the ballistic missiles + 100 for the submarine bases and for some immediately important strategic targets like railways and highways going south, communication centers, headquarters, psychological targets in Pyongyang, power stations etc. So that comes to a total of: 2030 individual targets to hit.

So if we can use only half of US stealth aircraft:

10 B-2 x 80 GBU-38 500lb = 800 GBU-38 400.000lb
93 F-22 x 8 GBU-39 250lb = 744 GBU-39 186.000lb

1.544 bombs total. So getting closer. But still not enough firepower. I wonder how many ballistic missiles the DPRK really posses. And how the US will track them down in a pre-emptive strike.

[CassioM]

Great attempt. Very good scenario.

It is a very interesting study on how to proceed on the day that someone needs to blow that fat glutton.

[Dimitris]

Is this a "releasable" scenario? (ie. for including to the community pack)

[Dutchie999]

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

Is this a "releasable" scenario? (ie. for including to the community pack)

No Sunburn it isn't. It is more a personal test to show what a hypothetical strike to blind the North Koreans might look like. (and by the way it was done with Tomahawks which after a little thinking about it, I do not recommend! Very stupid idea of me!)

My overall conclusion (not only radar) after some research is that it is pretty much impossible at this moment. There are too many targets you need to hit within the first 30 minutes of a first strike scenario and there are too few stealth airplanes available to deliver the bombs to accomplish that.

Even the United States with all its military might is not capable of such an all-out-first-knock-out attack at this moment. Maybe when the 2.400 F-35's on order are available. That might change things [;)]

[AlexGGGG]

I'm not quite sure all SAMs absolutely must be eliminated in a first strike.

Ballistic launchers, guns, and maybe airbases can be all used to attack Seoul or other targets of value. SAMs are threat to aircraft, but one cannot attack Seoul with SAMs. So they can probably be put off till after stealth aircraft deals with ballistic missiles, and you can probably use regular HARMs against them. Also sub bases can probably be attacked with TLAMs. I don't think North Korea has missile-capable submarines (?), so there is no risk of them just driving outside their pens and firing at you. You can probably pre-arrange submarine patrols to intercept most of them as they disperse from their bases.

[sfbaytf]

I've read the DPRK has 100,000+ Special Forces soldiers yanked from parents at birth and raised to fight and do whatever the Regime tells them to do. That could be the biggest problem to deal with

Still I'm going to have to download and try.

Damm it...I'll also have to look into buying a large screen TV to play this.

[Dutchie999]

ORIGINAL: AlexGGGG

I'm not quite sure all SAMs absolutely must be eliminated in a first strike.

Ballistic launchers, guns, and maybe airbases can be all used to attack Seoul or other targets of value. SAMs are threat to aircraft, but one cannot attack Seoul with SAMs. So they can probably be put off till after stealth aircraft deals with ballistic missiles, and you can probably use regular HARMs against them. Also sub bases can probably be attacked with TLAMs. I don't think North Korea has missile-capable submarines (?), so there is no risk of them just driving outside their pens and firing at you. You can probably pre-arrange submarine patrols to intercept most of them as they disperse from their bases.

So if I understand you correctly the first strike hit list by stealth aircraft will consist of:
- 10 nuclear missiles
- 1.000 ballistic missiles
- 500 artillery and MRL's in reach of Seoul

And then a followup attack by conventional aircraft will deal with:
- Airbases
- Enemy aircraft
- SAM
- Radar
- Armybases
- Navybases
- Highways, railways going to south
- Headquarters, communicationcenters, electricity production

And submarines will deal with enemy submarines leaving their bases.

The risk of their submarines is not that they are going to fire at you, but that they are going to drop special forces behind South Korean lines, which I think is a serious legitimate fear. They have done this in the past, and those special forces were pretty good at spreading chaos and destruction. If I remember correctly they almost fought their way into the presidents residence.