North Korea (Superthread)

[SupersonicMax]

You need stealth to kick the door down, which none if the carriers have.  You sacrifice a lot of other ammo for 1 MOAB.  I would rather have 80 GBU-39 rather than 1 MOAB going against arty.

 

[jmt18325]

That's right - I'm no expert, but the MOAB was pretty much built for what it was recently used for in Afghanistan.  Also, I was under the impression that those expiry dates can be extended with inspections and component replacements.

 

[Old Sweat]

You need stealth to kick the door down, which none if the carriers have.  You sacrifice a lot of other ammo for 1 MOAB.  I would rather have 80 GBU-39 rather than 1 MOAB going against arty.

My thought exactly. Given the lethal radius of a MOAB and the dispersed deployment of artillery, you could perhaps take out a battery or two with one device.

 

[Kirkhill]

You need stealth to kick the door down, which none if the carriers have.  You sacrifice a lot of other ammo for 1 MOAB.  I would rather have 80 GBU-39 rather than 1 MOAB going against arty.

I'm guessing this doesn't come under the head of OpSec or even the Good Idea Fairy as it seems to have been widely disseminated.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/10/first-marine-corps-f35-squadron-deploys-japan.html

Military.com | 10 Jan 2017 | by Hope Hodge Seck
The Marine Corps' first operational F-35B Joint Strike Fighter squadron is en route to Japan, where it will prepare for a wide-ranging deployment in the Pacific.

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 departed its former headquarters at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, on Monday en route to its new base at MCAS Iwakuni, Japan, officials with 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing announced Tuesday.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-marines-f-35-japan-hot-loading-adgr-2017-4

US Marines in Japan are pushing the F-35 to the limit

Alex Lockie

US Marine aviators with the F-35B on its first-ever overseas deployment in Japan are training to push the Joint Strike Fighter to its limits while tensions in the Western Pacific reach their highest levels since World War II.

A report from Defense News revealed that the Marines are training on a variety of techniques that will enable them to fight, refuel, and reload from virtually anywhere.

In the event of war, when the US can count on a competent adversary to target its bases with a huge barrage of missiles, the Marines in Japan train for scenarios where they may have little time and space to operate out of.

The two techniques that will allow the Marines to bring the fight back to the enemy even with airstrips and supply lines devastated by missile fire are called "hot loading" and "aviation-delivered ground refueling."

Hot loading simply means that when an F-35 lands, without even turning the engines off, Marines can reload the bomb bays and the F-35 can turn around to fight again. The process saves time and wear and tear on the jet, according to Defense News.

The second techinque, as discussed in the Marine Corps new operating concept, allows F-35s to refuel from just about anywhere. Essentially, instead of going to a designated base that can be far from the front lines that also serves as a big bullseye to an adversary, planes can land on rough patches of land and lay pipe fuel to F-35s which can then return to combat.

This reduces the risk to airborne tankers, which China's new J-20 stealth fighter has been purpose-built to knock out.

The concept of fighting out from austere locations is one of the several ways the US military is addressing the "missile gap," or China and Russia's increasing ability to outrange US systems with extremely long range munitions. Defense News also reports that the USS Wasp, a small aircraft carrier that can support about a dozen F-35s, will deploy to the Pacific.

Additionally, the F-35B with its ability to take off in a short distance and land vertically lends itself ideally to fighting out of improvised bases and making a quick turnaround.

http://timesofsandiego.com/military/2016/10/24/navy-moving-uss-bonhomme-richard-san-diego-pacific-pivot/

Navy Moving USS Bonhomme Richard to San Diego in Pacific Pivot
POSTED BY CHRIS JENNEWEIN ON OCTOBER 24, 2016 IN MILITARY | 1199 VIEWS | 0 COMMENTS | LEAVE A COMMENT

The Navy announced Monday it will move the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard to San Diego as it relocates forces to focus on the Pacific region.

The Bonhomme Richard, currently forward deployed to Japan, will be replaced there by the USS Wasp, which is relocating from Norfolk. As a result, one more more amphibious assault ship will be based in the Pacific theater.

The Wasp has been modernized to support the new F-35B Joint Strike Fighter, and will host the first squadron of those Marine stealth jets in Japan.

The Bonhomme Richard, which is named for John Paul Jones’ famous Revolutionary War frigate, will be modernized while in San Diego.

The moves will take place in 2017, with specific timelines announced closer to the actual movement of the ships.

Amphibious assault ships are small aircraft carriers that support helicopters, vertical takeoff jets and tiltrotor aircraft. They lead amphibious groups carrying combat-ready Marines.

Together with the touted "Multiplier Effect" of the F35 on Legacy Aircraft formations.

A Force Multiplier for Legacy Air Assets
A core challenge to the introduction of the F-35 will not simply be to work with its own species, but to work with legacy aircraft, whether U.S. or allied. The new fighter clearly can force multiply legacy assets.

How will the F-35 work with legacy air assets and in an air-to-surface environment? The F-35 will make legacy aircraft around it more capable through its ability to process data in the air. Once processed, the data will be converted into a Link 16 message and transferred to legacy aircraft or surface teams.  At present, surface assets suffer from a significant bandwidth problem. The F-35’s processors can lend a hand by processing data and sending appropriate results to the ground forces.

The F-35 will also have a significant impact in organizing air combat operations.  The more recent aircraft, such as Eurofighter and upgraded F-15s and F-16s, are most easily organized for operations by the F-35. The older aircraft can also be organized more efficiently by the F-35’s processing and stealth capacities, as well as the ability to share this data in real-time. These efforts combined will shape more effective collaborative decision-making.

This capability will be rolled out as F-35 squadrons are added to the fleet.  Each new squadron will allow the F-35 to become a more significant player in shaping the operations of air and surface forces.  A way to think about the insertion of F-35s in the fleet is to conceptualize a sliding scale of capability. As F-35s supplant legacy aircraft, the fleet’s capability grows.  But most importantly, legacy fleets do not need to be completely replaced to see an effect; instead, the F-35 will provide an immediate, significant enhancement of overall fleet capabilities.

In short, the F-35 will enable today’s fleet to work more effectively on the day the aircraft is introduced in operational squadrons.  Air operations and air-surface integration will then be transformed as greater numbers are deployed in the U.S. Air Force, USMC, USN, and allied forces.  With a significant expansion of the interoperability of U.S. and coalition forces , overall capability for the U.S. and its allies will be enhanced.  The F-35 is a force multiplier on the first day it will be deployed.

http://www.sldinfo.com/the-f-35-and-legacy-aircraft-building-capability-one-squadron-at-a-time/

And its own capabilities

“I flew a mission the other day where our four-ship formation of F-35As destroyed five surface-to-air threats in a 15-minute period without being targeted once,” said Maj. James Schmidt, a former A-10 pilot. “It’s pretty cool to come back from a mission where we flew right over threats knowing they could never see us.”

https://www.f35.com/news/detail/f-35a-stealth-brings-flexibility-to-battlespace

 

[the 48th regulator]

No wonder his missiles are shit, look at the craftsmanship.  ;D

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4416256/Are-Kim-Jong-s-missiles-FAKE.html

I read that article, but then this came across my feed today.  I am no expert in ICBMs or other types of missles, so hopefully the SMEs can explain.

dileas

tess

 

[Kirkhill]

I read that article, but then this came across my feed today.  I am no expert in ICBMs or other types of missles, so hopefully the SMEs can explain.

dileas

tess

I think you have it right Tess.

That offset looks familiar from old Warsaw Pact days.

 

[Kirkhill]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-200_(missile)

This Ukrainian museum piece seems to show the same canted nose cone.

 

[blacktriangle]

Umm so North Korea's new ICBM is really just an antiquated SA-5? I guess I could see that if the missile doesn't fly properly. SAM --> SSM

 

[Retired AF Guy]

No wonder his missiles are crap, look at the craftsmanship.  ;D

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4416256/Are-Kim-Jong-s-missiles-FAKE.html

Chris beat me to it, but here is another photo that shows the same booster rockets as those on the NK parade. On the other hand, its a SA-5 Gammon that was deployed 50 years ago, so I don't know how much of a threat it is.

 

[tomahawk6]

German experts feel the ICBM's on the giant transporters are fake. Just as some of you have noticed as well.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-17867174

1. The markings on each of the missiles are different. Some possibly show filling or draining valves for liquid propellant - inconsistent with other design features that suggest a solid fuelled system.

2. The missiles are not perfectly aligned to the launch table. This suggests it is hard to bolt the missile down in launch configuration.

3. Undulations in the surface metal of the warhead suggest thin sheeting over stringers or formers (supports) unlike the more substantial construction required of a real warhead.

Source: Markus Schiller, Robert H. Schmucker

 

[jollyjacktar]

I think you have it right Tess.

That offset looks familiar from old Warsaw Pact days.

In your later photo, Chris, you can see the offset on the closest booster too.  Missiles aren't my thing, didn't catch this before 48th and you did.
No doubt there's still plenty of shenanigans and fakery left over in their displays of military might.

 

[jmt18325]

German experts feel the ICBM's on the giant transporters are fake. Just as some of you have noticed as well.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-17867174

1. The markings on each of the missiles are different. Some possibly show filling or draining valves for liquid propellant - inconsistent with other design features that suggest a solid fuelled system.

2. The missiles are not perfectly aligned to the launch table. This suggests it is hard to bolt the missile down in launch configuration.

3. Undulations in the surface metal of the warhead suggest thin sheeting over stringers or formers (supports) unlike the more substantial construction required of a real warhead.

Source: Markus Schiller, Robert H. Schmucker

I wouldn't doubt that the missiles are fake, but that story is from 2012....

 

[SupersonicMax]

Even if the ones on parade were fake, it could be deception to make the world find out the parade missile were fake but have ready, real missile at some sites.

 

[tomahawk6]

The Navy has confirmed that the Vinson strike group had passed through the Sundra Straight en route to the waters off Korea.So they are 3500 miles away not very close at all.

 

[Journeyman]

Even if the ones on parade were fake, it could be deception to make the world find out the parade missile were fake but have ready, real missile at some sites.

:stars:
Yes, some global leaders have a glowing track record for nuance.  :nod:

 

[Kirkhill]

I understand there is a problem with On Board Oxygen Generation Systems.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Total USN #fakenews balls-up:

Despite talk of a military strike, Trump’s ‘armada’ actually sailed away from Korea

As tensions mounted on the Korean Peninsula, Adm. Harry Harris made a dramatic announcement: An aircraft carrier had been ordered to sail north from Singapore on April 8 toward the Western Pacific.

A spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command, which Harris heads, linked the deployment directly to the “number one threat in the region,” North Korea, and its “reckless, irresponsible and destabilizing program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.”

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters on April 11 that the Carl Vinson was “on her way up there.” Asked about the deployment in an interview with Fox Business Network that aired April 12, President Trump said: “We are sending an armada, very powerful.”

U.S. media went into overdrive, and Fox reported on April 14 that the armada was “steaming” toward North Korea.

But pictures posted by the U.S. Navy suggest that’s not quite the case — or at least not yet.

A photograph released by the Navy [ http://www.navy.mil/view_image.asp?id=235255 ] showed the aircraft carrier sailing through the calm waters of Sunda Strait between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java on Saturday, April 15. By later in the day, it was in the Indian Ocean, according to Navy photographs.

In other words, on the same day that the world nervously watched North Korea stage a massive military parade to celebrate the birthday of the nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung, and the press speculated about a preemptive U.S. strike, the U.S. Navy put the Carl Vinson, together with its escort of two guided-missile destroyers and a cruiser, more than 3,000 miles southwest of the Korean Peninsula — and more than 500 miles southeast of Singapore.

Instead of steaming toward the Korea Peninsula, the carrier strike group was actually headed in the opposite direction to take part in “scheduled exercises with Australian forces in the Indian Ocean,” according to Defense News, which first reported the story [ http://www.defensenews.com/articles/us-carrier-still-thousands-of-miles-from-korea ].

Neither the Pacific Command nor the Pacific Fleet responded immediately to requests for comment...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/despite-talk-of-a-military-strike-trumps-armada-was-a-long-way-from-korea/2017/04/18/e8ef4237-e26a-4cfc-b5e9-526c3a17bd41_story.html

The lost armada or something.  Yikes.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[jollyjacktar]

Should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque, Doc.

 

[a_majoor]

An interesting speech the Chinese have allowed to be published:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/world/asia/china-north-korea-war.html?_r=0

Criticism of Beijing’s North Korea Policy Comes From Unlikely Place: China
By CHRIS BUCKLEYAPRIL 18, 2017

BEIJING — When China’s best-known historian of the Korean War, Shen Zhihua, recently laid out his views on North Korea, astonishment rippled through the audience. China, he said with a bluntness that is rare here, had fundamentally botched its policy on the divided Korean Peninsula.

China’s bond with North Korea’s Communist leaders formed even before Mao Zedong’s decision in 1950 to send People’s Liberation Army soldiers to fight alongside them in the Korean War. Mao famously said the two sides were “as close as lips and teeth.”

But China should abandon the stale myths of fraternity that have propped up its support for North Korea and turn to South Korea, Mr. Shen said at a university lecture last month in Dalian, a northeastern Chinese port city.

“Judging by the current situation, North Korea is China’s latent enemy and South Korea could be China’s friend,” Mr. Shen said, according to a transcript he published online. “We must see clearly that China and North Korea are no longer brothers in arms, and in the short term there’s no possibility of an improvement in Chinese-North Korean relations.”

Excerpts From a Chinese Historian’s Speech on North Korea APRIL 18, 2017 

The speech was a strikingly bold public challenge to Chinese policy, which remains unwilling to risk a break with North Korea even as its nuclear program raises tensions in northeast Asia and beyond. The controversy over Mr. Shen’s views in China has distilled a renewed debate about whether the government should abandon its longstanding patronage of North Korea.

China’s “traditionalist view that views the U.S. as a much greater threat than North Korea is deeply entrenched,” Bonnie S. Glaser, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in an email. “But the proponents of change are vocal, too. They argue that North Korea is a growing liability.”

For decades, China has tried to preserve ties with North Korea as a partner and strategic shield in northeast Asia, even when the North’s leaders became testy and unpredictable. In recent years, though, China has also tried to soothe the United States, build political and business ties with South Korea and help rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

But as North Korea has improved its missiles and nuclear warheads, opening the possibility that it could one day strike the continental United States, China’s go-between approach has become increasingly fraught.

North Korea did not hold a nuclear test over the weekend that some had expected, and its missile test on Sunday fizzled. But more tests and launches appear to be only a matter of time, and the Trump administration has pressed China’s president, Xi Jinping, to use much tougher pressure on its neighbor.

“The era of strategic patience is over,” Vice President Mike Pence said in South Korea on Monday.

“The president and I have a great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea,” he told reporters, but “if China is unable to deal with North Korea, the United States and our allies will.”

China suspended coal imports from North Korea in February, cutting off a major source of revenue for the North. But China has resisted choking off trade with North Korea, and debate over how to balance Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington has sharpened and become more fractious. Trying to stay friends with all sides is proving perilous.

The Chinese government has fiercely objected to an American antimissile defense system, called the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, being installed in South Korea, fearing it could be used to spy on China. But some Chinese experts have criticized the surge of anti-South Korean anger unleashed by Beijing as counterproductive.

Global Times, a state-run newspaper that often defends Chinese government policy,  cautioned last week that North Korea would face harsher sanctions if it went ahead with another nuclear test. On Monday, the paper redoubled that warning, calling for China to choke off most oil supplies to North Korea if there was another test.

Mr. Shen has gone much further than other scholars in calling for a reset.

“The fundamental interests of China and North Korea are at odds,” he said in his lecture. “China’s fundamental interest lies in achieving a stability on its borders and developing outward. But since North Korea acquired nuclear weapons, that periphery has never been stable, so inevitably Chinese and North Korean interests are at odds.”

He derided China’s opposition to the Thaad antimissile system as shrill and self-defeating, needlessly alienating South Korean opinion. “What we’ve done is exactly what the Americans and North Koreans would like to see,” he said.

Mr. Shen’s views have incensed Chinese ultranationalists, who have accused him of selling out the country’s ally in Pyongyang. His views and the debate about them have not been reported in Chinese state news media.

But Mr. Shen’s speech remains on the website of the Cold War history research center at East China Normal University in Shanghai, where he works. He has also restated his views at lectures in Shanghai and, last week, in Xi’an in northwest China, he said.

In the past, articles in China critical of North Korea have been quickly censored. In 2004, an influential Chinese policy magazine was closed down after it published an essay critical of North Korea. In 2013, an editor at a Communist Party journal in Beijing was shunted from his job for publicly proposing that China withdraw support for North Korea.

Mr. Shen said the tolerance — so far — for his views suggested that the government might be willing to tolerate greater criticism of North Korea and debate about the relationship.

“Many people have asked me, ‘Teacher Shen, why hasn’t your speech been taken down?’” Mr. Shen said in a telephone interview from Shanghai.

“At least it shows that there can be different views about the North Korea issue. It’s up to the center to set policy, but at least you can air different views in public, whereas before you couldn’t,” he said. The “center” refers to China’s central leadership.

Still, Ms. Glaser said, President Xi appears unlikely to turn entirely on North Korea.

After a meeting with Mr. Xi, President Trump said his Chinese counterpart seemed willing to press Pyongyang. But China has balanced its criticisms of North Korea by pressing the United States to agree to prompt negotiations with the North and suspend major military exercises with the South.

In South Korea on Monday, Vice President Pence held out the possibility of opening talks with the North Koreans, noting that Washington was seeking security “through peaceable means, through negotiations.”

His office added that any talks would include Japan, South Korea, other allies in the region and China.

Mr. Shen, 66, is well known in China and is often cited for his groundbreaking studies on the outbreak of the Korean War that used archival records to expose the tensions and miscalculations behind Mao’s decision to send troops.

He is the son of Communist Party officials and previously used his earnings from business to pay for dredging archives in Russia, after serving a two-year prison term on a charge of leaking state secrets that he insisted was groundless.

He said he hoped that his research, including a new history of Chinese-North Korean relations that he hopes will appear in English this year, would dismantle deceptive myths that have grown up in China around that past.

“It’s very hard for China to adjust relations,” he said. “If everyone understands the truth and this myth is burst, then there’ll be a basis among the public and officials for adjusting policy.”
 
But Mr. Shen acknowledged that shifting direction on North Korea would carry risks. If political cooperation between Beijing and Washington fails to constrain North Korea, he said, the two governments should cooperate in a military response.

“If North Korea really does master nuclear weapons and their delivery, then the whole world will have to prostrate itself at the feet of North Korea,” he said in the interview. “The longer this drags out, the better it is for North Korea.”

Choe Sang-Hun contributed reporting from Seoul, South Korea.

 

[tomahawk6]

Perhaps the USN doesnt want the North Koreans to know exactly where the Vinson is. I suspect its all part of the psyops campaign. Chinese troops are arrayed on the border or maybe not. Keep the bad guys guessing.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/trumps-rage-for-war-making-three-us-aircraft-carrier-strike-groups-deployed-to-korean-peninsula-waters/5585685