Originally posted by Mefustae
Not neccissarily. Just because the US Armed Forces enjoy better training and equiptment doens't mean that it gives it an edge over opposing armies.
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Yes it means. Better training is quite a force multiplier. You can pit two soldiers against each other and see who wins. Usually it's the guy who can react better, keep his head calmer, take better advantage of his surroundings and is a better shot - and these are exactly the things basic training focuses on.
I hate to bring out a WW2 analogy, but it's pretty useful here: German army in the beginning of invasion of France was numerically outgunned and had worse tanks than most of their adversaries. They, however, were very well trained and even consripcts generally knew what they were doing (thanks to vigorous training). They pretty much kicked ass. Finnish army was completely outnumbered and outgunned in the beginning of Winter War, yet they were better trained than opposing forces (and adapted to enviroment), and kicked pretty much ass until someone had an idea of maybe actually training the Russians. Then the Russians won.
. In certain situations, such as open fields and plains - not unlike Iraq - the US undoubtedly has the advantage, however in the mountainous, irregular terrain of NK...well, let's just say the playing field will be quite level in an invasion took place.
Random tactical levelheads don't level the entire field. US has pretty much superb experience when it comes to urban and rugged terrain combat (think: Iraq, Afghanistan, ****load of SpecOps operations everywhere). Also, even strange terrain can be defeated with flexible thinking and good training.
The biggest problem with NK is that they dig everything underground. It requires bunker busters and stuff - which the US has. It also requires time - which is always an issue in war. Overall, it requires intelligence. US/ROK has q good deal of it, but in these kind of situations you can never know everything.
Remember, NK would have the home-team advantage, meaning that their forces would be adapted to the mountainous terrain.
This is true, but it's not an end-it-all multiplier.
Moreover, NK has quite a large stockpile of Anti-Aircraft systems, not to mention a modest - while outdated - Airforce that would likely hold its own against whatever the USN/USAF could muster. short of a Carrier Battle Group or two.
Massive AA fire can be useful. Serbs shot down a F-117 with just AA guns, lol. However, often the range and other deficiencies of older Russian AA systems (which NK forces use, though they are pretty damn secretive) are well known and noted around Western Countries. Iglas, Strelas and heavy SA platforms are useful en masse. The air defence network would cause some headache.
As for NK air force - give me a break. We are talking about these two countries:
First country is NK. Their bulk fighter is MiG-21 - quality 1960s technology with possible updates up to bis-versions. They also pack some MiG-23 Floggers. They are more capable, from 1960s point of view. NK also has a small compliment of MiG-29s which are a-OK, but practically every even nearly realistic training tells us that Western fighters generally sweep the floor even with MiG-29s. OK, India won one war game where US counterops were denied stuff like AWACS and long-range missiles. They even have Su-17s still in service.
The second opposing country is USA, with their immense USAF which generally pretty much the best air force in the world (Israelis are pretty kickass as well, hmm hmm). They can launch F-15s from the southern tip of SK and they could engage NK MiGs almost immediately after launch. Countering a huge mass of Soviet superfighters (this story involves XB-70s, MiG-25 and a lot of misinformation), the F-15 has kill ratio of something like 1XX:0. The bigger the operation, the better the AWACS and other support units enforce the lethality of USAF. I have little idea of South Korean air force, but they seem to use F-16, F-5 and some other platforms and are considering F-15 as well. I would bet 50:1 that US would win the air war in short amount of time.
Oh yeah, and carrier groups! They are pretty much invincible to 3rd world countries, and even US commanders have very, very difficult time trying to stop or destroy their own CVBGs in war games.
Regardless, close air support would be a challenge to provide to any ground forces, and as many of the US primary Armoured Units are not designed for optimal operation in a NK-style environment - they're suited at open field warfare, not mountains - the US could not gain too much ground without committing a scale of assets far beyond the current ability of their Armed Forces given the present world climate and state of their nation...
There'a always ROK. At this moment there are also 37 000 US troops ("the tripwire") which will be cut by 12 000 (thus becoming even more tripwire). Right now US is bogged down in Iraq/Afghanistan/all over the place, but in case of NK attack (unlikely) the US could transfer air and naval assets into to TOS very quickly, and reserves and redeployments would take weeks, not months.
...Even without Nuclear Weapons, NK is still a very tough nut to crack, and would certainly turn into another Vietnam. The main difference being that - should the US come to invading and run into considerable trouble - the idea of a large-scale nuclear ibombardment of key strategic locations would be a lot more likely...
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Vietnam scenario requires active, militaristically adept insurgency. If US decides to attack NK, it requires a lot of things: casus belli, manpower, long preparations, support from international community (POLAND DOES NOT COUNT) et cetera et cetera. Defending ROK against NK attack would be pretty different.
Nuclear war is a good deterrent. US wouldn't get nuked to oblivion in any case - unless NK uses magic wizard power and suddenly has 12 000 H-bombs of 50Mt scale or something), but ROK could suffer quite a lot. That must be taken into consideration. It would be so... uhh, pretty bad and ****ed up to see US rush into Korea because OMG TERRISM NUKULAR and see Seoul nuked in retaliation. Casus belli post hoc! Yay!
