North Korea fire 200 artillery shells at South

virmilitaris

I'm just getting on the subway into Seoul now. I wonder what reasons Mr Kim are going to give for this little exercise ?

Apparently one soldier is dead and others injured. The island that was hit has a population of 1500.

What do people think the US response will be ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11818005

South Korea says it has returned fire after North Korea fired around 200 artillery shells onto one of its border islands, reportedly killing one marine.

The South's military was placed on its highest non-wartime alert after the shells landed on Yeonpyeong island.

North Korea has not yet commented on the incident, in which three marines and two civilians were also injured.

Correspondents say this is one of the most serious since the the Korean War ended without a peace treaty in 1953.

There have been occasional cross-border clashes since, but the latest incident comes at a time of rising regional tension.

North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-il is believed to be ill and trying to engineer the succession of his youngest son. And on Saturday, North Korea showed off what it claimed was a new uranium enrichment facility - potentially giving it a second route to a nuclear weapon.

The move prompted the US special representative for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, to rule out the resumption of six-party talks on resolving the nuclear issue.

South Korean presidential spokesman Kim Hee-jung also said it was investigating a possible link between the artillery attack and recent maritime exercises near the western sea border earlier on Tuesday.

Edit; Is this the wrong forum ?

Mister men

Not good. Hope this does'nt escalate.

Jonny7

Anywhere else in the world that is an act of war, but in this situation its akin to a child having a tantrum and the parents having to be stern.

The North is obviously in dire straits internally if this is happening, personally I don't know what the South should do. An airstrike on the artillery perhaps.

The number of shells fired is very shocking though.

Mister men

The South have fried back according to the news channel. Jesus.:eek:

gandalf

Well I hope it is just them flexing their muscles because of the apparent confirmation of the sighting of a thousand centrifuges at its main nuclear complex which the US is condemning them over.

However firing 200 shells even for the North is a bit of overkill. I hope that this isn't pushing events towards a major escalation. Maybe Kim wants to go out with a bang!

johngalway

I was also surprised at the 200 artillery rounds. But I doubt much more will come of it, fire has already been returned by the SK side.

virmilitaris

johngalway wrote: »

I was also surprised at the 200 artillery rounds. But I doubt much more will come of it, fire has already been returned by the SK side.

Well I made it to Seoul and I'm still alive.

The South's President is apparently in some underground bunker and has promised 'stern retaliation'.

nesf

Jonny7 wrote: »

Anywhere else in the world that is an act of war, but in this situation its akin to a child having a tantrum and the parents having to be stern.

North and South Korea are still at war with each other. They never signed an armistice bringing hostilities to an end, thus the most heavily fortified region in the world being their border.

johngalway

virmilitaris wrote: »

Well I made it to Seoul and I'm still alive.

The South's President is apparently in some underground bunker and has promised 'stern retaliation'.

Well, they already fired back 80 rounds.

My bet is he's waffling at this point. What are they going to do, punitive air strikes and give what NK what it wants?

It'll be more paperwork sanctions or removal of the Economic zone in the North, or removal of aid or some such.

Inverse to the power of one!

It's a messed up situation, the north has more then enough artillery to destroy Seoul, and the South would not be keen on the costs of re-unification were they to win.

But I do believe the South would beat the living day out of the North. The Nork's are fighting on 1950's technology, and would be beaten soundly in the air, night, and electronic parts of any war. Think about the electronic part especially, an Army is very much incapacitated with out comm's. Also I don't believe the North would have the heart for a guerrilla war, the common perception of Jong Il is that he wasted much of his fathers progress(If you can call it that).

As Jonny7 said, this one's gonna be a mini tantrum, the Norks can consider themselves lucky the South don't want to play and they get to throw this tantrum because they know they can get away with it.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

johngalway

Scien wrote: »

There's only so much bullying and intimidation SK are going to take.

DPRK have killed 2 SK marines today and killed another 46 in March with the sinking of the Cheonan.

Enough is enough, they should be given an almighty slap by the south.

To what conclusion? Think of the after effects before acting.

Airstrikes against nuclear facilities? Sink a few ships or submarines? Target infrastructure?

Then what?

Expect NK to sit back and take it? They will not. With such rife paranoia they will counterstrike.

Then where to?

NK has a large, somewhat brainwashed population and an army, while badly trained and equipped who are armed to the teeth.

"Regime change" will be the only phrase in the NK leaderships mind.

Heisenberg.

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Einhard

Scien wrote: »

There's only so much bullying and intimidation SK are going to take.

DPRK have killed 2 SK marines today and killed another 46 in March with the sinking of the Cheonan.

Enough is enough, they should be given an almighty slap by the south.

Scien wrote: »

Sure, the after effects have the potential to be devastating for both parties.
At the same time, if you keep poking a dog with a stick he will eventually bite.

SK can't be expected to continuously tolerate this type of blatant provocation and I suspect their tether is nearing its end.

The problem is that Soeul can be expected to tolerate all this provocation, because the alternative is too ghastly to contemplate. The South, with US backing, would eventually win any war, but not before her cities and economy were devestated, and thousaands of her civilians killed. The North know this, and that's why they're playing this game. They want to get the attention of the world, achieve more favourable terms in any forthcoming negotiations. It's an amoral, dangerous strategy, but one in which they have a strong hand. The key player here is China. They want to keep as stable a North as possible to prevent a massive, destabilising influx of refugees, and so they suport Kim, but sooner or later they're going to have to take a more firm stance in the matter.

virmilitaris

Maybe not as clear cut as I thought.

Take a look at this map;



The island is literally right beside the border. It also has a military base and today the South was conducting military exercises of it's own.

The North has claimed that;

North Korean Military wrote:

"The South Korean enemy, despite our repeated warnings, committed reckless military provocations of firing artillery shells into our maritime territory near Yeonpyeong island beginning 1300 (0400 GMT),"

The South has admitted it did indeed conduct live fire exercises at that time but that the shots were pointed West, not North.

South Korea wrote:

"We were conducting usual military drills and our test shots were aimed toward the west, not the north,"

Now I'm not defending the North for one second but when I look at the map above and look at the situation I can't help thinking two things to myself;

1. Why do the South conduct live fire exercises right on the border ? It seems to me to be provocative.

2. Why did they fire the rounds off to the West ? One can clearly see that if they indeed fired directly west from the island shells could have fallen into the Norths maritime territory, effectively firing over the most militarised border in the world. I know very little about artillery but I'd assume that a strong breeze can change the trajectory significantly.

If the South did indeed fire into the Norths territory first by accident then was the response justified ?

Even though I'm sitting in my flat in Seoul right now feeling a little worried about the whole situation I can't help but think the above explanation makes more sense than the North just randomly deciding to fire artillery. It's quite a serious move by them which was really unexpected.

Edit: This map shows the Northern Limit line in full and depending on the range of the Souths Artillery, if they did indeed fire to the West they could very well have hit the Norths territory.

Manic Moran

Reposting from military (didn't see the request to post on this thread at the time).

1. Why do the South conduct live fire exercises right on the border ? It seems to me to be provocative.

That's where the guns are, and where they're expected to fight from. You'll never get a drill better than one in the actual location. Such drills were routinely held near the Inter-German border by both sides during the cold war, but it never seemed to cause too much angst.

2. Why did they fire the rounds off to the West ? One can clearly see that if they indeed fired directly west from the island shells could have fallen into the Norths maritime territory, effectively firing over the most militarised border in the world. I know very little about artillery but I'd assume that a strong breeze can change the trajectory significantly.

Met conditions both at surface and at altitude are taken into account when calculating the firing solution. Barring human error (which happens, people transpose numbers or otherwise screw up sometimes), the round will be within about 100m even after flying 25 km. (Over two and a half minute's flying time, it's quite impressive a feat when you think about it). If there is a human screwup, it is very easy to determine where the round actually did land.

If the South did indeed fire into the Norths territory first by accident then was the response justified ?

The CCTV video on the other thread in AH shows impact in a shopping area parking lot. Even if the ROK did have some rounds land on the other side of the maritime border, is shelling an urban area justified?

NTM

KeithAFC

I know how it feels. Im behind South Korea on this all the way.

Holybejaysus

This NK problem is going to have to be addressed sooner rather than later. Whatever your views on war are, this seems to be a crystal clear case for decapitating military intervention, possibly even justifying the use of low yield tactical nuclear weapons. Those artillery pieces are going to have to be neutralized one way or another. I don't think conventional strikes could take out 70,000 pieces.
Also, evacuating the population of Seoul does not strike me as logistically feasible, at least without the plan leaking and NK launching an artillery attack.

Today's action were nothing short of a declaration of war (even thought they technically never stopped, I know), there is absolutely going to have to be retaliation here.

Inverse to the power of one!

Er.....
The south doesn't shell nk civilians when the it's the north live firing in to their territory.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/10/world/la-fg-north-korea-artillery-20100810

It's a bit cheeky for the Nork's to claim the live fire exercise provoked them.

No sympathy for this devil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1oUd89QvGo

This shows every thing from the Gulags to the luxury cruise ship for Jong il that has no engine and has to be towed.
http://www.nkeconwatch.com/north-korea-uncovered-google-earth/

A truly Orwellian state and the last remaining outpost of Stalin's evil empire.

Brussels Sprout

If there is war will China back North Korea?

gandalf

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

If there is war will China back North Korea?

I would doubt they will actively as it will put them into a shooting war with their biggest customer the US. If we do not see a reaction from South Korea in the next few hours then I would estimate that the "enormous retaliation" threat was just for the watching media.

This is North Korea throwing their toys out of the pram looking for attention but every time they do this now peoples lives are being lost so there has to be a cost for them. It is a balancing act especially given that the leader of North Korea is a certifiable fruitcake who cares nothing for his own people let alone those neighbouring him.

Ren2k7

Im normally anti war but there comes a time when enough is enough and bullies need to be stood up to. The entire international community should stand behind the South over this outrage.

Mahatma coat

To Me it does look like provocation from the South, and not the first time recently either, What was the Chenowan Doing in NK Territory??

Why the need to Fire off all these rounds so close to the Border of a obviously paranoid neighbour, why all the Exercises with the Americans?

it Smacks of a Windup from SK

virmilitaris

Timeline of events.

08:20: North sends a telex message requesting "a halt to South's firing of artillery for a defensive military training".
10:00: South starts the regular artillery training exercise.
14:34 – 14:55: North starts firing dozens of shells.
14:38: South conducts emergency sorties with two KF-16 fighters.
14:40: South switches to four F-15K fighters.
14:46: South conducts another emergency sortie with two KF-16 fighters.
14:47: South fires back with the first round of K-9 howitzers.
14:50: The highest alert (Alert Jindotgae Hana) ever given for a local provocation is issued.
15:11: North starts firing dozens of shells for the second time.
15:25: South fires back with K-9 howitzers.
15:30: South teletexts the North's military general level talk representative requesting an immediate halt to artillery shelling.
15:40 – 16:00: ROK JCS Han Min-gu and USFK Commander Walter Sharp have a video conference (a review of cooperative crisis management)
15:41: North stops firing.
16:30: First military casualty reported.
16:35 – 21:50: Foreign and National Security representatives have a meeting.
18:40: Lee Hong-gi, ROK JCS Director of Operations, holds a press briefing.
20:35 – 21:10: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak meets with his Joint Chief of Staff.
23:00: North Korean Leader Kim Jong Il, demands a settlement.

A better map than the last one I posted.

The Blue line shows the border as the South and UN accept.
The Red line shows the border as the North accept.



P.S I live beside number 5 on the map

Sponge Bob

You will be delighted to hear that Michael Woods , a former FF Cabinet minister, brought the North Korean ambassador on a tour of the Irish Parliament yesterday around 8 hours after the artillery barrage started.

The Chairman of proceedings, Seamus Kirk TD , a former FF Junior ( non cabinet) minister asked the parliament to welcome him. The Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was present at this time but was on his way out.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2010/11/23/00017.asp

An Ceann Comhairle: Seamús Kirk FF



Before proceeding with business I wish on my own behalf and on behalf of the Members of Dáil Éireann to offer a cead mile fáilte, a most sincere welcome to His Excellency, Mr. Ja Song Nam, Ambassador to Ireland from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I express the hope that you will enjoy your visit and that it will be successful and of mutual benefit.

The parliament applauded Ja Song Nam, Surreal or what?

Sponge Bob

You will be delighted to hear that Michael Woods , a former FF Cabinet minister, brought the North Korean ambassador on a tour of the Irish Parliament yesterday around 8 hours after the artillery barrage started.

The Chairman of proceedings, Seamus Kirk TD , a former FF Junior ( non cabinet) minister asked the parliament to welcome him. The Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was present at this time but was on his way out.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2010/11/23/00017.asp

An Ceann Comhairle: Seamús Kirk FF



Before proceeding with business I wish on my own behalf and on behalf of the Members of Dáil Éireann to offer a cead mile fáilte, a most sincere welcome to His Excellency, Mr. Ja Song Nam, Ambassador to Ireland from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I express the hope that you will enjoy your visit and that it will be successful and of mutual benefit.

The parliament applauded Ja Song Nam, ( and by protocol the parliament applauded the North Korean government that sent him to Ireland.)

Surreal or what? If I was South Korea I would bring in the Irish Ambassador and eat the head off him for this farce

Brussels Sprout

I'll bet most of them probably thought that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was South Korea.

hooah1701

Great update. Was looking on Google Earth at the island. Do you know where the North Korean artillery was located when they fired on the island?

virmilitaris

hooah1701 wrote: »

Great update. Was looking on Google Earth at the island. Do you know where the North Korean artillery was located when they fired on the island?

Sorry for the size.

Athlone_Bhoy

Manic Moran wrote: »

The CCTV video on the other thread in AH shows impact in a shopping area parking lot. Even if the ROK did have some rounds land on the other side of the maritime border, is shelling an urban area justified?

NTM

No. Not unless it's Israel, USA or Britain.

ISAW

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

If there is war will China back North Korea?

Will the US back North Korea?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/sarah-palin/8159304/Sarah-Palin-weve-got-to-stand-with-our-North-Korean-allies.html

MarkGrisham

The South is boosting defenses apparently, so any future confrontation will have even more troops and artillery nearby. Marvellous!

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/skorea-boosts-defences-against-north-20101126-189bj.html

Heisenberg.

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