North Korea: Threat or Blackmailer?

[Alvin Walton]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

numbers aren't everything, but they do say somethings:

That chart looks like it was made by a high school student and is about as accurate.
If North korea has 700 fighter jets then my name is Alice Cooper.
Also to note is that some of the hyped up F-22s and B-2s that were out there are back in the US and they are grounded becaue of the sequestartiatationtartersaucetion crapola.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Alvin Walton

...
If North korea has 700 fighter jets then my name is Alice Cooper.
...

From the Library of Congress Document I linked earlier (p.252 actual 291 acrobat reader)

the [North Korean]air force has about 110,000 airmen and is equipped with an aging fleet of more than 1,600 aircraft that includes about 780 fighters, 80 bombers, 300 helicopters, 300 An–2 biplanes, and more than 100 support craft. About 70 percent of the fixed-wing aircraft are first- and second-
generation Soviet-made fighters and bombers, including MiG–15,
–17, –19, and –21 fighters and Il–28 fighter-bombers. The air force
also has many third- and fourth-generation Soviet-made aircraft such
as MiG–23 and MiG–29 fighters and Su–25 ground attack aircraft.

Among its rotor-wing fleet are a significant number of Mi–2s, Mi–4s, Mi–8s, Mi–17s, and Hughes–500 multirole helicopters.

Can I call you Alice now?
(I understand they aren't a threat per se because they are aging, and their pilots get an average of 20 hours flying time a year, just numbers that would have to be shot down)

[Alvin Walton]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

From the Library of Congress Document I linked earlier (p.252 actual 291 acrobat reader)


Can I call you Alice now?
(I understand they aren't a threat per se because they are aging, and their pilots get an average of 20 hours flying time a year, just numbers that would have to be shot down)

Good researching.

How many of them are operational?
Cause if they cant fly then they are just lawn ornaments.
If you look at them on Google earth, thats what they appear to be.

And I find it amusing that you would bother to list the AN-2s.

[Alvin Walton]

Phear the mighty AN-2.
160 MPH top speed.

[CRedskinsRule]

The F-22's aren't back from SK, and the B-2's for SK defense are not grounded.

The chart was published in the Australian newspaper, and is accurate to Jane's Weapons guide.

[Alvin Walton]

The US Air Force says otherwise.

The grounding includes F-22s from the 1st Fighter Wing's 94th Fighter Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va. The squadron is returning from a deployment to the Pacific where airmen participated in a high-profile exercise in South Korea.
Reduced flying hours forces grounding of 17 USAF combat air squadrons | Air Force Times | airforcetimes.com

And mentioning some Australian newspaper as a source creates neagative credibility AFAIC.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Alvin Walton

The US Air Force says otherwise.

The grounding includes F-22s from the 1st Fighter Wing's 94th Fighter Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va. The squadron is returning from a deployment to the Pacific where airmen participated in a high-profile exercise in South Korea.
Reduced flying hours forces grounding of 17 USAF combat air squadrons | Air Force Times | airforcetimes.com

And mentioning some Australian newspaper as a source creates neagative credibility AFAIC.

How does Australia create negative credibility? They are relatively neutral, shaded pro-US. Your open bias in all things military amazes me.

[CRedskinsRule]

To correct myself the specific unit that was in SK is due back, but we still have operational F22's:

(from your article)

F-22

94th Fighter Squadron — Grounded April 9 - [this was the unit in SK]

27th Fighter Squadron — Basic mission capable through September

3rd Fighter Wing — Two squadrons combat mission ready through September

15th Wing — One squadron combat mission ready through September

49th Wing — One squadron combat mission ready through September

[Alvin Walton]

You dont provide a link and you just mentioned something about Australia....
Why not a credible American source?
And I'll reiterate that the above jpeg is a crap.
And yea....I'm going to be highly critical of anything anyone says about the military in this forum.
I am very much a civilian armchair general, no doubt.
However all things military have been my hobby most of my life.
With a couple tangible exceptions I have access to the same info all of you have.
The difference might be that I've been reading a ton of it for a long time.
As have my friends and family members.
So my bullshit alarm goes off very easily.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Alvin Walton

You dont provide a link and you just mentioned something about Australia....
Why not a credible American source?
And I'll reiterate that the above jpeg is a crap.
And yea....I'm going to be highly critical of anything anyone says about the military in this forum.
I am very much a civilian armchair general, no doubt.
However all things military have been my hobby most of my life.
With a couple tangible exceptions I have access to the same info all of you have.
The difference might be that I've been reading a ton of it for a long time.
As have my friends and family members.
So my bullshit alarm goes off very easily.

My dad was a highly decorated AF officer, served in Vietnam, very proud of him. I was in Civil Air Patrol at Andrews for all of my teen life, 13 -22, was leader of a regional CAP drill team, conducted search and rescue sorties, served both as cadet commander, and on the senior executive staff. Served in the Army 5 years. I have been reading a ton my whole life too.
I am proud of our military generally, but also see us as a world policeman, and understand that there is another view of the US that sees our policies as overbearing and hypocritical.

What specifically do you dispute in the jpeg. The data is valid and accurate
the link for the whole story is North Korea seen moving missile | News.com.au and I purposely used a non-US source, so that it would be LESS likely to be claimed to be biased.

edit: deleted one paragraph, probably to pejorative.

[CRedskinsRule]

Here is a Library of Congress country study on NK, start at page 245 (p. 285 in my Adobe reader) for a list of NK units as of 2009, Honestly I thought the chart gave a nice clean breakdown, and don't really even understand what you are disputing about it, it was just a base info sheet

[Alvin Walton]

For starters that jpeg uses some of the most recent goofy pictures of NK buffonery.
Makes me not want to read it at all. How can it be taken seriously?

The B-2s are not there, neither are the F-22s.
The warship quantity should re-written as 47 "warboats".
They are barely worth mentioning as they will all dissapear in the first 10 days if things got real bad.
700 fighters? Total bullshit.
Even if you wittled that down to 300, most of them are 1960s technology.
Some left over from the original war and I'd venture that all of them are dependent on ground control during combat.
They still use MiG-17s. You see more of those in airshows than you do in someones military.
That jpeg is meant to impress complete laymen.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Alvin Walton

For starters that jpeg uses some of the most recent goofy pictures of NK buffonery.
Makes me not want to read it at all. How can it be taken seriously?

The B-2s are not there, neither are the F-22s.
The warship quantity should re-written as 47 "warboats".
They are barely worth mentioning as they will all dissapear in the first 10 days if things got real bad.
700 fighters? Total bullshit.
Even if you wittled that down to 300, most of them are 1960s technology.
Some left over from the original war and I'd venture that all of them are dependent on ground control during combat.
They still use MiG-17s. You see more of those in airshows than you do in someones military.
That jpeg is meant to impress complete laymen.

I didn't mean it to do more than just give a ball park comparison, which I think it did nicely. Sorry it doesn't do it for you.

[Alvin Walton]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Here is a Library of Congress country study on NK, start at page 245 (p. 285 in my Adobe reader) for a list of NK units as of 2009, Honestly I thought the chart gave a nice clean breakdown, and don't really even understand what you are disputing about it, it was just a base info sheet

Looks interesting but I cant load that here at work on this crappy PC.
I'll take a look at it when I get home.

[Alvin Walton]

Meh......their air force and navy are not the concern anyways AFAIC.

Nukes
Chemical weapons
Their large artillery force.
Their large mobile infantry.

Those are the four things I would be worried about most.