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Originally Posted by StylinRed i dont think the concern is whether or not the USA can bomb NK to rubble; i imagine they can
the concern is what kind of damage North Korea could do within that time
if NK flattened SK (they can) that would put a complete halt to the electronics industry not to mention kill millions along with it
they may even launch one over at Japan and hell they might even land one in the USA
and we thought 9/11 and its aftermath was bad, the sheer damage that they might be able to cause would be nothing like we've ever seen |
North Korea wouldn't be able to do much damage at all. The US spent a fortune on the accuracy of their missiles. Why? Because even with the destructive power of a nuke you still have to get it on target. People seem to think you can miss by a few miles and it's OK because it's a nuke. That isn't true. They aren't some "magic weapon" that will obliterate your opponent. They need to be delivered to a precise location, something North Korea isn't even close to accomplishing.
North Korea might be able to cause a lot of damage, but they aren't going to "level" anything. In the last 100 years there have been several earthquakes and tsunamis that have inflicted more damage and caused more deaths than what a North Korean nuke could do. Again it's this misconception that a rogue state setting off a nuke is the end of the world. It would be bad, no doubt, but also manageable.
Here's a couple pics I whipped up. They show Seoul Korea getting hit by a North Korean nuke and by a US nuke.
In the first pic, a North Korean nuke would destroy a small portion of Seoul, but most of the city would remain intact and functional. Emergency services could seal off this area and contain the fires to prevent the spread of destruction. It would be a disaster, but a disaster that could be dealt with. Even if they managed to land a couple, Seoul would still survive.
This is, of course, assuming that North Korea coult actually send a nuke accurately enough to hit their target. If they miss by only a few miles then the damage could be substantially reduced.
The second pic shows a single Trident missile with four warheads fired from a US sub. Pretty self explanatory. Most of Seoul is completely destroyed and the destruction would overwhelm any emergency services left allowing fires to spread at will throughout the region. Seoul would cease to exist.
And the US warheads
will hit their intended target. Keep in mind this represents a single Trident missile. Each Ohio class sub carries 24 of these and they have 14 of these subs giving them a total of 336 of these missiles.