Yea. How did that work out for them? Did it bring them victory? I am not even sure where your argument is headed. What are you trying to prove? That North Korea would be difficult to invade?
When a bomb blows-up a factor, it's blown-up. And it took them less than a day to rebuild it. And you claim that there would be DIFFERENT results if we had a precision bomb? That just means instead of dropping 1000 bombs we drop 1 bomb, there's no difference, time and space is still limited.
Vietnamese achieved victory. North Koreans have plenty of underground bases and tunnels. And built the tunnels for North Vietnam. Your point is flimsy, you're also not counting South Vietnam casualties.
The allied bombers in WW2 used bombs that were very good at knocking down walls or starting fires but that weren't very good at focusing a lot of destructive power against a point target. What is point in rebuilding a factory when the machine tools in it are wrecked?
The same thing occurred in Germany WW2, and it lasted until the end of the war and the strategic bombing campaign was ruled as largely ineffective in the overall war effort after the fact. A guided bomb makes no difference, it still requires a sortie, it just doesn't require 100 bombers for the sortie.
The machine tools WERE wrecked. Are you really this dense? The Germans were moving equipment in and out of all sorts of facilities to replace the losses.
I believe with the Germans in WWII it was ball bearings and gasoline, which caused an entire chain reaction. Wheels don't roll, armies don't move. They eventually can't produce what is needed.
The Viet Cong, you know, the guys who actually used those tunnels, did NOT achieve victory. The conventional North Vietnamese army did and then they only one because our forces has already left two years earlier. Even counting South Vietnamese casualties, the Viet Cong achieved nothing like Iwo Jima level casualty ratios.
They never had a shortage of either. Armies were moving up until capitulation on May 8th. Germany produced the most tanks of any month of the war during the month of....April 1945.
Ball bearings and gasoline. They couldn't produce enough of either because the allies kept blowing them up.
You seriously need to look into WW2 bombing campaigns. The Allies routinely failed to even damage German machine tools because their bombs were so inaccurate they couldn't achieve direct hits and direct hits were the only way they could destroy them.
No, they are not closely related. Not even close. Climate, terrain, time period, weaponry.... It's all considerably different. Even the way the war would be fought would be entirely different. You keep trying to reach back into time and relate it to current events. WW2 and Vietnam have no bearing on what happen if a war took place with North Korea in 2017. Except that people would die. That's about it.
They weren't using those tunnels when they achieved victory. They launched a conventional armored offensive. This idea that tunnels are the massive casualty multiplier is absurd. Our technology has improved by an absurd degree since 1944-45.
No **** it's "different". But the strategy would be just as effective. Iwo Jima wasn't particularly forested.
Going to war with North Korea will not cause a complete global economic collapse. I think you are being a bit hyperbole here. In the end, the world would be better off with the Korean Peninsula reunited under the rule of South Korea. Especially economically.
Yes it is. Allied bombs were both wildly inaccurate and wildly inefficient. They routinely failed to destroy targets by being only a few meters away from impact.
Dude really? How much financial derivatives are based off South Korean investments/capital? It's very serious. The economy could barely handle a few million people not paying their mortgages on time. You expect it to do OK if South Korea's economy suddenly collapses?
Because Iwo Jima was 100% tunnel basing with that style of fighting with tunnels deep enough that heavy artillery and bombing had little effect. While as you yourself pointed out that Vietnam (and certainly afghanistan where this is almost NON EXISTENT) had large conventional scale battles as well. Arguably North Korea will opt for large scale conventional fighting as well. So the ratios won't be identical to Iwo Jima. But there's millions of North Koreans in a nation built like Iwo Jima so the statement I made in the OP which is Iwo Jima x 1000 is still obviously more accurate than not. You could expect millions of allied casualties trying to invade.
In Iwo, the US lacked precision guided weapons. They didn't have infantry mounted in armored vehicles. They didn't have modern mine clearing techniques. They didn't have powerful shape charge bunker defeating weapons that could be used at standoff distance. They didn't have thermobaric weapons that duplicate the effect of a flamethrower but can be used from hundreds of yards away. There is ZERO reason to believe North Korea could cause millions of casualties to anyone save civilians.
