Maybe? With the present leadership they are already sacrificing lives to maintain their domination. They would most certainly have plans to shoot those that did not join the wave of bodies they would send south.
Iraq isn't a fair comparison. Korean military on both sides of the 38th have demonstrated a willingness to die for their cause that the Iraqis didn't have. It is also highly unlikely that the NK officers will run and leave the peones on their on like so many Iraqi officers did.
At a sustained rate of fire of 3 round per minute, that is about 2800 cannon and there are estimates of 10,000+ along the DMZ. Was the 500,000 into Seoul alone? That sounds a little high because it's about a 35 mile shot from the DMZ and that takes some special rocket assisted rounds. Still possible but questionable. But. never underestimate the effectivity of large amounts of Iron Rain. If a target is within tube artillery range, there is no more efficient way to deliver death and destruction. An artillery piece is a relatively simple inexpensive device capable of delivering about 3 lbs of munitions on target for every 1 lb of relatively inexpensive propellant consumed. Compared to rockets or aircraft, it is highly efficient. Dropping rounds on Seoul would be less efficient, rocket boosted rounds are less efficient and more of problem to handle.
When you have nothing, you have nothing to loose. That's why I take the NK thing seriously, plus we know they have nukes.
The latest news this morning reports that the missile launchers are erected, which maybe means they commenced fuelling the liquid propelled rockets.
Yeah...the DPRK (pardon me while I grin at the inevitable phoneticiztion of that acronym... ) has always scared the crap out of me because they have a lot of tubes pointed South and they have almost nothing to lose. China (the other PRC) is all that they have in the whole wide world. We also have tens of thousands of DOD issued boots between the KPA and Seoul. Their rockets really don't cause me physical discomfiture excepting that they can act as a primer to set off the main conflict. People haven't used liquid fueled rockets in a war fighting role for a while now. Like I said....they stick out like a turd in a punchbowl. When you fuel one, it's like thumb cocking a revolver. There's no doubt about what you're doing. The rockets don't bother me because unless I'm very mistaken, even if Kim pushes the plunger (they're not advanced enough yet to have a proper button!) we probably won't even have to swat it down. He's probably just trying to make us flop and twitch.
I take it that would be with non-nuc ammunition. Still, I wouldn't yet agree. Given the sensitivity of the whole matter, NK just sword rattling, whiile seriously troubling, isn't enough. We have to let NK actually do something really stupid/threatening like an apparently targeted missle launch. There also needs to be room to call a shot directly out over the ocean a "drill." Anything towards either SK or Japan not being a drill but threatening and really stupid.
I think so too, but I won't bet on what a desperate person is going to do. Fortunately in the West it's just the arm-chair commandos flopping and twitching so far.
