"THAAD" Topic

Saw this is being deployed to South Korea…

So the questions are:

1) Does it actually work against ballistic missiles?

2) Does China have legitimate concerns over the capabilities of the radar?

3) How easy is it to knock out? I'm thinking of NK SpecFor operations here. I assume it doesn't have to be deployed within artillery range of the border.

goo.gl/images/LQK3ZC

1) Maybe… link

But seriously, I would guess, yes it more than likely would work as intended. Unsourced tables on Wikipedia aren't going to undermine my trust in the big brains of our military industrial complex.

2) Yes. Any improved US capability in the western pacific undermines the Chinese goal of regional hegemony. It's zero sum to them.

3)

It's out of the range of artillery for sure, I have no idea what the security posture is for the site but I'm sure it's something that USFOR-K has planned for and are robustly prepared against. Then again if I was NK SOF I'd smuggle in a 60mm mortar and shell it from standoff, hoping that there is not a C-RAM system colocated with the THAAD battery.

I'm surprised that the THAAD battery isn't within range of Seoul, but I guess the Koreans are writing it off when the war starts up.

North Korea does not need to fire ballistic missiles at Seoul.

North Korea does not need to fire ballistic missiles at Seoul.

No, it doesn't. In the event of a shooting war on the peninsula, Seoul will be destroyed, period. This system seems to be intended to protect US and ROK military installations that are outside NK artillery range.

"In the event of a shooting war on the peninsula, Seoul will be destroyed, period"

Nah, NK will only get off one volley before all of it's artillery pieces are swarmed with MLRS rocket counterfire. The Americans have a system that can determine the origin of artillery fire and hit it before it moves or fires again.

Except for the awkward problem that the artillery is far too numerous, well dug in and the allies have insufficient resources to hit all of them quickly.

It's not like the NKs are stupid enough to deploy everything in a field with only a few sandbags for protection.

I don't know, one salvo from one M270 can carpet a square km with thousands of sub munitions. Might be pretty hard to shoot back with that kind of incoming. Especially since to be able to fire there has to be an opening in the NK emplacement. I'd say some sub munitions might find their way into that opening…

First of all, are there any M270s in range?

And if there are, will they survive the first few salvos? Or NK SpecFor attacks?

The North Koreans have around 15,000 artillery pieces within range of Seoul. They're sited in hard granite positions.

The North Koreans are many things, but they're not stupid, and they too have heard of the M270. Hence they've got blast doors over their guns.

The NKs also have, allegedly, a 300mm MRLS with a range three times that of an M270. These are not high-tech weapons the US has a monopoly on.

Yeah, the Norks do not need a ballistic missile to destroy Seoul. As mentioned, they have 15,000 (yes, fifteen thousand) artillery pieces sited to fire on Seoul, all dug deep into bedrock. B52s carpet-bombing the area wouldn't kill the arty. Hell, I'm not sure that a US ballistic missile sub would be able to dig out more than a couple of those guns.

But I'm still surprised that THAAD isn't close enough to cover Seoul, just as a matter of politics.

If the NKs have an MRLS with a 100km range that may explain it.

There is strong public opposition to Thaad in S. Korea, and their newly elected president isn't as enthusiastic as the previous one (who was forced out of office in a major scandal) about it either.