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Something I found myself curious about, and I figured this was the best thread to ask - the North Korean military once came super close to conquering the whole peninsula and handing the US their first total defeat in war. How did they end up going from that to the huge-but-barely-equipped joke they are these days?
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Aug 13, 2014 22:52
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Flesnolk posted:Something I found myself curious about, and I figured this was the best thread to ask - the North Korean military once came super close to conquering the whole peninsula and handing the US their first total defeat in war. How did they end up going from that to the huge-but-barely-equipped joke they are these days? There's no Soviet Union propping them up.
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Aug 13, 2014 22:56
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The state of the art for equipment has advanced much more rapidly than North Korea's domestic armaments industry.
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Aug 13, 2014 23:13
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wdarkk posted:There's no Soviet Union propping them up. Probably had more to do with the Chinese offensive. The war started in June 1950, by September US forces crossed into North Korea and started stomping around. The swing back towards a "War we may actually lose" came when the PRC invaded to prop up a pretty much dead Korean army.
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Aug 13, 2014 23:16
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Flesnolk posted:Something I found myself curious about, and I figured this was the best thread to ask - the North Korean military once came super close to conquering the whole peninsula and handing the US their first total defeat in war. How did they end up going from that to the huge-but-barely-equipped joke they are these days? They had China to help them out.
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Aug 13, 2014 23:17
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Isn't the structure of the North Korean state a total mess not at all conducive to a modern military as well, so the past few decades haven't been very kind to them?
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Aug 13, 2014 23:22
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The Inmingun was a very pretty little infantry, but it got badly hurt during the first part of the Korean War, while almost pushing the US out of Korea. There's a difference between a bunch of guys who learned their trade fighting in China during World War 2 and...whatever it is they do now. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Aug 13, 2014 |
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Aug 13, 2014 23:23
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Rhymenoserous posted:Probably had more to do with the Chinese offensive. The war started in June 1950, by September US forces crossed into North Korea and started stomping around. The swing back towards a "War we may actually lose" came when the PRC invaded to prop up a pretty much dead Korean army. Didn't the "US is almost pushed out of Korea" bit happen BEFORE the Chinese entered the war? I thought the Chinese just reversed all the gains the US made north of the border but didn't get that close to finishing things.
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Aug 13, 2014 23:32
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Yeah, the initial North Korean offensive pushed US and South Korean forces all the way to Busan. The Chinese entered when the North was pushed up to the Yalu River, and things ended up pretty much just where they began.
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Aug 13, 2014 23:34
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Flesnolk posted:Something I found myself curious about, and I figured this was the best thread to ask - the North Korean military once came super close to conquering the whole peninsula and handing the US their first total defeat in war. How did they end up going from that to the huge-but-barely-equipped joke they are these days? North Korea suffered an economic collapse in the mid-1970s and never recovered. As a result they couldn't afford to purchase more modern equipment from abroad, and their military has to make do with '70s-era Soviet export kit. They fell even further in the 1990s after the collapse of the USSR and a major crop failure that led to a famine, and they've been a failed state for the past 20 years or so. This means that their already poorly-equipped military can't afford to train or maintain a very high standard of readiness, and it also leads to ridiculous stuff like the average NK army soldier being like a foot shorter than his South Korean counterpart.
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Aug 13, 2014 23:41
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Also come to think of it, aren't SK and the US much more ready for a war compared to when NK invaded?
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Aug 13, 2014 23:47
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xthetenth posted:Also come to think of it, aren't SK and the US much more ready for a war compared to when NK invaded? Yes, the SK army was a pretty big joke, and the US was in to SAC Uber Alles at the time and didn't give a gently caress about ground pounding.
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Aug 13, 2014 23:54
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Flesnolk posted:Something I found myself curious about, and I figured this was the best thread to ask - the North Korean military once came super close to conquering the whole peninsula and handing the US their first total defeat in war. How did they end up going from that to the huge-but-barely-equipped joke they are these days? They mostly fought poorly equipped South Koreans for the first month of the war. There was only a single American division in Korea during that period of time. It wasn't really an accomplishment.
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Aug 13, 2014 23:59
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Flesnolk posted:Something I found myself curious about, and I figured this was the best thread to ask - the North Korean military once came super close to conquering the whole peninsula and handing the US their first total defeat in war. How did they end up going from that to the huge-but-barely-equipped joke they are these days? I would also dispute the fact that it would have been a total dispute of US forces, even if the North Korean forces had succeeded. I don't think there was really much of a US force in South Korea at the time anyway, it was mostly a South Korean show. Even if the Pusan pocket was eliminated, it probably would have been a total defeat of American forces in the same way that the Japanese invasion of the Philippines was a total defeat of the US in WWII.
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Aug 14, 2014 00:09
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Also bear in mind that that single US division at the start of the Korean war didn't have any heavy equipment with it. The NK Army was rolling around in T34-85's and the US troops didn't have anything that could handle them.
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Aug 14, 2014 00:24
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Alchenar posted:Also bear in mind that that single US division at the start of the Korean war didn't have any heavy equipment with it. The NK Army was rolling around in T34-85's and the US troops didn't have anything that could handle them. I think they had a few bazookas for AT, which just bounced off of the T-34s armor.
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Aug 14, 2014 00:37
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PittTheElder posted:I would also dispute the fact that it would have been a total dispute of US forces, even if the North Korean forces had succeeded. I don't think there was really much of a US force in South Korea at the time anyway, it was mostly a South Korean show. Even if the Pusan pocket was eliminated, it probably would have been a total defeat of American forces in the same way that the Japanese invasion of the Philippines was a total defeat of the US in WWII. Exactly. poo poo, just look at how it played out historically. We didn't erupt out of Busan so much as we staged a large-scale invasion half way up the peninsula at Inchon. We could have done those landings with or without Busan still being there.
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Aug 14, 2014 00:48
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Wasn't Inchon a potential disaster in the making? If Halberstrom can be believed, the only thing that prevented that was Il-Sumg not believing everyone who told him that was where the invasion was going to be.
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Aug 14, 2014 01:19
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sullat posted:Wasn't Inchon a potential disaster in the making? If Halberstrom can be believed, the only thing that prevented that was Il-Sumg not believing everyone who told him that was where the invasion was going to be. Yup. That push was a potential colossal disaster. If NK troops had been ready for the invasion at low tide...would have been a massacre. Same with the attack on Gimpo airport. Push a marine battalion across a totally flat space with no cover? Ok Mac, whatever you say. Also, one of the main reasons the SK army was woefully under equipped? Truman was worried Syngman Rhee was going to surprise attack the north if he had the manpower and supplies. Dude was a vehement anti-communist and had threatened action in the past. The whole division of Korea post-war is coldwar.txt personified.
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Aug 14, 2014 03:27
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It's somewhat ironic in the cold war context that the one time the US doesn't prop up a rabidly anti-communist dictator, it lead to a war anyway.
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Aug 14, 2014 03:42
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A prominent Russian historian, famous for work on research into Lithuanian collaborators in WWII, has just been arrested in Vilnius where he was headed for a book presentation 
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Aug 14, 2014 03:50
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MA-Horus posted:Yup. That push was a potential colossal disaster. If NK troops had been ready for the invasion at low tide...would have been a massacre. and Ike had a speech pre written for Overlord getting pushed into the sea. Very few things in war are a sure bet. Sometimes you gamble big and collapse the whole PRK line and roll them all the way to the border, sometimes you end up executing an amazing first strike only to discover the carriers aren't in port.
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Aug 14, 2014 04:14
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Cyrano4747 posted:and Ike had a speech pre written for Overlord getting pushed into the sea. Very few things in war are a sure bet. Sometimes you gamble big and collapse the whole PRK line and roll them all the way to the border, sometimes you end up executing an amazing first strike only to discover the carriers aren't in port. Is there a copy of the speech somewhere, because thats something Id be very interested in reading?
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Aug 14, 2014 04:21
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It's actually really short, you can find the whole transcription right here.
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Aug 14, 2014 04:25
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Cyrano4747 posted:and Ike had a speech pre written for Overlord getting pushed into the sea. Very few things in war are a sure bet. Sometimes you gamble big and collapse the whole PRK line and roll them all the way to the border, sometimes you end up executing an amazing first strike only to discover the carriers aren't in port. There's a big difference between having a sound plan well executed that nevertheless goes wrong, and a total clusterfuck that only succeeds because the enemy are more incompetent than you are. Risk is inherent to warfare, but not all risks are the same.
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Aug 14, 2014 09:05
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Flesnolk posted:It's actually really short, you can find the whole transcription right here. IIRC, the story goes that Ike kept this letter on his person throughout D Day, and it was only discovered later on by an aide checking pockets while doing laundry
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Aug 14, 2014 09:23
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Ensign Expendable posted:A prominent Russian historian, famous for work on research into Lithuanian collaborators in WWII, has just been arrested in Vilnius where he was headed for a book presentation
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Aug 14, 2014 10:42
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HEY GAL posted:Why? What happened? I don't know anything about it, but presumably this is the story: ITAR-TASS posted:VILNIUS, August 14, /ITAR-TASS/. Russian historian and writer Alexander Dyukov, who is director of the Historical Memory Foundation, was detained at the Vilnius international airport on Wednesday on grounds his name was on the list of persons banned from entry to Lithuania.
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Aug 14, 2014 10:45
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Kaal posted:I don't know anything about it, but presumably this is the story: I did a short search, and my guess is they have the wrong guy: http://www.gazprom-neft.com/company/management/management.php A dude with a same name is in Gazprom Neft management board, so I might be wrong, but it seems likely.
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Aug 14, 2014 10:55
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They have the right guy:quote:Russian historian and director of the Moscow-based Historical Memory Foundation Alexander Dyukov, a persona non grata in Lithuania, was on Thursday not allowed to enter the Baltic country and was sent back to Moscow.
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Aug 14, 2014 10:58
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Those fuckers. Thank you for the information, guys.
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Aug 14, 2014 10:59
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He's a persona non grata in Lithuania because he's done work about Lithuanians that collaborated with Germans during WWII? Am I getting that right?
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Aug 14, 2014 11:12
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That doesn't really make any sense. He can simply use any video chat tool, and if Lithuanian government wanted to block the message it has reverse effect.
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Aug 14, 2014 11:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:He's a persona non grata in Lithuania because he's done work about Lithuanians that collaborated with Germans during WWII? Am I getting that right? Reading wikipedia, it seems like the context was that he was making some pro-soviet arguments that drew the ire of the Latvian government, that somehow got him blacklisted in 2012, not just from Latvia, but also the entire Schengen Area. Which seems a bit nuts, even if you disagree with his work.
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Aug 14, 2014 11:29
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Fangz posted:Reading wikipedia, it seems like the context was that he was making some pro-soviet arguments that drew the ire of the Latvian government, that somehow got him blacklisted in 2012, not just from Latvia, but also the entire Schengen Area. Which seems a bit nuts, even if you disagree with his work.
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Aug 14, 2014 11:54
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HEY GAL posted:Even if? poo poo like that is never a proper response to science you disagree with. Would you expect Israel to openly welcome David Irving? Like it or not, WW2 genocides and genocide denial are still a sore point to many nations, especially when you could openly discuss it only decades later when Gorby started glasnost and then Soviet Union collapsed. Holocaust deniers really should look into older genocides, you're much less likely to run into problems by saying that it is an indisputable fact that the Swedish army treated German population with great reverence during the 30 years war and that all claims to the contrary are just papist lies. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Aug 14, 2014 |
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Aug 14, 2014 12:01
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Nenonen posted:Would you expect Israel to openly welcome David Irving?
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Aug 14, 2014 12:04
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HEY GAL posted:Holocaust denial isn't science. Then Dyukov is not a scientist but a mere Stalin apologist.
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Aug 14, 2014 12:07
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Nm. Already answered
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Aug 14, 2014 12:34
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If I was running Israel, I would allow Irving to enter. Short of actual genocide advocacy, few opinions are sufficiently bad, in my view, to justify state restrictions on individual travel. The ugliness of historical study in Eastern Europe is depressing, really. I think the point of history should be to try and establish a sense of common humanity, to prevent recurrence of old mistakes. Instead, history is too often instead used as bludgeon against one's current opponents, and to pretend your own side is and has always been coated in glory. I don't think any good is going to come out of this.
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Aug 14, 2014 12:55
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