The Saga Continues with NDtBF
Photo: Reuters
Fatty Kim da T’ird, aka NDtBF, still has some submarines. According to this article from CNBC, 50 of them seem to have just gone ‘poof’ – vanished like snow in the July sun back in 2015.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/12/north-korea-submarine-threat-is-another-worry.html
The author of the article makes several good points, e.g., the Nork subs are diesels which should make them easier to track (shouldn’t it?), and also, he includes the fact that the Norks can elude land radar and launch ballistic missiles without detection. Why on earth Emmentaler Boy wants to pester Japan is beyond me, unless he’s looking for target practice.
There is good reason to be concerned: March was “the seventh anniversary of the sinking of South Korea‘s Cheonan navy ship by a North Korean submarine torpedo attack. That aggression killed 46 sailors and wasn’t the first time the reclusive North had made incursions into South Korean waters.”
In addition. the solid fuel used for underwater launches is now being used for the land-based missiles. It’s less time-consuming to set up a land-based missile launch using the solid fuel than it is when liquid fuel is used. That makes land missiles harder to find and much more mobile.
Some critics dismiss the diesel subs because they are ‘old and noisy’, but in 2015, 50 of them simply disappeared… or did they? Have any have been spotted off the California coast? Or do they ever stray that far from home?
I know we have plenty of DEW in Alaska and California, so I’m less concerned than I would be if I were in South Korea or China, but it does not mean that NDtBF can’t order a launch from a position standing off the US west coast, does it?
The Chinese regard Norkiland as a buffer between them and the South, but as we all know, Fatty Kim da T’ird likes to pick enemies out of thin air. In my view, it means that Xi JinPing should be somewhat concerned about his antics, and I believe he is. The US is a major trading partner with China. But you know that already.
There’s a reason I say this: while the US Navy’s strike force is paying a visit to South Korea, it’s mostly for show. I don’t know how much of this posturing on Fatty Kim’s part is meant as a way to distract the US from his butt-buddy Syria. However, if the Cheeseslaying Chickengazer decides he wants to launch against the South, regardless of any actual aggression by anyone at all, he will do so. Remember, his daddy fired on an island for no reason during a military exercise that South Korea and the US held, a few years back.
NDtBF really is that driven. He has to prove himself, you know. He’s got stuff in his head that says ‘Do what Daddy Kim and Grandpa Kim did’.
Unfortunately, despite his exposure to the outside world, I don’t think he understands that the Chinese are unlikely to back him this time around, the way they backed his granddaddy. He should not piss them off or make them nervous. Things have changed considerably since 1953.
Pres. Xi has already told Pres. Trump that the Korean problem should be resolved peacefully. http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/12/chinas-xi-tells-trump-situation-on-korean-peninsula-should-be-resolved-by-peaceful-means-reuters-citing-state-media.html
China can shut off trade with him in a heartbeat. They’ve already turned away his coal transport ships and are accepting coal from the US instead. Now I wonder who made that deal…?
Basically, Fatty Kim da T’ird is spoiling for a fight. Fine. I know that. It is my considered opinion that if he brings one, it will not work out in his favor.
He may have a lot of SLBMs now, but he may end up with No-Dong at all.
(Puns are allowed in comments. You should go for it like gangbusters. It’s Wednesday.)
Category: North Korea
Is it just me or that boat listing from his weight? Center line over the keel Kim, please. The dive planes can only take so much torque. If our forces are there and he fires anything that is not headed into the open ocean and non shipping lanes, we will knock it out of the sky post haste. If he fires a torpedo towards any ship from one of those rust buckets, it will be the last one ever fired from it.
I think there are hills in the background of that photo. I did want to know how he managed to squeeze through the con hatch, but but then I realized he probably didn’t try, because he’d get caught on anything sticking out one-half inch in the sub’s passageways.
“Hatches on DPRK naval vessels ordered enlarged, to accommodate masculine girth of esteemed Marshall Kim Jong-Un.”
Look at the guy in the background with a death grip in the rails… probably wanting to yell down to the control room, “COUNTERFLOOD DAMN IT!!!”
Two words, Senior Chief:
“Trim Party.”
Even with the topography, the water on the horizon definitely isn’t perpendicular with the mast. Of course, the bridge of that sub looks like it would fit in circa 1944, sooooo…
Someone needs to show the phat little maggot how to make a bomb, a good way would be to drop one on his house when he is home……it worked for Kadafy, shut him up for 20 years….shut this one up FOREVER!
I assume by diesel you mean diesel-electric, like the ones we sailed all over the Pacific in WWII. Didn’t I read that when in electric mode they are pretty darn quiet? (Disclosure: other than touring a U-boat and the Rooshian one at Long Beach, my total experience with subs is reading Tom Clancy/Larry Bond books.
His ability to hit the South – they have enough conventional artillery to flatten Seoul. I have to hope Kim has enough sense to know that isolated outlying incidents are provocative but something like an artillery barrage on another capital city will ‘bring the rain’ – and not in a good way.
I know that they have a silent mode, but they should still be detectable by sonar.
Not being a sub sailor, I’m guessing that the ‘disappearance’ was a Nork test, of course.
The Soviets used to play cat-and-mouse with all non-Soviet navies before the Cold War ended.
Test – as in seeing how long NK sailors can hold their breath?
Would not be surprised if they are now an artificial reef, or perhaps the foundation of China’s new islands….
YMMV
If anyone hasn’t checked out the “DPRK News Service” Twitter account, you should; it’s very funny. It’s a parody, but the tone is so good that from time to time a legitimate news outlet will quote it as the official position of the Nork government. A couple recent examples that made me laugh:
“US judge Neal Gorsuch named to finish term of Anthony Scalia, after violent imbeciles in congress threaten one another with nuclear attack.”
“Cowardly poltroon Donald Trump, shown the back of Marshal Kim Jong-Un’s hand, runs weeping in the fashion of a beaten bully to attack Syria.”
I wonder what would happen if that sub took a dive with him there?
Fat floats, so he’d probably end up drifting to shore somewhere.
I wonder if the missing subs ended up sailing somewhere where there is more food. The scrap metal price ought to buy them at least one all-you-can-eat buffet.
Do we even know whether NK submarines can launch ballistic missiles? Have they ever successfully fired a SLBM?
As I’ve said before, the mere fact that a country has the ability to make (crude) nuclear weapons + the ability to make ballistic missiles does not automatically mean they have the ability to make a nuke that is small enough, reliable enough, and rugged enough to even be placed on top of a ballistic missile.
Furthermore, in addition to the warhead being small enough and rugged enough to withstand being placed on top of a missile, they would also have to have a missile that was reliable enough not to fall apart mid-flight, and to be able to direct that warhead to somewhere near a target, and have it explode at exactly the right height.
If any one of those tasks gets flubbed – the missile goes off course, or falls apart, the warhead fails to detonate, or detonates too high or too low, or the missile completely misses its target by hundreds of miles – then NK would be, in the immortal words of GySgt Hartman from Full Metal Jacket “In a world of shit.”
Actually, even a “successful” nuclear missile attack by NK would put them in a world of hurt.
As the old saying goes, “don’t let your bulldog mouth overpower your puppydog ass.”
THREATENING a nuclear strike might buy NDtBF some “street cred” but actually carrying one out would be the quickest way to see the Northern half of the Korean Peninsula turned into a sea of glass.
I thought that was “Don’t let your alligator mouth overload your hummingbird ass”? lol
I’d be surprised if he even has 50 boats, let alone 50 to hide.
Diesel boats on batteries are scary quiet with minimal equipment running, but if they have to snorkel, they stand out like a sore dick, even I littoral waters where acoustics can, to put it mildly, suck.
They are little more than submersible patrol boats with a couple of small torpedoes (think along the lines of our old Mk-46) and small crew. They don’t have the legs to threaten much past the Korean peninsula. Granted, that matters little to the crew of the Cheohan; but their range is certainly not up to challenging the JMSDF diesels, which are quite capable, to sa nothing of our boats.
The NORKs have around 70 submarines, mostly the Sang-O class. These are either Chinese made or home-built knock-offs of the Russian Romero class SS, a post WW-2 design.
They also have an experimental Ballistic Missile diesel submarine.
That is without the funniest picture since Mike Dukakis was in the turret of an M1 Abrams back in ’88. Nice picture, Wide Load!
Ok, I saw Hunt For Red October and that german movie which is the extent of my knowledge on subs. If those diesel biats disappeared in July how long can they go before refueling? Seems to me that is a long time to not hit a fuel stop
2015, not 2016. Over a year and a half. Would think they would need some fresh kimchi by now. (now there’s a thought…. all those kimchi farts compressed into one hull. Better hope there is never a spark.)
Now there’s a weapon of mass destruction that would be worse than a nuke!
I know it sounds silly but you can make them too quiet. If you do, then other subs just look for the hole in the water. Background immersion is the latest, all the cool subs are doing it.
Soon to hit the Paris runways
Does FKt3rd know this?
“FKt3rd”
I see what you did there. . .
So does fatty ‘lil Kim still have his Blobfish-like fetish for cheese? If so then “Kim-Cheese” might be another nickname for him! When it comes to Diesel Subs, my knowledge is about what I read about them in “The Bravest Man” by William Tuohy which chronicles the exploits of Skipper Richard O’Kane and other Submariners in WWII. It sounds like even the more recent diesel Subs couldn’t stay under for long due to the need to recharge thus it sounds to me like a duel between Kim-Cheese’s tin cans versus our forces would be like a Demolition Derby face-off between a Mack Truck versus a Yugo.
I wonder if NDtBF retro fitted the 50 missing subs with screen doors for better air flow ventilation……
Could be AND that looks like a hastily built, piss-poorly welded Conning Tower behind Kim-Cheese and his Naval OOsifers!
If fifty boats have been gone for eighteen months, then my guesses would be (a) sold or given to Iran, (b) scrapped, or (c) in sub pens like the Germans used in World War II. If you were to pin me down, I would go with (c) — hidden in one or more highly protected concrete submarine shelters.
Like most of y’all my sub expertise comes from fiction and non-fiction sources. By the way, CBD of Ace of Spades HQ mentioned this article on Strategypage.com: https://strategypage.com/qnd/china/articles/20170412.aspx and the twitter feed of Notorious MWR comparing this Kim to special snowflake millennials: “‘Kim Jong Un is what you get if the Mizzou students of the world take over the reins of power.
Be fricking scared, people.'”
Interesting times.
Oh, pshaw – nothing to be afraid of. Didn’t you ever hear someone say “Don’t Fear the Commie”?
There’s nothing to fear from Communism.
Everyone knows that.
It’s the Communists one must fear.
By “highly-protected,” I presume you mean “built by malnourished slave labor without any quality control and likely to collapse in a stiff breeze.”
Kinda like the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, in other words.
I think there may be more to this bidness with the Cheeseslaying Chickengazer and we’ll be hearing about it around the same time the USS Carl Vinson and its strike force sail into the nearest South Korean harbor space, all sails unfurled, pennants flying, and greeting and weather flags posted on the yards.
If they follow ancient customs, the skipper will tell the bosun to fire the harbor cannon to alert the harbor master that the fleet is in and ready for inspection.
It’s just a shame they can’t fire off a 10-pounder or a 16-incher as a salute, isn’t it?
Not a sub expert ( And I didn’t even stay in whatever the fuck that hotel was in last night), but I’m guessing that the Norks don’t have the capability to keep 50 Subs out at sea and operational for 18 months straight without being spotted. The need to resupply, refuel and maintain these older subs makes that completely implausable.
I’m guessing they are either in pens or have been scrapped.
Not a bad call actually. NDtBF could use the money and effort to upgrade his other assets.
Japanese PM Abe told his parliament yesterday that the Norks have missiles that can deliver sarin nerve agent.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/13/japan-pm-nkorea-may-be-capable-of-sarin-loaded-missiles.html
Delivering chemical weapons is actually pretty easy, much, easier than delivering a nuke. Basically you have the vessel that holds the chemicals and some kind of explosive to disperse it.
However, as we learned during the Tokyo subway attack in the 1990’s, chemical agents really aren’t very good “weapons.” They can be dispersed by wind, their effectiveness can be reduced by rain, excessive humidity or excessive dryness, and if they aren’t concentrated in a closed area with a lot of people, they just aren’t that effective.
When concentrated in a bombing raid or an artillery barrage, they are effective to terrorize civil populations (as they have been used in Syria and Iraq) but using chemical weapons against a country that has an armed force is usually not a good idea since all it really does is invite retaliation in kind.
Not to mention a country like Japan is far better equipped to deal with a chem or bio attack than a country such as Syria.
My question would be: which is worse for the Norks? An unsuccessful attack that pisses off Japan, or a successful attack that really pisses off Japan?
The latest update regarding Norkiland comes from CNBC about two hours ago.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/13/u-s-may-launch-strike-if-north-korea-reaches-for-nuclear-trigger.html
There is speculation that NDtBF may try another nuke test this weekend, but we’ll know whether or not that happens because it will register on a seismic network specifically set up to detect such tests.
I think it is safe to say that should Iran also engage in a nuke test, that would likewise be detected and the news released before they could set up a party in Tehran.
Here’s another update re: Norkiland, from CNBC.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/13/north-korean-official-blames-trump-for-regions-vicious-cycle.html
Since the warning about doing a nuke test is repeated, I’m guessing that the test is already being prepared and we’ll get a seismic report before long. The more disturbing message is that they have hinted they can launch a missile with a sarin agent payload at Japan.
This obnoxious twirp is so anxious for a war, he’s nearly barking mad about it.