Nagasaki nuked by Annie’s advantage?
Many of us have been following the usually comedic efforts of North Korea to successfully test a ballistic missile that their apparently deranged leader can get down range far enough to make good on his threats to nuke America or her allies. Most of their test missiles keep destructing on the launch pad or shortly after launch which leads many of us to suspect sabotage in the manner of how Israel and America cyber sabotaged Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. Whether by incompetence or insidiousness, the constant failures have many around the world laughing at the No-Go Norks although they did just have a semi-success in lofting a missile over Japan only to have it fall apart over the Pacific. At this moment, Japan is not laughing at their Keystone Kops neighbor.
However, it may not be the misfiring missiles that Japan should be watching. The Daily Mail is reporting that some Nork watchers fear that Kim Jong Un, despairing of missile delivery of nuclear warheads could turn to an almost ancient aviation technology for his delivery vehicles, his fleet of Antonov AN-2, bi-wing, transport aircraft of which he reportedly has several hundred. The Annie as this aircraft is known by the thousands who have flown it and continue to do so all around the world, looks like something from WW1, having been designed by the Soviets and first flown in the late 1940’s.
Annie is a true work horse and the go-to aircraft in many remote areas of the world because of its ability to carry heavy payloads in and out of primitive areas with minimal landing and take-off amenities. It has a limited range of about 500 miles but that is enough to reach much of Japan and all of South Korea. “How could some old airplane do that in the face of all our modern air defenses?” you ask. And therein reposes Annie’s advantage. She flies too low and slow to be detected by radar systems and with an earth/sky camouflage paint scheme, is almost impossible to be spotted from above by faster, higher flying aircraft.
Annie can fly low and slow, so much so that our modern air defense systems are actually programmed to ignore such radar returns to sift out civilian distractions. And when I say slow, I mean an aircraft that could possibly fly forty miles an hour at treetop level without stalling all the way from Wonsan to Nagasaki and Hiroshima carrying a two-ton nuclear bomb. How ironic would it be for the only two cities in world history that have suffered nuclear devastation might do so again to satisfy the mad political strategizing of a fat little man, full of himself and his total power over small nation, yet completely ignorant of the world he shuns. BUT, he does indeed possess a weapon that just might be capable of delivering that destruction upon those two cities and others, an aircraft that was ironically being designed and first built when Allied forces delivered the first nuclear destruction upon them in 1945.
Another version of this is posted at American Thinker
Category: Politics
Don’t disparage NDtBF, those missiles of his that have managed to hit their target, every single one has landed in the water. Somewhere.
The Sea Of Japan must have done something terrible to warrant the constant barrage of North Korean missiles. Maybe the North Koreans are trying a preemptive strike on Godzilla.
Otts Botkins-Godzilla. After I’ve seen all those high voltage power line towers on the east coast of New Jersey, they must be there to stop Godzilla.
With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound, he pulls New Jersey’s high tension wires down
Go. Go. Godzilla.
Blue Oyster Cult in da houuuuse!
Norks will be Nornkin’ and Jaaaapaaan ain’t laughing. Keep it up Jong Umm Fuggnutz and we’ll be seeing the “Rape of Pyongyang” in short order.
Oh. My. God. How could I have missed that?
Poetrooper, do you know what the glide ratio is on that bird?
The wingspan looks like it’s designed to be the kind of plane that hates to land, meaning that, with enough lift, it could float all the way to the USA about 10 feet off the ground or ocean surface. There are several plane designs that can do that.
Talk about a Sneaky Pete!
I wouldn’t sweat it being able to soar across the Pacific, Ex-PH2. Per this source, the An-2 apparently has a pretty lousy glide ratio.
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/700172.pdf
The numbers give there indicate the aircraft has a glide ratio of approximately 11 from 1km altitude. For comparison, a gliding 767 (look up “Gimli Glider”) has a glide ratio of 12. That also implies it’s fairly “draggy” for it’s size and weight – and thus probably won’t do too well at picking up altitude via thermals.
Further, the aircraft has a ceiling of 4.5km (14,500 ft) – likely because the aircraft probably isn’t pressurized. Even if you assume you could double that (pilots using oxygen bottles), it means the aircraft could glide around 100km before crashing, max.
Given it only carries around 4.5 hrs of fuel and can only climb around 700ft/min, that means it could climb to assumed max altitude around 9 times before gliding. Doing so would take around 41 min @ 120MPH – and would cover about 83 miles. So each climb/glide cycle would cover around 145mi. You could do 9 of those on max fuel – or around 1,305mi total, give or take maybe 100mi.
Bottom line: I kinda doubt the An-2 is a feasible intercontinental nuclear delivery vehicle. (smile)
Thanks for the info. It does have a short take-off/landing distance, far less than required for conventional military aircraft, and less than a standard light plane like a Cessna or Cherokee, so theoretically, it could be transported across the Pacific by a Nork ACV parked far enough offshore to be a nuisance, and take off from there to deliver Da Bomba.
Not meaning to give the Cheeseater any ideas, mind you!
You comment above relates to ground effect. Over a long flat surface, say a calm ocean you could really extend your range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_(aerodynamics)
So, is this like a manned cruise missile?
Do they have suicidal pilots too?
YIKES! I was thinking that for a RPOS airplane,it looks like it would be fun to fly…if I were a pilot.
Yef, there suicide pilots are in training as we speak.
http://abch.nimg.jp/img/article_thumbnail/86/hokkai2525_346226.jpg
THEIR not there!!
Yes, using the An-2 as a delivery vehicle would definitely be a one-way mission against Japan. The aircraft’s range is somewhere around 525 miles, and it’s useful payload isn’t that big (around 2100kg). So putting enough extra fuel on board, along with a nuke to allow a return trip probably isn’t feasible.
Plus, there’s another issue that makes it almost certainly a one-way trip against either Japan or South Korea: weapons release. B-29s released their weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki at high altitude, then hauled. As I recall, they were considerably faster than an An-2, and could fly considerably higher – and still got slapped pretty hard by their nuke’s shock wave.
To survive dropping a nuke, barring the use of some kind of SRAM any slow aircraft approaching on a low-level path would have to do the same: climb to high altitude, drop the weapon, then haul butt to get far enough away to survive the shock wave. I don’t see an An-2 completing the first part (climb to high altitude) without getting shot down during any period where international tensions are elevated. And the AN-2 probably can’t carry enough of a load to carry an SRAM too far.
Kim had best have some VERY reliable pilots fly the damn thing if he tries this. Otherwise, defecting becomes a very attractive option for the aircrew manning that An-2.
I can’t believe the norks are not sick and tired of that phat little arrogant bastard! Especially some of his generals..some at least must love their country enough to off the little bastard?
Terror.
He has been known to order annoyances fed to a pack of starving dogs. Think for a moment they spare the family?
Damned thing can fly backwards and also hover, as long as wind conditions are right. Doesn’t suffer from metals fatigue, and like a lot of other taildraggers, it’s zero hydraulics, strictly muscle.
Maybe the Japanese, South Koreans, and US forces had better start plane spotting again, like the volunteers of CAP did during WWII.
I want one. That, and a Waco CG-4a glider. Am I being selfish?
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150415-the-plane-that-can-fly-backwards
Here’s a video of an AN-2 in a near-stop in a head wind strong enough to allow it to nearly hover.
I’ll take one of these any day, Ex-PH2. It’s a Air Tractor 502 used for crop-dusting.
Have a couple of them based down the road from me that are used on the local fields. They are just freakin’ awesome!!
Here’s a better vid with engine noise and showing you how just close to the ground they go when spraying.
How can they tell the part they already got sprayed?
They certainly must have a computer on board telling them how close to the ground and the MGRS grid coordinate they are spraying.
I’m not sure of the total correct answer Yef, but only what I have observed. Some pilots use landmarks to line up on for each pass or they & others have a ground crew come out and put up “flags on a steeek” (Jeff Dunham reference to one of his puppets “Jalapeño on a steeeek”).
They are still pretty doggone amazing how they fly!
Not an expert, but it appears like most things these days, crop dusting has gone high tech with computer guidance systems.
Here’s the sales pitch from one system:
“The Satloc Bantam lightbar guidance system features a real-time graphic moving map display that provides visual guidance, and shows key features such as swaths sprayed, field boundaries, skips and overlaps, mark points, waypoint and polygons. The AirTrac software allows you to track acreage sprayed, analyze log data, view range and bearing to remote points or fields, monitor application rates.”
These were very common in S Texas when I was a kid in the 70s- I don’t think they had computers. I,also,vividly recall them dusting the field adjoining my grade school playground while we’re were at recess. Probably spraying DDT…
I remember seeing the “mosquito truck” making its rounds every now and then when I was a kid in the 70s and they likely sprayed DDT. The week before we’d be cussing about the ‘skeeters and the day after that truck came through our neighborhood we were saying “WHAT mosquitoes?” . Let’s not forget that the use of DDT nearly eradicated Malaria!
One of my former co-workers told me he and his family used to work as flaggers for cropdusters back in the fifties. He said they would stand at the edge of the field holding flags while getting sprayed. I believe they used arsenic on cotton also.
Oh, YEAAAAAHHHH!
Yeah Ex-PH2, I figured that would get the juices flowing!
Whenever I’m outside working and they are spraying in nearby fields, you can catch me stopping to watch them with this big, goofy grin on my face!
If they come over the house, I swear you can almost feel the breeze! God, I love the sound of that engine roaring…..reminds of the old muscle cars.
That model is also competing in the new CAS program.
I received my first intel briefing on the AN-2 before my first deployment to Kadena in 1981. It was a special interest item.
Upon PCSing to Osan in 1985 we got our welcome to the land of not quite right briefing. NK “Commando Rangers” jumping out of AN-2s onto the Osan Golf Course was part of it. As was a brief on these self same NK version of spetznatz. Part of the brief included a physical description that these were larger than your typical Korean. Being something of a duck butt myself, I quipped that so if I see a Korean taller than me coming up the hill I should shoot him? I received a couple dirty looks from the Captain conducting the briefing.
I would not waste my time worrying about the planes. Think what a squadron of Supersnakes would do to them,live fire practice anyone.
There was a reason for Marines with Manpads on the bridge of my ship during certain times in the late ’80s to early ’90s. In spite of a full magazine of 120 long-range anti-air missiles and a couple of CIWS mounts, we couldn’t track and lock on a “Raghead flown, dynamite filled Piper Cub”. Likewise MARDET would have have needed to optically track such a threat with the 5″/38’s using VT-fused rounds (if we even had any onboard). Our only hope was that the little Lycoming or Continental engine of the Piper would generate enough head for the Manpad seeker. All that was thirty years ago or so. I’m sure we learned from that…or perhaps we haven’t.
Never ditch old technology, or how to detect/use it – EVER. Even wood/gas comb cookstoves are coming back into use. There’s an Amish blacksmith who makes them to order.
It’s not too hard to find them. I discovered a $500 Samsung gas range quite quickly online. It included something I’ve never seen before: an oval 5th burner in the center of the top for large pots.
Restaurants never stopped using gas stoves & ovens.
I cannot imagine cooking with electricity only. That doesn’t make any sense, period. The models now available have the middle burner, and sometimes a middle double burner setup for a griddle, which I would just love to have. And this is all a throwback to the 1940s and 1950s when stoves had those things, and some even had a deep well simmering burner for a deep fryer/stock pot.
But that was when stoves were stoves and things made sense in the world.
Does he have anyone running a Website for him? Wondering about prices and how much shipping would be on something like that.
Radar guided ground based Vulcans used by the ROK eat bi-planes for lunch…..burp.
Don’t give NDtBF ideas, Poe
It was done before…….
(Good old 5 o’clock Charlie)
A little known fact of the Vietnam War is that the NVA flew Annie’s in battle the most widely known case being when they attacked the Air Force Navigational Site, Lima Site 85, in Laos, where they dropped heavy mortar rounds rather than grenades as 5 O’Clock Charlie did in MASH.
One of the two attacking aircraft was shot down by groundfire and the other by a CIA agent in a Huey Slick using an AK-47.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lima_Site_85
The Huey was actually faster and more maneuverable. You might correctly say that an Annie was shot down in a dogfight with a Huey.
Yet another example of why the Huey is simply the greatest machine that ever achieved powered flight.
I’ve always regarded the Bell UH-1 Iroquois as the DC-3 of Rotary Wing Aircraft!
I always loved the sound of Hueys, especially when they were coming to pick us up out of the bush. I can still tell one is coming a mile or two away.
Helicopters fly nearby on a semi regular basis. I hear them and dismiss them as a Life Flight or corporate type Jet Ranger. But sure as hell, long before it is in sight my wife will say, “where are you going?”. I say, “there’s a Huey coming and I want to see it”. She can’t even hear it yet but that twin rotor thump is as familiar to me as mom’s old biscuits.
Gee, PT – that sounds familiar.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=34965
(smile)
I shoulda known…
JRTC has one of them, it looked fun fall out of.
Despite the worst case reporting that we are sometimes hearing,
North Korea likely does not have the capacity to project a nuclear warhead much further than the region. And they probably are not able to even do that.
However, they have plenty of nuclear material at this point. So the idea that they could launch radiological dispersal device is possible.
Assuming these are mostly failed tests is probably not a prudent assumption.
There appears to be a reason these are being destroyed in flight.
A radiological dispersal device significantly increases the risks associated with a war on the peninsula and could be used to force the evacuation of and essentially disrupt or deny US military facilities in Japan and possible the greater region.
We have the FISINT information to make the determination that these are failed tests.
I think it is telling that some of the initial reports that a NK missile test is failed is retracted a day or so latter.
Oops, I might have posted on the wrong thread.
“However, they have plenty of nuclear material at this point.”
A bunch of that thanks to “Blowjob Willie” Clinton handing it to them in return for a fake promise not to use it for making weapons.
Yeah, according to you we should have invaded North Korea in the 90s. Costing the lives of millions of South Koreans, during a time when the South Korean military would have need even MORE of our assistance during all phases of the war than they will not costing the lives of tens of thousands of Americans.
All so we could avoid RISKING the lives of the same later.
We are in a far stronger position with respect to the Korean peninsula than we have been in its history.
China and Russia are less committed to their defense obligation with North Korea. The South Korean army is far more capable than it was in the 90s and far far more capable than the NK army at this point.
With the exception of their missile program the NK Army has been in decline for two decades. The moral is perhaps the lowest in its history. Loyalty is down. Discipline and obedience is less stable than ever.
And Bush Jr. more hawkish stance on NK did not do any better than Clinton’s approach. In fact it made things WORSE by threatening NK making them even more committed to developing nuclear weapons than ever before and resulting in not only their withdrawal from the NPT but an actual successful nuclear test in 2006.
Regardless of the stance a president takes with NK the priority is to avoid war.
TIME IS ON OUR SIDE. NK grows weaker every year. The regime has less and less control over its population every year.
It is possible for the first time in the history of NK to orchestrate a decapitation of the regime without a war.
It would be a huge risk but actually POSSIBLE with Kim Jong Un. He is that untrusted and has not fostered ANY loyalty.
Intercontinental delivery system deployable today: Freighter
If we wait them out, what does the regime death-spasm look like? In 5 more years? In 25?
Also available to DPRK today:
Intercontinental ranged jet aircraft, like the common Antonov transports, or a third-world-surplus 707.
Painted and transpondered to appear to be an airliner or freighter, it could be over any city in less than a day.
Why should we have invaded them? How about we just don’t give them nuclear fuel that can be used in nuclear weapons. The Clinton state department is a laughing stock for having done this.
In practical terms, they only need a few things to self-launch a weapons program:
1) Uranium ore
2) Money/resources
2) Know how
Once you figure out how to refine Uranium to metal from ore, and how to isolate Deuterium from water, you can build a natural-uranium heavy-water reactor, and you are on your way to the Plutonium cycle of fuel production. If you can also enrich the uranium, separating out U-235 from U-238, you can improve production greatly and switch to light-water designs, etc, etc.
India has a rather well developed three stage plan to deploy a Thorium-based (U233) reactor economy.
The DPRK is a mountainous country. I believe they have their own Uranium mines.
The only way to stop them, is to -stop- them. (Persuasion or direct action) As long as they have the will, they will be stacking up warheads for the foreseeable future, and improving them.
“North Korea likely does not have the capacity to project a nuclear warhead much further than the region. And they probably are not able to even do that”.
Well, they did spread the technology far and wide so maybe the word “project” is not the best fit. How about deliver? They delivered a reactor to Syria so thats out.
Hell, they could have one sitting in a harbor as we speak.
The DPRK could buy developed missiles. Or just buy some rocket scientists.
They could also offer to swap finished warheads for more fissile material and/or for delivery systems.
Generally agree, with one exception.
If you define “in the region” as the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and neighboring USSR/PRC, I think it’s a good bet that North Korea can deliver a nuclear device anywhere in the region – IF they can make one weighing 500kg or so that’s reliable. If it also has 50+kT yield, that could be a real problem.
Some public sources put the No-Dong’s range at around 1300km and it’s CEP at 1-2 km. If that info is correct, then they have that capability. A 50kT or larger warhead going off as an airburst within 1-2 km will kinda ruin a Naval Base’s or Air Base’s whole day.
My guess is that’s his first choice, with some form of other WMD (persistent chem or radiological) as first backup.
Let’s just hope it’s no worse than this test, Hondo.
This particular missile was not a No-Dong. It was a Hwasong-12 which has a range of up to 4,800 KM (2,796 miles).
Per the Reuters article, it was supposed to head toward Guam, but instead, flew over Japan before it broker up and fell into the Pacific Ocean.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-idUSKCN1B92WY
It’s possible that there was a mechanical problem, such as the engine losing thrust, or the guidance system was completely off, because the flight was shorter than the same Hwasong-12 missile launched back in May. There’s nothing coming out of North Korea that indicates it carried a payload, or that it was anything more than a test flight which, in this case, failed in both distance, stability and direction of flight.
The message here is that ND:tBF is determined to hit some target and try to scare the bejeesus out of people while he’s at it.
We’ve already given the Japanese a THAAD system. I don’t know if they were unprepared to use it, or simply viewed this as a test flight, but it’s appropriate to ask what would happen in Norkiland if they had used that to shoot the missile down. ‘
It’s also appropriate to speculate on Fatty Kim da T’ird’s next attempt at rocket science, and who gets executed for a failed missile test this time.
I thought Kim had already perfected hi rocket.
Do they have a version of Daniel Bernath in the North Korean Air Force?
Thanks, Hack! LMAO
Spew alert please?
He trained their pilots before he was disbarred?
An inscrutable version..
Speaking of that asshole, WTF happened with him in court. I know he was due to go on a couple of assault charges or something.
Talk about a pilot of the “divine wind” school.
I can see his crew chief securing the canopy… “Yes sir, fuel tanks are full sir. Yes sir, you are a real CPO. See you at sisters airport. Have a nice flight.”
What is the Japanese for “The Broken Wind”?
Maybe HE gave them guidance and advice on fueling the missile prior to its launch?
Well, it’s plane to see that we have to be alert and vigilant about this new NOK threat.
Not sure they’re invisible to radar but they’re difficult to see. I spent a long time at Kunsan Air Base in the 90’s and we generated our aircraft a few times because they flew those things to airfields too close to the DMZ, once after a long exercise and the rest of the base was drinking lots and lots of alcohol.
DIVE DIVE DIVE!