[omurphy27]

I used to think that North Korea could easily flatten Seoul, but it turns out that this really isn't the case.

The majority of NK's artillery is not long range and can't threaten the densest parts of Seoul; while those that are long range will be immediately targeted and destroyed once they begin firing. Then there are serious questions regarding the quality of NK's equipment and their troops, plus the fact that artillery on its own is not particularly lethal.

Finally, South Korean civilians in the part of Seoul most under threat are prepared for this attack and most every subway station can double as a bomb shelter.

Any NK artillery attack would definitely kill a substantial amount of civilians, but it wouldn't be 100,000s and it wouldn't destroy Seoul. The real wildcard is if NK uses chemical or nuclear weapons which changes everything.

There's a good summary of any potential NK attack on Seoul here: www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/25/1656090/-North-Korean-artillery-and-the-concept-of-flattening-Seoul-a-breakdown

[dingaling]

'Flattening Seoul' is a strawman. Prior to the recent articles on the topic I don't remember anyone actually claiming that the entire metropolitan area could be reduced to rubble, nor that it was necessary or that North Korea would even desire it.

However it's a useful deflection from the fact that since the USA retired its enhanced-radiation weapons ( 'neutron bombs' ) in the 1990s, there is no prompt-strike way to negate several thousand hardened artillery emplacements linked by tunnels. Not without either hitting each individual emplacement or by using mass-effect weapons that in turn threaten Seoul.

Given that, I think it's likely that the USA-SK war-plan is to decapitate the North Korean command structure so quickly that the artillery doesn't even receive the order to fire.