| > If we strike first, they'll destroy Seoul in seconds and cause the largest near-instantaneous loss of life the world has ever seen. They don't even need nuclear weapons to do that. That's incorrect analysis. Nothing like instantaneous destruction would occur without nuclear weapons. It would take months of perfect artillery fire to destroy Seoul, assuming 100% detonation rate, unlimited ammo and assuming zero artillery is destroyed. They would run out of ammo before destroying Seoul, even in the impossible perfect scenario. "How much damage an initial attack would inflict depends on how many are used and on how much of the ordnance explodes. In 2010, North Korean forces fired about 170 shells at an island in the South, killing two civilians and two soldiers. Analysts later concluded that about 25 percent of the North’s shells failed to detonate. "A study published by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability in 2012 accounting for these and other factors such as population density concluded that an initial artillery barrage by the North focused on military targets would result in nearly 3,000 fatalities, while one targeting civilians would kill nearly 30,000 people." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/world/asia/north-korea-so... "A retired U.S. general said a Pentagon war scenario showed a conventional war with North Korea could result in about 20,000 deaths per day in South Korea, according to the Los Angeles Times." https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/25/korean-war-simulation-by-dod... http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a6212/north-korea-a... https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/how-north-korea-would... |
That's the most recent statement by a high-ranking government official that I've heard, but it's so high that it has to be an exaggeration. Anyway, to surpass Hiroshima, they don't need anywhere near that amount. They just need about 3x what your estimate says they had in 2012. Less if Seoul has grown in population density during that time.