Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[smjjames]

Regardless of whether it was a spent rocket or a functional test payload, Japan wouldn't want the missiles to land any closer. Not to mention that putting it closer also runs the Russian roulette chance of accidentally hitting an airplane with debris if it's close to crowded air lanes.

Normally countries inform the local version of the FAA and other possibly relevant agencies if other nations are impacted when they do a scheduled test launch, NK doesn't do that.

[Trekkin]

Lofted trajectories don't intercept as much atmosphere as a regular long-range flight however, so how such missiles would function on a proper long-range flight is anyone's guess. Also, the point of ICBM isn't to get the entire rocket to hit a specific point - that would be a failure. That's not how ICBMs really work.

The point is the multiple stages that detach outside the atmosphere, releasing re-entry vehicles which deliver a working nuclear device to the target, with the right working electronics to detonate it correctly (usually before it collides with the ground). If it just slams into the ground it probably won't detonate at all, that's been the experience of U.S. planes carrying nuclear bombs that have crashed or accidentally dropped bombs - none of them ever detonated, so just hitting the ground in the vicinity of your target isn't really all that likely to cause a proper nuclear detonation.

What you're describing is a MIRV system; the Hwasong-15 need not be, particularly since North Korea doesn't care about SALT's limits on the number of launch systems, and the description of a super-heavy warhead -- singular -- implies it is not. It's a two-stage missile, too, which implies that their second-stage boost motor is doubling as a kicker for the warhead/countermeasure/decoy bus. Given that the terminal phase should be as close as possible to purely ballistic to avoid highlighting mass differences in the decoys, we can surmise that the second-stage trajectory is at least a reasonable proxy of the intended trajectory of the warhead.

[Strife26]

Ol' Lindsey is calling for American dependents to no longer reside on the peninsula, which would be a pretty huge change. Nothing especially concrete or worrying yet but if NEO actually starts happening, I'd probably start reaching for my tanker boots.

[smjjames]

Wouldn’t that be NCEO? Seems like an evacuation of noncombatants (or dependents, as Sen Graham put it) would just make tensions worse because the only reason you’d do such an evacuation is if you believe war is imminent, and NK keeps a paranoid eye out for signs that war is imminent.

[Strife26]

Wouldn’t that be NCEO? Seems like an evacuation of noncombatants (or dependents, as Sen Graham put it) would just make tensions worse because the only reason you’d do such an evacuation is if you believe war is imminent, and NK keeps a paranoid eye out for signs that war is imminent.

It would be, if government acronyms made sense. The documentation and common parlance firmly use NEO, though. Yeah, trying to do it would practically be a war warning. Of course, it has always been a somewhat goofy practice to keep such a huge number of families in Korea, but Korea is the land of goofiness.

[Maximum Spin]

Wait, why would it be "NCEO"? "Non" isn't an independent word.

[smjjames]

I might have been thinking of NCO, as in non-comissioned officer, or maybe it's non-commanding officer. As strife said, the government and military is silly that way with acronyms.

[Starver]

NCO is "Non-Commissioned Officer", though "Noncommissioned Officer" would be at least equally valid in longhand. I've never heard of COs, except for Chief/Commanding Officers, who are usually singularly elevated individuals in a given situation rather than the entirety of the (not non-)Commissioned ranks, but then I've never been in the military¹ so maybe it is actually used, for all those above S(enior)NCO ranks.

"NEO" is the apparent acronym of Non-combatant Evacuation Operation, but then it's also an acronym for many other things (Near Earth Object is what I'd probably thing, at first), so context is going to be vital.


¹ Though an ex-squadie vacuum-cleaner salesman tried to persuade me to enlist, interleaved with his attempts to sell my mother a high-tec vacuum cleaner, one day when I was teenager. She didn't buy the vacuum, and I stayed completely civilian. So far. If things go bad, maybe I'll still get to join some form of Local Defence Volunteers!

[smjjames]

In what I suppose is to alleviate the hibernation of NK news during the winter months, another NK soldier defected across the DMZ early morning local time in thick fog.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Slim Jong Un means business

[Eric Blank]

Admittedly a guy that literally looks like an overgrown baby, isnt very intimidating on his own, so yeah, losing some weight might make it easier to take him seriously.

[IronyOwl]

No Mr. Bond, I expect you to cease these illegal and immoral attacks upon the North Korean peoples' dignity.

[smjjames]

NK IS sending a delegation to the Olympics coming up next month. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42600550

[Loud Whispers]

I hope we get to see the Korean lifters again

[ChairmanPoo]

I hope we get to see the Korean lifters again