A report on the SCUDs in 1992 and their hunt.
At the time of the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqis had two means of
launching the Scuds: fixed launchers and mobile transporter-erector-launchers
(TELs). According to intelligence estimates used by
U.S. military planners at the beginning of the air war against Iraq,
Saddam Hussein’s forces had 28 fixed launchers at five missile complexes
in western Iraq, as well as a number of training launchers in
other parts of the country.8 More important from the point of view
of the subsequent Scud hunt were the mobile TELs employed by the
Iraqis. These vehicles came in two forms: the Soviet-made, eightwheeled
MAZ-543, and the Al Waleed, a modified civilian SaabScania
tractor-trailer.9 In addition, a large number of vehicles, in-
cluding fuel trucks and missile supply vehicles disguised as civilian
buses, supported the mobile launchers.1
The Iraqi military went to great lengths to ensure that their country’s
adversaries were unable to determine the precise number or location
of the mobile TELs. High-fidelity decoys, some of East German origin,
were widely employed. Iraqi missile crew tactics and procedures,
such as the extensive use of gullies, wadis, culverts, and highway
underpasses, were designed to thwart aerial reconnaissance.11
Iraqi crews were able to operate from positions that coalition military
leaders had not expected, such as hardened shelters at air bases and
built-up areas. In addition, the Iraqis prepared protective, hidden
holding pens for the TELs along highways in western Iraq.1 2
Unknown to coalition planners, the Iraqis, drawing on their experience
in the war against Iran, had shortened the Scud launch process
in an effort to prevent post-launch detection. Soviet R-17 crews typically
took as long as 90 minutes to set up and fire their missiles, but
the Iraqis had managed to reduce the preparation and launch time to
under half an hour.13 The Iraqis were also careful to avoid emitting
telltale telemetry that could help an adversary locate the missile before
it was launched.
Poor weather conditions and Iraqi deception techniques made it extremely
difficult for coalition forces to detect and attack the dispersed
TELs before they launched their missiles. Instead, air commanders
focused on destroying the vehicles after they had launched
their Scuds. Toward this end, the coalition mounted combat air controls
over so-called “kill boxes” where TELs were suspected.17 The
kill boxes were located in two areas—western Iraq near the Jordanian
border, where the Scuds were fired at Israel, and southern Iraq,
where they were aimed at Saudi Arabia.18 Air commanders hoped
that keeping aircraft on station over the kill boxes would allow F-15E
and F-16L strike aircraft to hit the TELs after they had launched their
weapons but before they had time to flee to safety. 19 However, sensors
aboard orbiting coalition aircraft, including LANTIRN (Low-
Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared System for Night) and a
synthetic aperture radar, were unable to identify and acquire the
TELs, whose infrared and radar signatures were virtually indistinguishable
from trucks and other electromagnetic “clutter” in the
Iraqi desert and were relatively easy to mask.20 The maddeningly
elusive nature of the Iraqi targets is illustrated dramatically by the
fact that on the 42 occasions during the war when orbiting strikers visually
sighted mobile TELs, in only eight instances were they able to
acquire the targets sufficiently well to release ordnance.
It became increasingly apparent to the coalition’s senior military
commanders that finding and destroying the elusive mobile TELs
demanded a new approach. The use of conventional ground troops
to hunt for Scuds had been rejected by JCS Chairman General Colin
Powell and General Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of U.S.
Central Command. More recently, however, Israel had threatened to
take matters into its own hands and mount its own air and ground
operations in western Iraq. Washington refused to approve such operations,
but the Israeli proposal prompted U.S. Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney to consider employing special operations forces (SOF)
to hunt for Scuds.22 British Special Forces, he discovered, had been
operating in western Iraq since January 20. Some of the coalition’s
senior military commanders, including Schwarzkopf, had long been
skeptical about the value of special operations, and was unenthusiastic
about using SOF for cross-border operations in Iraq. In
Schwarzkopf’s judgment, western Iraq, an area of roughly 29,000
square miles, was simply too large for a ground force to search. As he
explained at a January 20 press conference, “there’s not much point
putting people on the ground to try and find nine, maybe ten
trucks.”23 Nevertheless, Cheney approved a plan to send U.S. SOF
personnel across the Saudi Arabian border to hunt for Scud launchers.2
In reality the area where the SCUDs were searched for as indicated here was the Anbar governate of Iraq. That's larger than North Korea.
Additionally when you read this:
http://www.hisutton.com/North%20Koreas% ... 20Sub.html
Thank you to unnamed advisers. This work would not have been possible without substantial inputs from experts. Any errors or incorrect assumptions are purely the responsibility of the author
Those are in short US and ROK Intelligence Officers. There's extensive info on the sub after one launch and a few shots. Hence there should be surveilance on the NK forces beyond what people consider as possible.
Then there's this:
Having a Second Strike capability changes the strategic landscape entirely. North Korea has a history of provoking ‘incidents’ with the South. In the recent past the South has been increasingly willing to counter North Korean actions with military force. This is in part reinforced by the knowledge that the South now enjoys a solid technological and equipment advantage over the North. The North has a few trump cards up its sleeves, like the fact that the Southern capitol is within short range ballistic missile reach of the North, and that they have chemical weapons.
Nuclear only becomes a consideration in a second strike scenario with a platform like a sub. However chemical weapons have always been considered a more substantial threat.
I want to list the reasons why North Korea isn't Iraq in terms of vehicles:
https://thevelvetrocket.com/2014/02/08/ ... rth-korea/
The transportation network doesn't exist. There aren't really any vehicles. What vehicles there are are already mostly military ones.
Iraq had considerably more in 1992 and secondly the usage was wider. North Koreans almost don't use their cars.
