what's the worst case scenario? the North Koreans could

>>34957787

Most likely not. Let's be generous and assume all 60 actually hit their targets and detonate correctly. Worst case scenario is that Kim shuts down the power grid since civilians will be told to shelter in place and business districts will be deserted. Figure it'd take at least 2-3 months to get things semi normal, like Katrina.

>>34957787
its not about the number of nukes, the limiting factor is more likely missiles. even if they have 50 nukes, they probably only have 20 or so that are small enough for missiles, and the missiles probably have a pretty big CEP(Talking about 3Km or greater) and with that, talk about the failure rates, which will also be fairly high, I would not be surprised if they had 2/3 failure rate. now that leaves us with 5-15 missiles hitting if even that. factor in that the navy MIGHT get lucky once or twice, and our ABM's might get a few, the effects would be devasting, but not apocalyptic. the level of damage could be high. I'd bet the North Koreans would target population/economy and not military centers though because of accuracy problems.

>>34957834
>they fire a nuclear missile
>thrusters fail after 250 meters
>nuke falls back down to north korea
>kills kim and most of the north korean military

>>34957834

And then N Korea would cease to exist as a nation, bringing strife to 10s of millions of asians, creating a massive refugee problem for china, and confirm china's weakness in reigning in their pet, fucking them forever in the region and guaranteeing they will have no asian allies, all siding with the US who will have the moral high ground since they were attacked.

China would never let this happen. Norks arent going to fire live nuclear missiles at anyone. They are going to sabre rattle until the population is starving so much they revolt.

/k/'s wet dream of NK ever doing anything is about as realistic as your typical /k/ommando actually touching a girl's vagina.

>>34957834
how accurate could they be though ... even if they hit the continent, there is a good chance the hit in a scarcely populated location.

how bad could a nuke be if it landed in Montana or Wyoming?

>>34957855
kek.

>>34957874
wind patterns would be a deciding factor of that and which side of the rocky's they hit. and as for at most accuracy, i'd say a CEP of 1 or 1.5km because it takes a lot of sophistication to get to that point. took the US and the USSR almost a decade. you bring up a good point though. The worst possible impact point in my open is the source of the Mississippi river. that would fuck the entire country horribly all the way down to the gulf of mexico. next worst area would be the new madrid fault line or san andreas fault line depending on yield and position. it could cause a cascading effect all up and down the faults.

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>>34957919
eye's not open, no idea how I got that typo

Honestly the worst case scenario is that they land a single nuke on Guam, but even that would be straining their capabilities.

>>34957787

Well, the last test shows that they don't have reentry capabilities on any ICBMs, so the only way they can utilize their nukes is through sub based missiles. Since I highly doubt NK can get a sub into launch distance and have the missile not be intercepted. However, the threat of a HEMP is possible, as you don't need to reenter the atmosphere for this and accuracy isn't as important as detonation height. If hit by a HEMP, you will likely see a breakdown of the power and communications grid, but since the majority of the files on HEMPs are classified and the last time the US ran a HEMP was in 1962, a lot of the possible outcomes are purely theoretical.

The effects of a

>>34958041
Are EMPs really effective? They seem kinda like the not quite nuke boogyman.

most car bodies are metal, computer cases are metal, most microwave ovens are metal, and what is that metal case if not a faraday cage?
If I look around my house, my guitar amp is tube so it's cool, all I lose is the PS3

>>34958522
>Are EMPs really effective?
nobody knows, one knocked out a large part of hawaii's power grid the last time we tested a high altitude nuke, but all literature on the effects of EMPs on modern electrical devices is classified or not public.

the real problem with EMPs is not the E3 pulse (you get those in heavy solar storms, we can deal with those), or the E2 pulse, it's the E1 pulse that knocks out most surge protectors. including enterprise ones. and potentially most hardware attached to the power grid to monitor it.

unplug your things from the power grid and you might be fine.

>>34957787
>assuming all or most hit North America with the majority in the US. How fucked are we?
8/10.

>will they randomly be dropping in farmers fields or actually hit cities?
Cities

>could this cause a SHTF / breakdown of society situation?
Possibly, but unlikely. The cities that have been hit would be like that for an extended period of time.

>>34957834
>bet the North Koreans would target population/economy and not military centers though because of accuracy problems.
Exactly.

>>34957868
>Norks arent going to fire live nuclear missiles at anyone.
No one would start a nuclear war intentionally. This assumes that both sides have 100% clarity and 100% perfect intelligence. This is never the case. Rather a nuclear war would most likely erupt because of a series of errors and mistakes by both sides.

>>34957874
>how accurate could they be though
Enough to hit cities.

>>34957943
They can probably deliver warheads well into the US.


>>34958041
>Well, the last test shows that they don't have reentry capabilities on any ICBMs,
This is a misinterpretation of the data.

>>34960094
Oppenheimer?

>>34958855
>one knocked out a large part of hawaii's power grid the last time we tested a high altitude nuke,

You're thinking of Starfish Prime, and it did not. It knocked out approximately 200 street lights that were on one circuit (but not the homes) and interfered with microwave communications for a few hours. EMP damage is really overblown by the media. If you want to really shut shit down from an EMP type device you need something like CHAMP that's highly directed, and even then it only damaged the breakers in a building. The real issue with EMPs is how they play havoc with communications, which is far more important to the military as they've had everything hardened since the early 70s and routinely still do tests at the remaining EMPRESS station

>>34957787
>the North Koreans could have between 30-60 nukes
They don't, and they don't have delivery methods for that large a number.
>assuming all or most hit North America with the majority in the US.
They can barely hit Japan, nevermind mainland USA. Nevermind hitting it reliably, though missile defence systems that were engineered to counter modern Russian/Chinese tech - not Nork tech stuck in the 1980's (at best). Also, if NK fires nukes, the US will retaliate. If it doesn't, the threat of MAD is lost.

Assuming 60 midsized nukes hit major population centres on the west coast of mainland MURRIKA, expect about a year worth of humanitarian crisis, equivalent to several hurricanes all at once.

Meanwhile, you can expect North Korea to become a live testing ground for every single nuke type that the US has been itching to try above ground. Don't expect a neat, coordinated decapitation strike with a dozen or so MIRVs, expect a messy strike that shows the world how the US will retaliate if it's hit by nuclear arms, and that shows it's own people that justice has been dealt.

>>34960184
>They can barely hit Japan
Have you been in a coma for a few years?

>>34957874
Accuracy isn't a problem with nuclear weaponry and modern missiles. As long as you can get the accuracy of the delivery device to within 1% of your blast radius, you're fine. The problem is that the missiles can fail on their way to the target, and they can be shot down.

>>34957919
With their current missiles, I'd be amazed if they reach the mainland, nevermind throwing across the rocky's.

>>34960181
>It knocked out approximately 200 street lights that were on one circuit
well, i look like an idiot.

>the remaining EMPRESS station
EMPRESS?

>>34960197
Please show me their missile design that will reliably hit Japanese mainland, and can carry a nuclear weapon.

Because they can't.

>>34960240
Hwasong-14
Hwasong-12

Thats just two. I can keep going.

>>34960313
Neither of those can carry a W78-sized warhead.
The H12 currently has a 75% failure rate.
Both are extremely clumsy, and can only be fired from prepped launch pads.
The last time they tried to fire the H14, the US knew 8 days in advance.
Even the H14 cannot carry a decently sized warhead to Alaska or Hawaii, they'll have to resort to a very, very small nuke that will never be as efficient (hah) as their current testing).
Based on speed and trajectory, interception should be possible on anything but a strike on SK.
They have no proper reentry vehicles yet.

The current misile program is clumsy, slow, prone to breakage, easy to intercept and cannot carry what it needs to do damage.

>>34960122
No, Oppenheimer isn't an idiot.

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>>34960399
>W78-sized warhead.
They don't need to. Their current warhead weighs about 500kg.

>The H12 currently has a 75% failure rate.
Basing reliability off of testing cycles is silly.


>Both are extremely clumsy, and can only be fired from prepped launch pads.
Both have mobile TELs.

>The last time they tried to fire the H14, the US knew 8 days in advance.
Testing cycles are different than operational cycles.


>Even the H14 cannot carry a decently sized warhead to Alaska or Hawaii,
The H-14 can get a 500 kg warhead to San Francisco. If further testing allows them to shave another 100kg off (which seems likely) they could get it to New York.


>Based on speed and trajectory, interception should be possible on anything but a strike on SK.
This is also incorrect. The only US system that could intercept the Hwasong-14 is GBI and its success is about 50-50.

Or if we use your metric of success during testing cycles, its about 10%.

>They have no proper reentry vehicles yet.

Incorrect assumption. The breakup of the RV in the last test was due to the fact that the RV was subjected to increased stresses due to its lofted trajectory. It came down faster than it would have in an MET.
The RV survived the point in reentry when it would have been subjected to stresses like those in an MET.

Pic related.

>>34960463
Well, not as much of an idiot as this guy, anyway:
>>34960399
>>34960240
>>34960184

>>34960473
>This is also incorrect. The only US system that could intercept the Hwasong-14 is GBI and its success is about 50-50.

Which is it? You just contradicted yourself from one sentence to the next when the person you're replying to only spoke of the possibility.

>>34960500
>Which is it?
It is possible. But not reliably.

If we are operating under his reliability metric, then its even less than that.

I read this wrong and thought you said NK has nukes chambered in 30-06.

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>>34957787
>mfw I at first read that as .30-06 Nukes

>>34957874
Id visit the crater for sure. I suppose they could hit FE Warren or Cheyyenne in general.

>>34960482
Opp, please save us from this thread.

>>34962719
I tried.