The Norks are Suspected of Sinking South Korean Shipping.

[Surlethe]

Strong note of warning; there is absolutely no evidence to support that ranking. It's a personal gut feeling only.

I want to emphasize this point. Until the ship has been recovered and material evidence analyzed, there is no solid evidence in this case. Unless anybody in this thread has intimate knowledge of the conditions aboard the ship, a case I find highly unlikely, all conclusions posted so far are drawn from relatively vague knowledge about the Korean navy and the Cheonan, and so must reflect that level of uncertainty.

[Sarevok]

The American public is already sick of two wars. But ressurecting the Korean War (Korea 2.0? 1.1?) might be different - we'd have a clear-cut case of "guys in the uniform of a hostile country got into our base and started killing our doods." Would it be possible to lend South Korea our 'shock and awe' and let them handle most of the 'dying on the ground' parts of a war?

Remember at this stage no one knows what really happened. Even if evidence emerges the North Koreans were behind the loss of the warship it has to be very solid evidence. The South Korean people are not bloodthirsty. They have been very patient and considerate of their northern brethren over past half century. The South Korean policy indicates they much more are interested in peace and reconciliation not punishment and revenge. Assuming there is damning evidence American assistance is still not required. It would be helpful at yes. But in general South Koreans can steamroll the North Koreans by themselves. They are one of the most powerful militaries in the world.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Remember at this stage no one knows what really happened. Even if evidence emerges the North Koreans were behind the loss of the warship it has to be very solid evidence.

Most people would take the North Koreans claiming credit to be solid evidence.

The South Korean people are not bloodthirsty. They have been very patient and considerate of their northern brethren over past half century. The South Korean policy indicates they much more are interested in peace and reconciliation not punishment and revenge. Assuming there is damning evidence American assistance is still not required. It would be helpful at yes. But in general South Koreans can steamroll the North Koreans by themselves. They are one of the most powerful militaries in the world.

Yes, but we have soldiers already there specifically so that if the war does start, they will come under attack and probably die, specifically so that we will have justification to go to war. The idea being that even if the North felt ballsy enough to try the South's hand, in doing so they would inevitably draw the American people into the conflict.

That's the whole point, after all, of us still maintaining troops there. It's kind of a give and get situation for those troops: cushy assignment with a lot of perks in an area that's technically a war-zone (though I don't know if it's technically enough of a war-zone to get them out of paying taxes,) in a tropical land far from home...
But if the shit ever comes down, you're not there to defend anything, you're there to get martyred so the rest of us will be outraged enough to come and avenge you seven(hundredthousand)fold.

So I'm not seeing it as a question of "does the South need America's help" so much as "we're coming one way or another" if any when the Korean War turns into a shooting war again. Thus the question of, do we send infantry out of a sandy hell-hole and a mountainous desert hellhole into a tropical hell-hole, or do we just float a couple of carrier groups over there and hammer the ever-living shit out of the North's navy, army, and every ground target we can find while the South Koreans undertake the business of occupying land and putting bullets into their lattitudinally-advantaged bretheren.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The british lost their fair share of capital ships to internal explosions as well, including the dreadnought Vanguard.

Where exactly are the silk bags filled with cordite on a modern warship? There aren't any, and the Germans, who were the first to put the powder in metal cartridges on big guns, saw far less of this kind of accident... And the technology and safety procedures have only improved since. Remember the infamous Iowa turret explosion around 1990 IIRC? That was using 50 year old powder and still just knocked out one gun in a triple turret.

[Thirdfain]

So I'm not seeing it as a question of "does the South need America's help" so much as "we're coming one way or another" if any when the Korean War turns into a shooting war again. Thus the question of, do we send infantry out of a sandy hell-hole and a mountainous desert hellhole into a tropical hell-hole

Errr, quick point of order- Korea is a cold, mountainous country. It's freezing and snowy in the winter, and temperate in the summer.

[Thanas]

The british lost their fair share of capital ships to internal explosions as well, including the dreadnought Vanguard.

Where exactly are the silk bags filled with cordite on a modern warship? There aren't any, and the Germans, who were the first to put the powder in metal cartridges on big guns, saw far less of this kind of accident... And the technology and safety procedures have only improved since. Remember the infamous Iowa turret explosion around 1990 IIRC? That was using 50 year old powder and still just knocked out one gun in a triple turret.

I was elaborating on historical events from the post before mine. Not making any claim with regards to modern ammunition.

[CJvR]

If the ship broke in two there are only two realistic causes.

1 - under the keel detonation.
2 - magazine explosion.

[ShadowDragon8685]

So I'm not seeing it as a question of "does the South need America's help" so much as "we're coming one way or another" if any when the Korean War turns into a shooting war again. Thus the question of, do we send infantry out of a sandy hell-hole and a mountainous desert hellhole into a tropical hell-hole

Errr, quick point of order- Korea is a cold, mountainous country. It's freezing and snowy in the winter, and temperate in the summer.

My apologies, let me correct it.

"Thus the question becomes one of, do we send infantry out of a sandy hell-hole and a high desert hellhole into a high, preciptitous hell-hole."

Does that suit?

[CJvR]

Literally blown in half. Has an accidental internal explosion ever done that much damage before or can we rule out accidents?

Loads of times, when a magazine goes you usually end up with two half ships. Although it has become very rare after WWII but before that there were probably over a dozen major accidental magazine explosions.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Loads of times, when a magazine goes you usually end up with two half ships. Although it has become very rare after WWII but before that there were probably over a dozen major accidental magazine explosions.

Considering that both the 76 mm and the 40 mm guns fire modern fixed ammunition, I have hard time imagining any kind of accidental magazine explosion. It would require quite extraordinary circumstances. That corvette is not supposed to have any missiles, either.

[Decue]

Loads of times, when a magazine goes you usually end up with two half ships. Although it has become very rare after WWII but before that there were probably over a dozen major accidental magazine explosions.

Considering that both the 76 mm and the 40 mm guns fire modern fixed ammunition, I have hard time imagining any kind of accidental magazine explosion. It would require quite extraordinary circumstances. That corvette is not supposed to have any missiles, either.

What about depth charges?

[Thirdfain]

My apologies, let me correct it.

"Thus the question becomes one of, do we send infantry out of a sandy hell-hole and a high desert hellhole into a high, preciptitous hell-hole."

Does that suit?

Much better!

And I suspect strongly that any conflict would focus largely on the South Koreans providing the vast majority of boots on the ground. I just recently got back from Korea; the country is highly militarized and has a large, modern ground army supported by a larger industrial, technological, and population base than the North can muster. US air and naval support would only make a one-sided fight even more unbalanced.

[Sea Skimmer]

The british lost their fair share of capital ships to internal explosions as well, including the dreadnought Vanguard.

Where exactly are the silk bags filled with cordite on a modern warship? There aren't any, and the Germans, who were the first to put the powder in metal cartridges on big guns, saw far less of this kind of accident... And the technology and safety procedures have only improved since. Remember the infamous Iowa turret explosion around 1990 IIRC? That was using 50 year old powder and still just knocked out one gun in a triple turret.

The explosion on Iowa was most likely the result of bad training or maintenance causing the powder bags to be over rammed until they compressed and exploded. The turret design did not have interlocks to stop this from happening. While a bad bag of powder may have contributed, Sandia National Laboratory (only credible investigation) found that even the best powder could have been induced to explode given the turret design. The powder was not 50 years old; it was new and different in composition from the powder used in WW2. No gunpowder that I’ve ever heard of and few high explosives could have such long shelf lives. That stuff has to be replaced regularly. Its just when it gets old, it wont spontaneously combust all on its own like Powder B would.

German brass cartridge cases really have little to do with powder safety, because only part of the charge was contained in the case in battleship calibers. A large part of the charge was in a separate bag and loaded first. Then the main charge which was in bags inside the case was loaded. The point of the case was to seal the breach so they could use sliding wedges. The Germans were however not prone to overloading ships with ammunition, so all propellant could be kept in metal boxes. The British also had metal boxes for storing charges, but tended to take shit loads of them out of the box in combat, far more then were immediately required. This was done to speed up rates of fire.

The Germans in fact had a number of ships blow up prior to WW1, but they were all cruisers. This led the Germans to adapt chemically safer powder, which would not become unstable and self combusting in less then five years time. The British and French meanwhile kept using powder that was basically the same as the very first 1880s smokeless powders and thus suffered continual explosions. But by WW2 almost everyone had converted to newer safer types, except Japan which made improvements but not enough. Japanese ammunition safety was horrendous in general; they had 20mm shells for aircraft that could potentially explode if you simply dropped them on the floor for example. The fuse was armed from the moment it was assembled in the factory!

Modern stuff is way safer then anything from the world wars, but it’s certainly not foolproof. Gunpowder really can’t be foolproof because it needs to be able to ignite without firing a high intensity detonator (which would damage the inside of the gun). With high explosives we do now have truly insensitive compositions that can only be set off by detonators. So much so that when they are used in nuclear weapons (original design function) it’s no longer considered necessary to do assembly in a bunker to contain the fissile material should an accidental explosion occur.

Considering that both the 76 mm and the 40 mm guns fire modern fixed ammunition, I have hard time imagining any kind of accidental magazine explosion. It would require quite extraordinary circumstances. That corvette is not supposed to have any missiles, either.

Your imagination is lacking then. Fire will set that shit off no problem; a bad electrical arc could too (turning a shell casing into a conductor = lots of heat). USS Samuel B Roberts was armed with the same type of 76mm gun mount and ammunition and came close to suffering a magazine explosion after she was mined and caught fire in the Gulf. A large portion of the crew was used to do nothing but throw the ammo over the side, but the fire was contained and vented in time. No US ship has come closer to being lost since Korea.

The ROK ship most certainly has missiles, torpedoes and depth charges as designed. I have seen nothing specific on how she might have been equipped at the time of sinking.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I wonder how well-trained, well-supplied, and well-led the North Korean military is. I wouldn't be surprised if they're good for nothing more than parading and sabre-rattling. Kim Jong-Il seems like the kind of man who would appoint sycophants rather than competent individuals to run his armies, and to emphasize appearance rather than practical effectiveness in terms of his demands upon the military.

Don't forget physically capable. As you can see here the food rationing doesn't provide for well proportioned Soldiers.

This one was taken within the past five years, since the ACU was just being issued in 2005.

[Sea Skimmer]

Keep in mind the US and ROK deliberately select the tallest soldiers they can find for guard duty in the Joint Security Area. The US Army actually has someone eyeball each solider stepping off the plane in Korea, and if he’s over 6’2” and looks big enough they check what his assigned job is to see if they can steal him for the job.

This is actually relevant, considering how many battles ranging from fist fights to the ax murders to the company scale gun battle (1984 defector incident) that have broken out in the Joint Security Area. The North Koreans don’t care about the size of people they assign; they just rely on fanaticism and numbers. Anyway a shorter solider is a smaller target.

[open_sketchbook]

My god, look at that. You've got two modern soldiers escorting an extra from the set of Red Alert 3. It boggles the mind that North Korea can be so obsolete and still think of itself as all that.

[FSTargetDrone]

My god, look at that. You've got two modern soldiers escorting an extra from the set of Red Alert 3. It boggles the mind that North Korea can be so obsolete and still think of itself as all that.

I take it you've never seen pictures from in and around the buildings near the DMZ?

Just a smattering of stuff you can see if you are there (an ROK soldier inside a building with tourists):



The North Koreans apparently spend as much time watching each other as they do watching towards the South.

Notice how the South Korean soldiers are half-exposed as they keep watch from the corners of the buildings:



They all seem to stand with balled fists.

[CJvR]

As you can see here the food rationing doesn't provide for well proportioned Soldiers.

It is all part of the Dear Leader's plan, this way they don't have to dig so deep trenches.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Considering that both the 76 mm and the 40 mm guns fire modern fixed ammunition, I have hard time imagining any kind of accidental magazine explosion. It would require quite extraordinary circumstances. That corvette is not supposed to have any missiles, either.

Your imagination is lacking then. Fire will set that shit off no problem; a bad electrical arc could too (turning a shell casing into a conductor = lots of heat). USS Samuel B Roberts was armed with the same type of 76mm gun mount and ammunition and came close to suffering a magazine explosion after she was mined and caught fire in the Gulf. A large portion of the crew was used to do nothing but throw the ammo over the side, but the fire was contained and vented in time. No US ship has come closer to being lost since Korea.

The ROK ship most certainly has missiles, torpedoes and depth charges as designed. I have seen nothing specific on how she might have been equipped at the time of sinking.

Fire would certainly do it as well as powerful and repeated electrical arcing, but surely a fire should have been detected? As you know, it will take some time before even a fire will cook off the gunpowder, especially when they are fully protected by metal casings. Samuel Roberts already had conditions which I would call "extraordinary" in the sense that she had suffered combat damage and a resulting fire, but we are talking about an accidental fire in the magazine that nobody detected in time (or at least that we know of). Electrical arcing seems an even more unlikely case.

As for missiles, this particular ship was supposed to be the ASW variant, which does not carry missiles but has a heavy gun armament instead (two 76 mm guns instead of the typical one). it certainly would have had depth charges, but those are less likely to go off than gun ammunition. The same goes for torpedoes.

[Sea Skimmer]

Fire would certainly do it as well as powerful and repeated electrical arcing, but surely a fire should have been detected? As you know, it will take some time before even a fire will cook off the gunpowder, especially when they are fully protected by metal casings.

A 400 ton Norwegian minesweeper burned and sank a couple years ago because a transmission shaft compartment that should have had a fire alarm didn’t. I have no idea what standards on South Korean patrol boats are like, but people sure didn’t rave about 1980s Korean cars.

Samuel Roberts already had conditions which I would call "extraordinary" in the sense that she had suffered combat damage and a resulting fire, but we are talking about an accidental fire in the magazine that nobody detected in time (or at least that we know of). Electrical arcing seems an even more unlikely case.

What exactly do you think would be a likely cause then? We don’t expect this to happen regularly in peacetime so its going to be unlikely. With the evidence available little can be ruled out.

As for missiles, this particular ship was supposed to be the ASW variant, which does not carry missiles but has a heavy gun armament instead (two 76 mm guns instead of the typical one). it certainly would have had depth charges, but those are less likely to go off than gun ammunition. The same goes for torpedoes.

Depth charges and torpedoes are often filled with more sensitive explosives then shells or bombs, because they aren’t expected to be in the line of fire that often and the improved blast performance is vital. Unless you know the exact age and type of munitions carried by that ship you can’t rule out those kinds of warheads.

[Sky Captain]

Where is the magazine located on this type of ship? If point of breaking coincides with magazine room then it`s likely the ammunition caused the disaster. If point of breaking is somewhere else then something else caused ship to blow up.

[CJvR]

Where is the magazine located on this type of ship? If point of breaking coincides with magazine room then it`s likely the ammunition caused the disaster. If point of breaking is somewhere else then something else caused ship to blow up.

Typically beneath the turrets just above the keel.

[Stuart]

OK, we now have some more solid information to work with. The Koreans finally got a diver down to the wreck and their initial report is that it was a drifting mine. If further investigations confirm this initial impression, two further questions are raised. Was the mine a drifting remnant of minefields laid during the Korean War or was it deliberately set adrift by North Korean forces in a known South Korean patrol area? The latter would be very hard to prove. The legal position is that the "owner" of the minefield is responsible for any losses resulting from mines drifting free from the field (most western mines have disabling circuits built into them for this reason).

This isn't, by any reasonable evaluation, conclusive; it's the first impression of the diver who saw the wreckage. However, even a brief glimpse should be enough to distinguish an internal explosion from an external one so it does look as if the magazine/machinery explosion hypotheses are becoming even weaker.

Most modern magazines on relatively small ships are integrated with the gun mount; they tend to be a carousel feed where the barbette on an old fashioned mount would be.



The old idea of putting the magazine right at the bottom of the ship is in disfavor these days precisely because of the mine damage threat. The theory today is to put the "magazine" in the middle of the ship where it has as much omnidirectional steel between it and the ungodly as can be arranged. Also, guns these days are a very secondary thing; the less weight and space they occupy the better.

The Orkla went down after burning for eight minutes. It took that long for the fire to gut the ship and that's scary. The primary cause of the loss was that the ship was built of commercial composites that had no fireproofing and the ship's wiring was also commercial grade (it was the stuff one can buy from Home Depot or Wallyworld) and the insulation was both grossly inadequate in quantity and deficient in quality. It is rumored that the same problems afflicted the Skjold class. The absence of fire detection systems in the machinery area in question wasn't really of any significance; the ship was virtually a floating bonfire and a fire detection system would have just made it clear to the accident investigation which area had burned first.

By the way, apropos of nothing, but the whole Oksoy class have major hull issues. They delaminate as soon as somebody looks at them. I've seen an Oksoy with 30 feet of her hull delaminating after a short cruise in rough water.

[FSTargetDrone]

An AP story with some of the mine details that Stuart mentioned, including a quote from the defense minister:

SKorea: Mine from NKorea may have sunk naval ship

By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 56 mins ago

SEOUL, South Korea – A North Korean mine may have caused the explosion that sank a South Korean naval ship three days ago near a disputed maritime border, the defense minister told lawmakers Monday.

Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said military authorities have not ruled out North Korean involvement in the sinking of the Cheonan, which split apart within minutes of an explosion in the rear hull late Friday night, according to the ship's captain.

Fifty-eight crew members were rescued from the Yellow Sea waters near Baengnyeong Island west of Seoul, but 46 others are missing, most likely inside a rear segment of the ship, military officials said. Divers rapping on the stern with hammers got no response Monday, military officials said.

South Korean officials have been careful to say the exact cause of the explosion remains unknown, and that the rescue mission remains their priority.

However, Kim told lawmakers Monday that North Korean involvement was one possibility.

"North Korea may have intentionally floated underwater mines to inflict damage on us," he said.

The two Koreas remain in a state of war because their three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. North Korea disputes the maritime border drawn by the United Nations in 1953, and the western waters — not far from where the Cheonan went down — have been the site of three bloody skirmishes between North and South.

A mine placed by North Korea during the Korean War may also have struck the ship, he said. Many of the 3,000 Soviet-made mines North Korea planted during the war were removed, but not all. Kim noted that a North Korean mine was discovered as recently as 1984.

There are no South Korean mines off the west coast, he added. Kim also ruled out a torpedo attack, citing rescued sailors who were manning the radars.

Officials have also said an internal malfunction may be to blame. The 1,200-ton Cheonan is designed to carry weapons, and was involved in a previous skirmish with North Korea.

U.S. and South Korea military officials said there was no outward indication that North Korea was involved in the sinking of the Cheonan.

However, "neither the government nor the defense ministry has ever said that there was no possibility of North Korea's involvement," Kim said.

The North Korean military was keeping a close watch on the search operation, the Joint Chiefs of Staffs said in a defense committee report cited by the Yonhap news agency.

But Pyongyang's state media have made no mention of the ship. The North Korean military's first comments since the ship went down warned the U.S. and South Korea on Monday against engaging in "psychological warfare" by letting journalists into the Demilitarized Zone.

President Lee Myung-bak said rescuers "should not give up hope" of finding the crewmen, according to a statement from the presidential Blue House after Lee met with a security ministers Monday.

"We'll continue our search operation until the last minute without giving up hope of rescuing even a single survivor," a Joint Chiefs officer said Monday on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

But the prospect of pulling out anyone alive seemed dim Monday. Any navy crewmen who initially survived and managed to seal themselves inside watertight cabins would likely have run out of air by Monday night since the supply of oxygen in the cabins was estimated to last up to 69 hours.

Rough waves over the weekend prevented military divers from gaining access to the wreckage. On Monday afternoon, divers finally reached the ship's rear segment — where most of the missing were believed to be trapped.

Divers knocked on the ship with hammers but there was no response, Rear Adm. Lee Ki-sik of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters.

The U.S. Navy sent four ships and a team of divers to join the search, said Lt. Anthony Falvo, a spokesman for the U.S. 7th Fleet, based just south of Tokyo.

At a naval base south of Seoul, anguished relatives waited for news from the search mission, some pounding their chests with grief.

"My baby, My baby!" one woman murmured while being carried on a gurney to an ambulance after briefly losing consciousness.

___

Associated Press writers Sangwon Yoon and Jean H. Lee in Seoul, and Eric Talmadge in Tokyo, contributed to this report.

[SapphireFox]

Kim also ruled out a torpedo attack, citing rescued sailors who were manning the radars.

Am I the only one who has a raised eyebrow at this statement? How is a radar supposed to detect a torpedo under the water?
Using the radar to spot a raised periscope from a submarine I can see but to say that it can detect an incoming torpedo baffles me. Unless the radar men are stationed near the keel in the middle of the ship then that statement makes no sense.