User blog comment:Daxus Inferno/Real Countries?/@comment-4780584-20130402142849/@comment-3398633-20130402200648

I'm not thinking in terms of outdated strategies, believe me. There's a huge difference between a MiG-21 and an F-16. However, when you factor in the purposes they were designed for, and the areas they will be fighting in, the MiG would win. Your going to see hundreds of fighter craft from both sides in the air, and little room for manuvering. The MiG was designed for that specific type of fighting. The F-16 was not. F-16 missiles are made for long-range combat, not short-range dogfighting in a clutter battlefield. The massive manpower of the North Koreans is their greatest asset. An American or South Korean soldier would be able to handle a handfull easily, but sooner or later their going to run out of ammo.

Modern warfare is based on precision, effectiveness, and efficency. Cold War tactics revolved around numbers, heavy power, and ruthlessness. An American battlegroup could easily deal with a fleet from North Korea. However, missiles are limited by their numbers, and the average destroyer only has a couple of them. Get enough guns together, and you could take out an AEGIS cruiser. North Korea's tactics revolve around a meat-grinder effect. They keep coming and coming and coming until whatever is in the way is destroyed. Tech is good, but when in the face of raw numbers, cheap to maintain and easy to supply than the two billion dollar device on the other side of the field, then it will lose.

I've had this conversation with my mother a number of times (henceforth my interest in military history), and as I've side numerous times, a bomber is nice and effective, but it can't hit a target it can't find, or destroy an army when it runs out of bombs. Sooner or later, that bomber's base is going to be overrun when its munitions are dried up from the endless bombing runs it was on, and it'll take too long for more to come. Its a war that will eventually revolve around money. Fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan run the country's debt through the roof. North Korea has nothing to lose in a war like this, and will do what it can for survival. Americans will have a home to return too. North Koreans will not. Their fighting for survival, we aren't.