Guam: North Korean missile would strike island in 14 minutes

[Elderberry]

USA Today Network Shawn Raymundo 8/11/2017

HAGÅTÑA, Guam — If North Korea fires missiles toward Guam, the deadly weapons would take about 14 minutes to reach the island, said Guam Homeland Security spokeswoman Jenna Gaminde.

She said residents would be immediately notified by the 15 All-Hazards Alert Warning System sirens, located in low-lying areas throughout the island.

North Korea announced Thursday that the nation has a detailed plan for a missile strike near Guam using four intermediate-range ballistic rockets.

“Our office will be notified from the military and will utilize all forms of mass communication to get the message out to the public,” Gaminde said. Local media, village mayors and social media would be used to disseminate information, she said.

Gaminde urged island residents to tune into local media for further instructions if sirens began sounding.

North Korea said under its attack plan, four Hwasong-12 rockets would fly over Shimane, Hiroshima and Koichi prefectures in Japan, hitting waters 19 to 25 miles from the island, the Associated Press reported. The plan could be sent to leader Kim Jong Un for approval within a week or so.

Greg Kuntz, acting public affairs director for Joint Region Marianas, said the military on island continues to maintain standard operations amid threats from North Korea.

“We always maintain a high state of readiness,” Kuntz said. “We’re maintaining normal operations.”

Local and federal officials said there’s no change in threat level and all operations continue as normal.

Kuntz said that nothing has changed in terms of Joint Region Marianas’ procedures when it comes to communications between the military and dependents.

More: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/08/11/north-korea-missiles-would-strike-guam-14-minutes/558377001/#

[edpc]

Satellites would detect the preparation and launch.  Phased array radar in Japan would plot the trajectory early in flight.  Firing solution for ABMs would be ready within 2-3 minutes.  The missiles would have to avoid intercept from US Aegis, land based Japanese, and Guam based THAAD intercepts, if the flight path presented a threat. 

[XenaLee]

What if..... and I am all about 'what ifs' these days....

this Nork BS is all just a sham to test and see exactly what the US missile defense systems are capable of.  What if another enemy country, like China, was putting them up to it behind the scenes in order to see what they would have to contend with should they launch on us.  Getting a real bad feeling about all of this.

[edpc]

What if..... and I am all about 'what ifs' these days....

this Nork BS is all just a sham to test and see exactly what the US missile defense systems are capable of.  What if another enemy country, like China, was putting them up to it behind the scenes in order to see what they would have to contend with should they launch on us.  Getting a real bad feeling about all of this.

Entirely possible.  There's a reason why China doesn't want THAAD in SK and Russia doesn't want ABM sites in Europe.  They know we - and the Israelis - have come a long way since PAC-1 Patriots in 1991.  We could have fired upon any of the tests, just to show we could intercept it, but why give away data for free?  They already have an idea of what we could do, based on the March intercept of Syrian SAMs by the Israeli Arrow system, developed in cooperation with the US.

[dfwgator]

But will the island tip over?

[jpsb]

North Korea said under its attack plan, four Hwasong-12 rockets would fly over Shimane, Hiroshima and Koichi prefectures in Japan, hitting waters 19 to 25 miles from the island, the Associated Press reported. The plan could be sent to leader Kim Jong Un for approval within a week or so.

Local and federal officials said there’s no change in threat level and all operations continue as normal.

NK is planning an attack to ready in a week and there is no change to the threat level? WTH? Denial is not a river in Egypt.

[driftdiver]

NK is planning an attack to ready in a week and there is no change to the threat level? WTH? Denial is not a river in Egypt.

Thats because its already high.   South Korean news has noted the US military there is in a constant state of "exercising".   It never got this hot when I was there but there were times we were told to keep our real world chem gear with us at all times.   Kinda sucked having to lug around about 50lbs of gear everywhere you went.  Thats on top of anything else you needed to carry.

Not to mention it took longer to put it on then we would have had.  You can get your mask on in about 10 seconds if you are carrying it.  We weren't supposed to open the real world filters unless needed so add another couple minutes to open those and put them on.  Then the jacket and pants. then the stupid rubber booties that fell off anyway.

[edpc]

@driftdiver

Wearing the mask always sucked for me, because I don't like the feeling of something over my face.  When I go into sterile areas for work, I don't even like the surgical mask.  The full MOPP gear was absolutely brutal when we had to do NBC warfare drills in the sultry Ft Gordon, GA summer.

[driftdiver]

@driftdiver

Wearing the mask always sucked for me, because I don't like the feeling of something over my face.  When I go into sterile areas for work, I don't even like the surgical mask.  The full MOPP gear was absolutely brutal when we had to do NBC warfare drills in the sultry Ft Gordon, GA summer.

When I was in Korea we did it for up to 14 hours.  They even wanted these antenna guys to climb a 400ft tower in their gear.   They ended up causing heat stroke and put about 21 people in the hospital.  From then on our time in the suits was more limited.   We could take it off if we felt overheated.