Thought Experiment: how would you sink Kim Jong Un's waterpark?

"zipfuel" (zipfuel) 05/06/2020 at 18:10 • Filed to: North Korea, waterslides, coup, improvisation

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While he’s not dead we did learn this week that Kim Jong Un has a private floating water-park built on a barge!

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You can even see it on Google maps here:

Dropped pin
Near Sea of Japan (also known as the East Sea)

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Now how would you go about striking a blow for democracy by sinking it?

Assume that one night after a few beverages you posted this idea on one of the less reputable crowd funding sites (that don’t explicitly bar funding of military actions by non state actors). Then it went viral and now you have a millionish dollars at the (Panamanian) bank and a moral obligation to scupper some water-slides .

Option 1 - Sabotage

Probably not possible - I don’t think any amount of money could persuade a North Korean to do something so stupid that would wind up with them and grandma staring down the barrel of anti-aircraft cannon. T his tub was built back in t he father’s reign so it’s doubtful the controls are modern enough to be stuxnetted into running the ballast pumps in full reverse overnight.

Option 2 - Aerial assault

North Korea definitely has air defenses and even if their planes suck the missiles will be effective so no Bacardi Bomber here, this is a job for a drone.

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There’ s an airport just across the bay so chances are they wouldn’t immediately shoot down a civilian appearing aircraft on an approach vector. Given all the shady shit the Kim family is into you’d probably just need to spoof another North Korean transponder number and tell the tower it’s an urgent Caviar and Patron delivery.

The problem is how do you even dent an ocean going barge? These things are massive with multiple watertight compartments and a hull built of thick steel. Honestly the luxury yachts moored down the quay would be a much softer target but any common-or-garden anarchist can torch one of those, you only go down in history for sinking the swimming pool.

It’d probably absorb multiple hits from an armor piercing munition like a hellfire missile without being critically damaged. You as a private citizen aren’t going to have access to anything so sophisticated.

Seems like one of those end of life business jets the cartels are so fond of would be ideal, plenty of range, speed and readily available at a good price.

Whatever you use is going to be on a one way trip so you could pack it pretty full; an older Learjet has ~4,000kg delta empty to full but at least half that’s gotta be fuel - depending on where you start. I’m thinking you’d need something of truck bomb magnitude to be assured of making a dent from above, especially if what you’re using is a old stock or improvised. Funnily enough there’s suddenly a surplus of old airliners sitting around.

At least getting it there would be relatively simple, theoretically you could just program the autopilot to descend to 0 elevation at certain set of GPS coordinates but in practice you’d probably want a man in the loop for final approach. This might be tricky as while I’m sure there are satellite data/phone companies that cover the area the chances of jamming are high and the lag might be too much.

Since it’s a fairly distinctive structure training an AI to recognize it might be possible, then just use flight sim game code to fly a path into center mass. Trouble is you only get one try.

Option 3 - Ghost ride the ship

I feel this has the most promise for being effective since you’d hit it at or below the waterline but hardest to actually reach the target.

A good size motor yacht or fishing boat would definitely have sufficient cargo capacity and maybe range. And while there are quite a lot of experimental autonomous vessels navigating the globe, you could probably steer it remotely since it’s a boat and nothing happens too quickly.

A solar powered boat like the example below would theoretically have unlimited range but it’d be slow and not much payload. You’d have to buy the good stuff as we learned from the Takata airbag debacle that ammonium nitrate does not like humidity. You also don’t want it to go off accidentally if run over by an LNG tanker...

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It’d be advisable to send a dozen or since this particular one got stuck in a fishing net and had to be retrieved by the Canadian Navy.

If more than one made it to the area then you could coordinate a swarm to pop multiple compartments.

Where to launch?

The biggest problem I see is going to be acquiring a very large quantity of stuff that’ll go boom, wherever that is will likely be your launch site since stopping for fuel isn’t going to be an option.

Ideally somewhere with lots of mining and corruption.

South Korea is out, they don’t want to start a war and will likely intercept anything flying/sailing north. China would be an excellent source of affordable supplies and expertise but they watch foreigners closely and hoo boy you don’t wanna get caught pulling a stunt like this there.

Japan has plenty of coastline and airstrips, there’ s also likely to be some nationalist factions who’d like to take a harder line on NK but I feel like you’d have a hard time acquiring supplies.

Russia would seem promising, Vladivostok is actually quite close. They might even sell you some red army surplus if you could come up with an explanation that involves crushing dissent somewhere.

Then there’s SE Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines , Indonesia etc. I can’t speak to any of these but you might find an intelligence agency with a beef against North Korea to sponsor or at least turn a blind eye.

At least with a jet you can load it up and then launch at the objective quickly and as Carlos Ghosn proved nobody pays too much attention to private airstrips. You might even open up middle Eastern supply options.

I’m making the assumption that the military expertise is readily available on the open market and anything technology related could be disguised as a student research project or better a #disruptive technology startup (we’re like Uber for dynamite fishing )

My personal favorite is the flotilla of solar boats for the redundancy and stand off capability.

Your turn OPPO how would you send chubby boi’ s slip n’ slide to Davey Jones’ Locker?

Addendum:  

I wrote most of this at the weekend and by the end was thinking it  seemed a bit far fetched. Then a bunch of Trump Rally Merc s tried to launch an amphibious coup in   Venezuela while tweeting about it...

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For Sweden > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 18:16

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Attack dolphin

lone_liberal > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 18:17

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Nuke it from orbit.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 18:21

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Send a larger barge with even more waterslides that are secretly made of pl astic explosives. Moor it to the old one and then BOOOOM!

I absolutely love this idea. Good work.

facw > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 18:37

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I don’t think it’s far fetched. I mean I’m sure we could send a stealth aircraft to blow it up. North Korean air defenses are fairly weak, especially outside the capital. The only question is how Kim reacts if he thinks we are being belligerent.

I mean honestly, I’m sort of surprised that we don’t just sink any North Korean submarine that ventures out of North Korean waters, honestly, you’d think even North Korea would just assume that they are bad at building/operating submarines. And it’s not like they have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to “don’t blow up other people’s warships”

zipfuel > For Sweden 05/06/2020 at 18:45

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Eh Eh Eh.h.h.htaaack!

I fear the North Korean Navy would cook and eat them before they could ge t close...

zipfuel > lone_liberal 05/06/2020 at 18:47

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Rods from God would at least put a hole in the liner...

My bird IS the word > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 18:47

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The old fashioned way: underwater infil, place a limpet charge on the hull , exfil. I doubt with their piss poor budget that NK has robust underwater defenses.

I’m sure some ex- seals would love the challenge.

Beefchips > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 18:53

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If it’s hard to sink a little barge, probably its ha rder to sink a big barge. I’m thinking just load the thing on the sh ip shipping ship and sail away .

zipfuel > facw 05/06/2020 at 18:57

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I’m assuming this is an entirely private operation: even the most basic of nation states could probably lob a cruise missile from international waters or send in a drone, it’s not a hard target.

North Korea’s submarines probably have a 50 % chance of coming back, cheaper to just let nature take its course

facw > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 18:59

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Also, I’d like to take a moment to point out that a floating waterpark is nowhere near the weirdest thing in Wonsan.

There is an airport (probably not complete or functional) going through a small mountain:

While the North Koreans are no strangers to putting aircraft storage under hills, running a runway through is really a bit of cartoonish super villainy.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 19:07

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problem is its designed for armor/bunker piercing, so make a 1-3" hole. It owuld go through, but the assumed compartments underneigth would just partially flood. 

ranwhenparked > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 19:09

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Option 4: Benign neglect. I mean, if the maintenance is comparable to their submarines, merchant vessels, aircraft, and amusement park, it will probably just sink on its own eventually. 

facw > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 19:10

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Fair enough. Yeah, I’d just do satellite remote controlled fishing boat packed with explosives. Come in at the same time as the other boats, and you’d probably only have to get a short distance without being stopped:

If you were worried about being intercepted over that difference, a rudimentary home-built torpedo would be able to handle it just fine.

Note however that there is a waterpark over by Kim’s Wonsan palace, so you wouldn’t really be depriving him:

zipfuel > My bird IS the word 05/06/2020 at 19:14

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Hmmmm, submersibles to get close are pricey but there are some very talented south Americans building low profile vessels these days.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > facw 05/06/2020 at 19:17

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even features blast doors. on the south entrance. 

My bird IS the word > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 19:17

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Well you did give me a million ish dollars.

AestheticsInMotion > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 19:28

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No no no. You’re all wrong. Buy 500 pounds of glitter, attach said glitter to low-yeild munitions—I’m talking like an Indian Reservation Morter or cherry bomb—and get your aim locked in.

Believe me, once an item has been sufficiently glitter-bombed, no sane man will ever again attempt to be within a 100 mile vacinity of it. 

AestheticsInMotion > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 19:29

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I've never heard that phrase before and I really like it

NKato > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 19:38

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Jam the radio signals upon finding a NK submarine (so they can’t warn anyone) , then use said NK submarine against the waterpark. Then scuttle the sub somewhere in international waters. No survivors, no witnesses.

MKULTRA1982(ConCrustyBrick) > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 19:55

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You pay your way into being able to extort Dennis Rodman. Dennis is the key to all of this.

Once he is under your influence you begin to have him organize a festival for the glorious leader, to be held at the water park.

Dennis is going to have something very special shipped in for the leader, a gift, but it must be a surprise. Dennis insists on being the one to organize the transport of the gift.

The gift will be a large statue, inside of which will be the most potent non-nuclear explosive money can buy. The container the statue is in and the statue itself will be designed in such a way that it channels the force of the blast directly downwards, hopefully breaching the hull substantially.

Then you do whatever you were threatening to do to Dennis anyways because it improves the plot by adding tragedy, and fuck that guy for mingling with dictators. 

If that doesn’t work, a dirty bomb on a low-flying drone controlled from a boat. Doesn’t have to be large, can ostensibly fly below electronic detection methods while being too small to pick up visually, and while it won’t destroy the barge it will certainly take it out of commission. But that screws up the environment too

LastFirstMI is my name > ranwhenparked 05/06/2020 at 19:58

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This has the best return on investment. Pocket the GoFundMe cash, wait for it to sink, and enjoy :)

Dead_Elvis, Inc. > AestheticsInMotion 05/06/2020 at 20:13

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no sane man

Consider who we’re dealing with here.

zipfuel > NKato 05/06/2020 at 20:18

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But what if Steven Seagal is unavailable?

zipfuel > MKULTRA1982(ConCrustyBrick) 05/06/2020 at 20:29

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Only snag is I’m pretty sure Dennis Rodman is unextortable, there’s no way that guy has any shame left . You’d be better off just dropping the “solid gold” statue along with a whole bunch of NK flag/basketball pool floaties on his doorstep and wait for the cogs to slowly turn in his mind about what to do with them all...

I did wonder about a biological attack, some super ecoli in the water that gives everyone the galloping shits.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 20:30

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I did get UDT training in the military and I’m from Hawaii, been diving my whole life, I’m sure we can sink whatever POS N.Korea built. 

zipfuel > facw 05/06/2020 at 20:50

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Man why is it only the bad guys get to play at Thunderbirds?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=uvyBj0KemdE

Snuze: Needs another Swede > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 20:52

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Couple of Mark 48 ADCAP torpedos.  Thats all it takes. 

zipfuel > My bird IS the word 05/06/2020 at 20:55

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Don’t spend it all in Colombia...

A million doesn’t go as far as it once did but it seems like a wet sub or scooter would fit the bill.

https://www.mysubmarines.com/

zipfuel > Snuze: Needs another Swede 05/06/2020 at 20:57

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Do you know a guy?

Snuze: Needs another Swede > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 21:03

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I am the guy.

zipfuel > AestheticsInMotion 05/06/2020 at 21:07

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Oh man that’s just great psychological warfare anyway, buy yourself nein und neinsich luft ball ons (weather variety) and se t them to drift over Pyongyang with GPS triggers. They’d be freaked out in the extreme and then cleaning up sparkles for decades

AestheticsInMotion > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 21:17

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I sent a glitter bomb to a friend about two years ago. She says she's still seeing glitter in her living room. 

zipfuel > Snuze: Needs another Swede 05/06/2020 at 21:28

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I will not be asking to see your Torpedo

Old-Busted-Hotness > zipfuel 05/06/2020 at 22:00

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Grab a tugboat and just steal the son of a bitch. 

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > AestheticsInMotion 05/07/2020 at 00:07

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment?wprov=sfti1

Snuze: Needs another Swede > zipfuel 05/07/2020 at 08:58

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Good, cause I’m not showing.

When I was on active duty, my boat got picked to do a live fire exercise and we got to fire a war-shot at an old, decommissioned transport ship.  It was pretty wild.