“Its not like we have artillery pieces in position and ready for a fire mission. The situation is usually that we have soldiers sleeping in barracks, with their vehicles tarped in the motor pool.”
You think that if the US launches a first strike on the DPRK, that US soldiers in ROK will just be sitting around sleeping?
There’s lots of different attack scenarios, and I don’t know which one would be pursued. My suspicion is that the ROK won’t allow attacks from their territory, in order to reduce the odds that the DPRK would retaliate. If that’s the case however, if the DPRK does shell - immediately or later - then the US and ROK will return fire across the DMZ, with air support. If the DPRK goes into full invasion mode, the US and ROK will immediately counter, and it’ll lead to the taking of Pyongyang.
But sure, if we launched a first strike, we would have our artillery in position.
Now, I mentioned before that the doomsday scenario had my unit driving through/over a tin shack housing area to get to position. This is because out 'battle plan' always envisioned a North Korean first strike - it never even occurred to us that we might strike first.
If you drive around the roads near the DMZ, you will find an almost comical assortment of road blocking strategies, that only Wiley Coyote could come up with, to block mobility. Again, this is because we have really only envisioned a North Korean first strike.
If we do strike first (IMHO a horrible mistake), it would be a massive demonstration of air power, doing plenty of damage...but merely leaving North Korea more broken than it already is. I just don't see the purpose of a first strike, unless there is a genuine nuclear threat.