We've had HPM weapons for quite some time. We've even USED them in battle before, during actions in the Middle East. Oddly enough, if you REALLY looked close at certain news reports, you could even ferret out some evidence for it. Typically, it was employed just before a stealth run. Some of the news accounts that mention the effects, will have you believe that the downed systems just before the missions were the result of hackers, but it wasn't. It was also the result of specialized cruise missiles sent in prior to the bombers. It's not geared towards affecting hardened equipment like missile launchers, etc. It's more for totally destroying C&C (command and control) networks. However, this will be less effective in NK, because a lot of this network is underground or in hardened mountains. This wasn't the case in the desert.
As for the wargames, they are necessary when coordinating troops from different nations, using different equipment, command structures, etc. Trying to do that in response after the fact, would be a logistical nightmare. Technically, we are still at war with NK, we just have an armistice with them.
He went nuclear for the reason of extortion...and it's been good to them...so I get it. I still say simply ignoring him is the best tactic. If he does then decide to go with a bang, then he'll soon realize why it's a bad idea. I just hope our leaders are smart enough to wage such a war the right way. It'll be a bit frustrating, as it will NOT be traditional...to be successful. It almost needs to be a war of containment, and then simply chipping away at their capability to wage war. It's the best way to go politically, militarily, and frankly, economically.
Oh snap, I just clicked on the link, and they are publicly talking about CHAMPs...that article is way off on actual dates though...but I had no idea those were actually public. Prior to those, we had vehicles set up for it. But, after health issues with the crews, they wisely went with a missile approach. I suspect they likely have some drone vehicles now for this purpose, but as my exposure was more to Boeing and Lockheed, I don't know much about that. Lockheed has an aerial drone for it, but like the missile, it's destroyed upon deploying the weapon effect.
The nice thing about the weapons, is that you can hamper the capability of a building, without taking out it and adjacent buildings with conventional weapons, which is great when you're doing a "liberation" action vs. destroying the enemy forces. It also minimized risk to the bombers to follow, meaning radar would be offline, SAMs not launching from the control centers, and AA crews not getting the commands.
