New North Korean ballistic missiles

SUPER=BUG said:
I don't really think North Korea will give up reunification; it's just that the time for reunification hasn't come yet. However, I am sure that throwing nuclear bombs at South Korea would definitely not be conducive to reunification.

But you have to admit, North Korea has done very well in missile development.
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It's more about claiming of being a true heir to the continious Korean states, than any kind of "reunification" desire. Essentially, both DPRK and ROK are claiming the historical sucsession from ancient Korean kingdoms and empires (spanning for more than two millenias of history) and therefore declare themselves as truly legitimate governments of all Koreans. It's not that they actually want to do anything about that, hovewer. Both sides perfectly realize, that they could not assimilate each other population due to tremendous ideological divide & soon-to-be-a-century of propaganda.
ComradeVortex said:
All we can hope for is a normalization of relations between the two.
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Its possible that some kind of compromize could be found, if both Koreas agree to "share the historical sucsession", i.e. mutually admit each other.
 
Forest Green said:
Excuse me if I don't take his word for it.
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Look from pragmatic point of view. Why Kim the 3rd might want to took over Korea? Despite all propaganda claims, North elites perfectly realize, that assimilating fifty millions of South Koreans would be simply impossible task. And there would be no economic advantages of doing that, since South Korean economy is lucrative only when intact & integrated into international trade. So why bother? Kim dynasty is generally isolationistic; their ideology almost completely shred all remains of communism & now concentrated soley on North Korean nationalism.
 
Probably diverging too much, but just to say there can't be any sort of compromise as long as american occupation forces are in SK essentially running it, with the local government just doing as told. Otherwise i can see someone as astute as KJU proposing some very favourable compromises such as a two systems country and offering to share the nuclear deterrent with the south, as long as there are no more american occupation troops in SK and normal relations are restored.
 
Dilandu said:
Look from pragmatic point of view. Why Kim the 3rd might want to took over Korea? Despite all propaganda claims, North elites perfectly realize, that assimilating fifty millions of South Koreans would be simply impossible task. And there would be no economic advantages of doing that, since South Korean economy is lucrative only when intact & integrated into international trade. So why bother? Kim dynasty is generally isolationistic; their ideology almost completely shred all remains of communism & now concentrated soley on North Korean nationalism.
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Since when has the Kim dynasty been concerned with pragmatsm?
 
Forest Green said:
Since when has the Kim dynasty been concerned with pragmatsm?
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Since ever. If you didn't notice, they even managed to stay neutral during Soviet-Sino split, despite depending heavily on both USSR and PRC. And current Kim is basically realpolitik embodied; he purged nearly all Communist elements from North Korean ideology, concentrated external politics on doing only what is beneficial for North Korea and put heavy emphasis on improving economy situation (small detail that many don't notice - on all public events, Kim's speeches are recorded by public listeners on smartphones).
 
lancer21 said:
Probably diverging too much, but just to say there can't be any sort of compromise as long as american occupation forces are in SK essentially running it. Otherwise i can see someone as astute as KJU proposing some very favourable compromises such as a two systems country and offering to share the nuclear deterrent with the south, as long as there are no more american occupation troops in SK and normal relations are restored.
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Quite likely. Moreover, I suspect that Kim the 3rd would be perfectly willing to discuss transparency and size limitations on his nuclear arsenal - if US would officially drop the total denuclearization demands.
 
SUPER=BUG said:
How were their missile launch vehicles developed?
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They were originally based on the chinese built Wanshan WS51200 chassis
that the dprk purchased a small number [6?] of back in 2010.
These days I`d imagine that the 9-11 axle versions we now see are probably built almost entirely in the dprk.

20120417172509.jpg
 
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Dilandu said:
Actually, from the current point of view, the North Korea government is probably one of the most rational and responsible around.
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Absolutely, unlike their southern neighbors who live in a corporate dystopia which sees coup attempts every other year (usually coupled with attempted false flags to frame North Korea in order to facilitate a power grab). What does North Korea do in these cases? Destroy the roads South, put their military on readiness and watch what the crazies down there are doing this time.

The DPRK engages in plenty of saber rattling, like many powers do (every nuclear power except maybe China engages in similar behavior on basically a weekly basis). But that, coupled with the continued development and modernization of their strategic forces, their missile and artillery forces and their already fairly developed drone forces is meant to do one thing: deter US and US-backed southern aggression.

And seeing how Iran had to learn the hard way that there is no such thing as reason or good faith in the US leadership, they know the only thing that will keep the peace is a nuclear deterrent. Only when you can threaten to toast millions of Americans you'll be able to keep the hounds in their government at arms length.

Subsequently, they will continue to invest a large portion of their resources into their missile program, of which we regularly see various updates because they want these to be seen. And now more than ever China and especially Russia are willing to offer valuable assistance on these matters. Countries which haven't stagnated with regards to strategic missile development.
 
EmoBirb said:
And seeing how Iran had to learn the hard way that there is no such thing as reason or good faith in the US leadership, they know the only thing that will keep the peace is a nuclear deterrent. Only when you can threaten to toast millions of Americans you'll be able to keep the hounds in their government at arms length.
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The major difference between DPRK and Iran is that DPRK was coherent in their strategy. They decided that they wanted nuclear deterrence, and agreed to pay the price in terms on international sanctions, political damage, ect., ect., ect. End result - they have bombs, missiles, building nuclear submarines, and world more and more agree with the nuclear North Korea as simple fact of the world.

Iran, on the other hand, never was coherent about their goals. The Iranian nuclear program was always more a bargaining tool, than the straightforward effort to build the bomb. As a result, they both failed to bargain, and failed to deter.
 
lancer21 said:
DPRK is the perfect example of peace through superior firepower meme. No doubt they are watching with GREAT interest the war in ME and specifically the failure of the american/'israeli' missile defences, and adapting their missile designs and CONOPS accordingly. So if the new engine allows for a 10 or more MIRVs ICBM, just ten missiles means 100 plus warheads/decoys. Good luck stopping them all. Which of course means DPRK's MAD capability becomes that much more resilient.
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GBI takes down the bus before the RVs are deployed. You're welcome.
 
quellish said:
North Korea does not lake decisions other countries may consider rational. How they rant their calories spent differs from other countries.

All show, not so much “go”
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"Calories go into rocket. Not into you." - Dear Leader
 
Sferrin said:
"Calories go into rocket. Not into you." - Dear Leader
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Ironically, DPRK standards of life started growing more or less in parallel with their missile program.
As it reached maturity, they really spiked, not the least because of it.
Forest Green said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2090707053685731752
View: https://x.com/wartranslated/status/2090707053685731752?s=20


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwasong-11C
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I somewhat wonder if Russia uses DPRK imports to mirror western supplies in kind.
Tactical KN-23/24 to tactical ATCMS in 2023，heavyweight KN-30 to heavyweight Flamingo.

It's cheap, safe and allows clean escalation dominance even in retaliation. Plus a lot of good will: DPRK is so thoroughly sanctioned, that even modest compensation(both in cash and in hard to obtain goods and equipment) produces a lot of lasting good will.
 
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Sineva said:
The leaps they`ve made in both liquid & solid fuel is very impressive.
Its hard to believe it was only 14 years ago that the first dprk icbm prototype made its debut.
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Why is that so hard to believe? First Soviet ICBM prototype was launched in 1957. In less than 14 years soviets added a whole range of better ICBMs, including UR-100, R-36 and solid propellant RT-2.
US first flew their SD-65 in 1959. In less than 14 years it put Minuteman III and Polaris into service.

One could argue "but NK doesn't have the resources nor reason to invest as much resources into swift development". But reason argument is hard to gauge. Maybe they do think it's the most urgent thing for them. And resources wise - sure, they lag in that regard. But at the same time, it's not 1950s and 1960s. There's a lot of compounded knowledge out there on ballistic missile by today, so it's easier for NK to tread that same path. Not to mention there probably HAS been some tech transfer over the decades, with other world powers.
 
Sferrin said:
GBI takes down the bus before the RVs are deployed. You're welcome.
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Assuming you could filter all decoys correctly. And, of course, a single interception failure would means death of several millions of Americans. As deterrence, this is quite efficient way to ensure that US would not be willing to suddenly attack North Korea.
 
totoro said:
One could argue "but NK doesn't have the resources nor reason to invest as much resources into swift development". But reason argument is hard to gauge. Maybe they do think it's the most urgent thing for them. And resources wise - sure, they lag in that regard. But at the same time, it's not 1950s and 1960s. There's a lot of compounded knowledge out there on ballistic missile by today, so it's easier for NK to tread that same path. Not to mention there probably HAS been some tech transfer over the decades, with other world powers.
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Important points also:

* North Korea is walking the path that was well-researched by others before. Current data about rocket engines, solid fuels, ect - even just publically available one! - is orders of magnitude more than what was available in 1960s. So it's took them far less time to develope their own missile technology, because they works with already-available data;

* Modern commercial computer technology is several orders of magnitude better than top-grade military computers of 1960s. The level of modelling and calculation, that now could be performed in mere seconds, would require months of work in 1960s;
 
Dilandu said:
Important points also:
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Though it's still profoundly crazy, how many military (and to a lesser degree, civilian too) engineering directions they take per capita.

I somewhat wonder, what's going to be a DPRK equivalent of big mac index.
 
Ainen said:
I somewhat wonder, what's going to be a DPRK equivalent of big mac index.
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You'd probably have to get creative and do a kimchi index to SK and then compare that to the Big Mac Index.

Cost of 10kg of traditionally-made kimchi in DPRK versus cost of 10kg traditionally-made kimchi in SK, then Big Mac Index to the rest of the planet.

It'd still not be great, since the biggest value of the Big Mac Index is seeing where exchange rates are headed in about 6 months. ~35 years of sustained data. And the Kimchi index doesn't have that comparison (yet).
 
Ainen said:
Though it's still profoundly crazy, how many military (and to a lesser degree, civilian too) engineering directions they take per capita.
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Well, they have multiple examples of nations that did not spend enough on their defense - Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, Iran - and got devastated as a result. So they have very ample reasons to continue to pump money into military.
 
Dilandu said:
Well, they have multiple examples of nations that did not spend enough on their defense - Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, Iran - and got devastated as a result. So they have very ample reasons to continue to pump money into military.
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Most of those were also putting a heck of a lot of money into their military in % of GDP.
 
Dilandu said:
But far less efficiently; Iran, for example, wasted money between Republican military and IRGC for political reasons mostly.
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Dprk is unlikely to be especially efficient.
What's different there now(not in the past) is not just laser focus on military, it's that it's full industrial military/civilian economy running at 1500 usd per capita.

I.e. rockets are cool enough, engineers behind rockets are more so; especially since wast majority are trained and taught locally.
But nearly all machining tools are also sourced, manufactured and developed in DPRK. And broadly same can be told about most of the economy.
 
DPRK is i think the closest visual proof we have than money is a scam, it's only exists if you only believe it is. What kind of "conventional" economy is needed to create and build the kind of weapon systems DPRK did, at least a trillion dollar one? So putting figures like 20 billion or 40 billion GDP for DPRK or 1500 USD per capita is just a futile exercise. If one wants to get some kind of equivalence to "conventional" economies one needs to add at least another zero imo.
 
Dilandu said:
But far less efficiently; Iran, for example, wasted money between Republican military and IRGC for political reasons mostly.
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Yeah, one can imagine the recent conflict if Iran had run it's military procurement and buildup even half as efficiently as DPRK, the current woes of Iran's enemies in the region would have been nothing comparably speaking.
 
Ainen said:
What's different there now(not in the past) is not just laser focus on military, it's that it's full industrial military/civilian economy running at 1500 usd per capita.

I.e. rockets are cool enough, engineers behind rockets are more so; especially since wast majority are trained and taught locally.
But nearly all machining tools are also sourced, manufactured and developed in DPRK. And broadly same can be told about most of the economy.
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Absolute fact, true. They managed to create a fully-localized industrial economy, that did not rely on foreign trade. Essentially they are confirmation that international trade, while important, may not be essential, if the nation could produce everything by itself.
 
lancer21 said:
Yeah, one can imagine the recent conflict if Iran had run it's military procurement and buildup even half as efficiently as DPRK, the current woes of Iran's enemies in the region would have been nothing comparably speaking.
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And likely noy only enemies in region; Iran have sattelite-launch capabilities for years, i.e. could launch at least limited ICBM strikes against US territory.
 
lancer21 said:
Yeah, one can imagine the recent conflict if Iran had run it's military procurement and buildup even half as efficiently as DPRK, the current woes of Iran's enemies in the region would have been nothing comparably speaking.
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I honestly really wonder why Iran didn't go on a shopping spree for DPRK weapons to date.
They're long standing partners, and not like DPRK gives a flying fvck about international opinion on the subject matter.
Dilandu said:
Well, considering results they are scaringly efficient. In less than 20 years they created both credible nuclear deterrence and blue-water navy from zero.
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Ironically, is it effect of lack of comparable sanctions?
Iranians are free enough to go in and out, and trade goes on in all directions.
As such, economy is inevitably much tighter tied into international pricing, and even a country with money from the ground has its hands tied by international economy.
lancer21 said:
DPRK is i think the closest visual proof we have than money is a scam, it's only exists if you only believe it is.
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Scam is a strong word: you still get best money can buy for dollars(if you're allowed to). But it's intertwined with US sanctions regime and attractiveness of economy.
So every dollar is indeed scarce and golden there, but it doesn't mean local economy is tied to them. In case of DPRK, ratio becomes atrocious.
Though ironically, maybe it's going to be less so going forwards, seeing how they got lots of dollars, and soon enough they started turning into Chinese BEVs...
 
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Dilandu said:
Absolute fact, true. They managed to create a fully-localized industrial economy, that did not rely on foreign trade. Essentially they are confirmation that international trade, while important, may not be essential, if the nation could produce everything by itself.
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The trick is figuring out how to make all those tools at home.

It's absolutely possible.

But it requires entire-nation focus on doing it.
 
Ainen said:
I honestly really wonder why Iran didn't go on a shopping spree for DPRK weapons to date.
They're long standing partners, and not like DPRK gives a flying fvck about international opinion on the subject matter.
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They may give a flying fyck about international opinion, but they are careful; they perfectly realize than no one great power would like the proliferation of long-range missiles and nuclear technology. DPRK have no desire to anger USA (and China too) just for the sake of it.
 
Dilandu said:
They may give a flying fyck about international opinion, but they are careful; they perfectly realize than no one great power would like the proliferation of long-range missiles and nuclear technology. DPRK have no desire to anger USA (and China too) just for the sake of it.
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While delivering heavy warhead IRBMs to Ukraine?
US are realistically absolutely powerless about what DPRK does, as they already did everything possible; if anything, it's the opposite - any pain Korea can now inflict now is a direct leverage/coercion instrument.

China, maybe, but there's hardly strong incentive for China to talk out Kim of anything (something that costs Beijing a lot after failure of 2017 sanctions), and for what. To help out US?
 

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