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posted by martyb on Thursday October 03 2019, @06:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the things-that-go-Zoom!-in-the-night dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

North Korea carries out ninth launch since June, just hours after announcing new talks with United States.

The National Security Council in Seoul expressed "strong concern" over the launch of what it said may have been a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), according to a statement issued by the presidential Blue House.

If confirmed, it would be the first time North Korea has launched an undersea missile in three years.

Japan lodged an immediate protest, saying the missile landed inside Japan's economic exclusive zone - the first time a North Korean missile has landed that close to Japan since November 2017. The EEZ covers waters as far as 370 kilometres (230 miles) from the coast.

Defence Minister Taro Kono called the launch "a serious threat to Japanese national security" adding that it was an "extremely problematic and dangerous act" for the safety of vessels and aircraft. Kono declined to say whether the projectile was a submarine-launched missile.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the launch violated UN resolutions that ban North Korea from conducting any launch using ballistic technology.

"We will continue to cooperate with the US and the international community and do the utmost to maintain and protect the safety of the people as we stay on alert," Abe said.

South Korea's military said the missile was launched towards the sea from around Wonsan, the site of one of North Korea's military bases on the east coast. 

[...] "We call on (North Korea) to refrain from provocations, abide by their obligations under UN Security Council Resolutions, and remain engaged in substantive and sustained negotiations to do their part to ensure peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and achieve denuclearisation," a [US] state department spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

[...] The launch is the ninth since US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met at the heavily-guarded Demilitarised Zone between the two Koreas in June, with talks over the North's nuclear and missile programmes  stalled since the second summit between the two men collapsed in February.

It came just a day after Pyongyang announced it had agreed with the US to hold working-level talks on Saturday potentially breaking months of stalemate.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by SparkyGSX on Thursday October 03 2019, @09:57AM (10 children)

    by SparkyGSX (4041) on Thursday October 03 2019, @09:57AM (#902214)

    Do Japan, South Korea, or the US ever recover any of those missiles? This sounds like a good opportunity to take a look at what they actually have.

    So far, I haven't seen any evidence they can build more than large model rockets. They never announce beforehand where they are aiming the rocket, which would prove they have functional navigational and guidance systems. Also, a rocket without a payload is a lot easier to build than one with the weight of a realistic warhead.

    --
    If you do what you did, you'll get what you got
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @10:47AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @10:47AM (#902219)

      They will have their nuclear ICBM in no time. This stuff isn't even that hard.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @11:30AM (8 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @11:30AM (#902225)

      Announce with time to allow repositioning spy satellites just because of the good heart of them? Guidance system?
      Well most nazi V2s hit London close enough to make a big mess would had carried nuclear warheads.

      You are delusional thinking that North Korea nuclear threat is really aimed at sparse hardened military targets needing precission guidance.
      Their nukes are mostly meant as retaliatory WMDs targeting overpopulated South Korea, Japan AND west coast US cities, with hundreds of millions of potential victims. That is why we are in deep shit and the US tries to avoid alarming people focusing on things like the Guam nuking threat but that is just sabre rattiling between dickheads and range bragging and evidently it's not going to happen because an hour later most of North Korea is going to be a big hole in the ground.

      Also ballast payload => No warhead payload =/= No payload.

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 03 2019, @12:48PM (5 children)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday October 03 2019, @12:48PM (#902237) Journal

        V2s killed something like 20,000 people in London, so that's not an insignificant number considering it was an experimental weapon with a conventional warhead. If Germany had been able to get them going earlier it might have been a game changer.

        I wouldn't be surprised if the US was recovering the spent NK missiles to examine them. They have tasked many satellites and other assets to keep a close eye on them at this point, and the US Navy certainly has the means to reach the deepest places in the ocean.

        What NK probably doesn't realize is that it would only take one US nuclear sub to scrub their country, its leaders, and all its people off the face of the Earth.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday October 03 2019, @02:45PM (3 children)

          by richtopia (3160) on Thursday October 03 2019, @02:45PM (#902283) Homepage Journal

          What NK probably doesn't realize is that it would only take one US nuclear sub to scrub their country, its leaders, and all its people off the face of the Earth.

          This is the exact reason you develop SLBMs. North Korea won't be able to hit MAD status with the USA, but even a single submarine could pose a serious second strike risk.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @07:46PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 03 2019, @07:46PM (#902409)

            There's a lot of misunderstanding regarding the type of threat posed by these submarines. People hear submarine launched ballistic missiles and immediately think they're similar to the weapons deployed during the Cold War. They aren't.

            These missiles, regardless of their accuracy or lack thereof, have only a short range of perhaps a thousand km at most. Think Tomahawk, not Polaris or Poseidon.

            Aha, but couldn't the submarine just travel to the US and launch the missiles from near the coast? No, they could not. The submarines do not have the range for that either. They are small, diesel powered submarines not capable of crossing the Pacific. While the weapons they carry are more advanced, the submarines themselves are not much better than was available during WW2, and most importantly they are just too small to carry the necessary fuel and provisions.

            There's also the matter of avoiding the US Navy long enough to get into position. In the event of actual threat of hostilities, I'd expect every NK sub to have its own attack submarine following it from the moment it leaves port.

            The missiles do pose some threat to Japan, the extent of which depends on whether they are actually capable of carrying nuclear weapons and of course whether those weapons actually work. Both are possible, neither is certain.

            The threat from their ICBMs is similarly overstated. Those missiles are liquid fueled, making them more like spacecraft than operational military weapons, with similar amounts of preparation required. Perfectly adequate if you just want to show off, not so good if you are trying to launch them with Tomahawk missiles falling on you.

            As has been the case since the 1950s, the real threat from North Korea is plain old artillery pointing at Seoul, plus the uncertainty regarding how much support China is willing to give them. Actual North Korean threats to the US are still very minimal, although it's important to remember that that is not necessarily going to be true forever.

            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @12:31AM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @12:31AM (#902489)

              Interestingly, the S-18 Satan / R-36M ICBM deployed by the Soviet Union is liquid fuelled, and it still forms a significant part of the backbone of today's Russian strategic nuclear forces. The SS-18 being replaced by the RS-28 Sarmat, which is also liquid fuelled. I don't know why everyone seems to think of liquid fuelled rockets as unwieldy for strategic ICBM use when the Russians have a significant part of their arsenal using them. I doubt it would take as long for the Russians to get their SS-18s ready to launch as a Soyuz rocket. I doubt that the North Koreans are using cryogenic liquid fuels in their missiles, which is the main reason spacecraft launches take so much time. I imagine they're using something like nitrogen tetroxide / hydrazine like the Russians do. Those are reactive and corrosive chemicals to be sure, but you could leave them in an ICBM fuel tank for a while and be ready to fire immediately.

              Other than that a lot of good points.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @01:18AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 04 2019, @01:18AM (#902501)

                True enough. As far as I know, however, the North Koreans don't have any missile silos like the Soviets did. The missiles are mounted on trucks (which the Soviets also did), but don't appear to be able to launch from them, instead needing to be assembled, fueled, and launched from a pad. The trucks seem mostly useful to make it harder to preemptively strike the missiles rather than as launch vehicles.

                Building missile silos is a significant challenge, as they must be hardened against attack, able to eject the missile, and then ignite the missile engine at launch with precise timing. Although I have only seen public information, I don't know of any significant developments toward silos by North Korea.

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 03 2019, @02:58PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 03 2019, @02:58PM (#902289) Journal

          one US nuclear sub to scrub [North Korea], its leaders, and all its people off the face of the Earth.

          China might have an interest in preventing this from happening on its southern border. China could simply build a wall along their southern border to protect from nuclear fallout coming across the border.

          Maybe China would have the sense to invade NK in advance?

          Or summon Kim Jong to Beijing for a talkin' to, in advance. Oh, wait. Maybe they just did.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday October 03 2019, @01:04PM

        by Rupert Pupnick (7277) on Thursday October 03 2019, @01:04PM (#902246) Journal

        I'm not sure I'm understanding all of your points, but I do agree that the North Korean missile program is intended for threats/retaliation, not unlike the V-weapons themselves. V stands for Vergeltungswaffe, which means "retaliation weapon".

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by SparkyGSX on Thursday October 03 2019, @04:11PM

        by SparkyGSX (4041) on Thursday October 03 2019, @04:11PM (#902332)

        No, announcing the target ahead of time would make the threat much more impressive, because it would show that they can actually hit a target they were aiming for. Hitting the ocean isn't particularly impressive, it's pretty big and hard to miss.

        Obviously there might be a ballast payload, but what makes you think they aren't just launching oversized empty fireworks?

        --
        If you do what you did, you'll get what you got
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 03 2019, @04:11PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday October 03 2019, @04:11PM (#902333) Journal

    "Just landed - a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!" -- President Donald J Trump, 13 Jun 2018

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