Free Republic

Today, Kim Jang-soo, South Korea’s new national security director, said North Korea may fire off a missile as soon as Wednesday. The launch will undoubtedly be a test of an intermediate-range missile, not an attack. North Korea last week moved two missiles, which were subsequently loaded onto mobile launchers, to its east coast. Many expect the missiles, which have been subsequently moved to hidden locations, will be fired in trajectories arcing over Japan. ... The KN-08 sits on an eight-axle mobile vehicle—a transporter-erector-launcher in military lingo—that can hide and shoot, so America’s costly missile defense system is considered necessary because...

A new cruise-missile system being marketed by a Russian firm is attracting attention as a weapon that, according to its own promotional video, could transform ordinary civilian freight vehicles into long-range missile launchers. The weapon, known as the Club-K Container Missile System, has been promoted on the Internet and at international arms fairs by the Moscow-based defense firm Concern Morinformsystem-Agat. The state-controlled firm's marketing campaign describes a concealed and highly mobile satellite-guided missile system that could be hidden inside an ordinary cargo container -- making it indistinguishable from other freight containers on trains, trucks, or cargo ships. The development of...