Posted on 04/13/2019 1:46:33 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
North Korea is possibly building a new submarine that can fire ballistic missiles, according to South Korean and U.S. defense officials, Friday.
This could be a serious security threat to the United States as the submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) may reach as far as the U.S. mainland.
"[SLBM technology] changes the defense equation in terms of where the origin could be," U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood said Wednesday (local time) in a Senate hearing.
The SLBMs are considered more threatening weapons than intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), as they are harder to detect and increase the regime's strike capabilities in a more secretive manner.
According to recent Google Earth satellite images, components presumed to be used for developing a submarine capable of launching missiles have been detected near the North's shipyard in Sinpo. The materials were not detected in images taken last year.
The South Korean military said it is closely monitoring the regime's recent movements in the region.
"We need more time to analyze whether the components are actually used for developing the submarine or SLBMs," a military official said.... (excerpt)
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2019/04/05/2019040501685.html
Subs are expensixlve to build, expensive to fix, expensive to operate, complicated and the crews need lots of training. Headline shoupd read “North Korea Suspected of Building Large Sea Coffin”.
Hahahaha...well said!
Navy nukes are special people crewing very complex boats. The notion that the Norks could slap one together and pull this off is dubious.
The PRC with far greater resources and better stolen technology have struggled to put a seaworthy boomer in the water.
Good one.
Submarine delivery systems make it difficult for foreign adversaries to have confidence they could wipe out DPRK nuclear-retaliation capability with a first strike. That’s why it’s unsurprising that North Korea is quietly proceeding with the development of the Sinpo-C and Pukkuksong-3 (speculated to be an upgraded version of the land land-based solid-fuel Pukguksong-2) despite ambiguous promises to denuclearize. If I were them and in their constant state of paranoia and lying to the outside world, I would likely be doing the same thing. Japan was a joke to most Americans before Pearl Harbor. One Sunday morning in the span of just a few hours sure did away with the cynical humor and dismissiveness to that point.
I’d hate to be a member of the crew on it’s maiden voyage....
Or they could grow food instead
Maybe Japan should be concerned.
But there’s no way Norklandia could get a SSB close enough to the US to be a threat if we didn’t want them too. Not even Hawaii or Guam.
And there’s only one and it’s conventionally powered.
Little more than a fun target with a very short lifespan.
“Japan was a joke to most Americans before Pearl Harbor. One Sunday morning in the span of just a few hours sure did away with the cynical humor and dismissiveness to that point.”
To compare Norklandia with Imperial Japan is simply ludicrous.
Imperial Japan was a world power with the second best navy in existence. And it was the best at the onset of hostilities.
Further, prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan had troops in the field already at war for something like five years.
North Korea has had no such war time experience for young officers and noncoms.
Having made that comment, a North Korean sub on the prowl could do a lot of damage before it is sunk. However, even the technically sophisticated Russian Navy had persistent problems getting the hang of submarines and submarine weaponry
Finished stockpiling Fiberglass are they
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