North Korea Now Making Missile Ready Nuclear Weapons

[vorlon13]

North Korea is inherently resistant to attack.

Targeting electrical power stations . . well, the country is dark at night to satellites.

Disrupting consumer supply chain . . . ineffective, country is in state of near starvation/famine all the time anyhow

Blasting highways and bridges . . . no cars

[A Theist]

North Korea is inherently resistant to attack.

Targeting electrical power stations . . well, the country is dark at night to satellites.

Disrupting consumer supply chain . . . ineffective, country is in state of near starvation/famine all the time anyhow

Blasting highways and bridges . . .  no cars

I was going to say, we could blast them back to the stone age, but they're already there. There's always Pyongyang, though. It thrives while the rest of North Korea starves to death.

[vorlon13]

I've mentioned this before, but consider this:




A hotel with thousands of rooms and 8 restaurants in a country that doesn't allow visitors and has no food.  We fundamentally do not and can not understand this country.

[Anomalocaris]

North Korea is inherently resistant to attack.

Targeting electrical power stations . . well, the country is dark at night to satellites.

Disrupting consumer supply chain . . . ineffective, country is in state of near starvation/famine all the time anyhow

Blasting highways and bridges . . .  no cars

Target Kim?

---

I've mentioned this before, but consider this:




A hotel with thousands of rooms and 8 restaurants in a country that doesn't allow visitors and has no food.  We fundamentally do not and can not understand this country.

when that hotel was first mooted, there was still a soviet block to provide ideologically acceptable visitors. The hotel had lain unfinished for 20 years after the fall of the eastern block. Then a Egyptian hotel concern for some reason determined it was worthwhile to finance the completion of the derelict edifice and manage the hotel.

[Brian37]

North Korea is inherently resistant to attack.

Targeting electrical power stations . . well, the country is dark at night to satellites.

Disrupting consumer supply chain . . . ineffective, country is in state of near starvation/famine all the time anyhow

Blasting highways and bridges . . .  no cars

Target Kim?

---

I've mentioned this before, but consider this:




A hotel with thousands of rooms and 8 restaurants in a country that doesn't allow visitors and has no food.  We fundamentally do not and can not understand this country.

when that hotel was first mooted, there was still a soviet block to provide ideologically acceptable visitors.  The hotel had lain unfinished for 20 years after the fall of the eastern block.   Then a Egyptian hotel concern for some reason determined it was worthwhile to finance the completion of the derelict edifice and manage the hotel.

I could give a shit less if they are making a success of that hotel or not. What matters is we have two unstable assholes, one with a Three Stooges jet black hair cut, the other with an orange roadkill on his head, with itchy trigger fingers ready to wipe out the planet.

[Anomalocaris]

It's all about you, isn't it.

[Iroscato]

It's all about you, isn't it.

QFT

Brian, for the 87 decillionth time, chill the fuck out.

[Brian37]

It's all about you, isn't it.

QFT

Brian, for the 87 decillionth time, chill the fuck out.

I am chilled.

[vorlon13]

Here's some items:

Looks like the footage showing the splashdown of the last NORK missile from Japan without a simultaneous view from a different angle won't be terribly useful to the NORKS in plotting where it actually came down compared to where they thought/wanted/expected it to come down. Now, do we (US intel) now where NORK thought it would come down?? Idunno. It would be a VERY interesting piece of information to have.

US (??) announced how high the missile went (~2300 miles nearly straight up, IIRC). Do the NORKS have independent confirmation of how high it went?? Telemetry?? Theodolite?? Anything?? If US fudged the figure a bit, and they have no other number, it would really FU their program.

What condition was the missile in at impact with the ocean ?? Seems like the NORKS would not have any way of retrieving any of it, and as for the US, I think the motivation for a sample would be considerable.

How accurately was the trajectory recorded during the descent?? Did the missile maneuver on the way down? Was the trajectory strictly ballistic during re-entry and/or did the missile evidence aerodynamic lift as it came down?

And a side issue, what kind of decal was observed during the descent?? A lot?? Or a little?? The implication would be indicative of how heavily the missile was loaded. Was the nose cone empty, or ballasted to simulate the mass of a warhead??


I'm thinking the NORKS and the US intel folks don't separately each have all the answers. All the answers would be needed to A) make a realistic threat with the missile and B) make a realistic threat assessment of any announced (mis)use of the missile.

[Anomalocaris]

AFAIK, North Korea does not possess a missile range tracking ship required for precise monitoring of over-water long range missile tests.   These ships are unmistakable, sporting large radio-telescope like radar dishes and hemispherical telescope domes housing large optical telescopes for precise tracking of reentry vehicles.

However, they may not need one.   They tested their missiles in a lofted trajectory flights, where the missile is given the same kinetic energy as expected in operational use, but instead of following typical operational trajectories, the missile is sent on a much higher trajectory that attain an apogee several times higher than the operational trajectory, but covering only a tiny traction of the lateral range of the operational trajectory.
This allows the full energy performance of the missile to be demonstrated, while keeping the missile above visual Horizonte and observable by radar  from launch site during most of the flight.

Also, warheads capable of radical terminal maneuver are a relatively new thing even for Russia and china, attained only within the last decade.  I highly doubt North Korea is capable of it.  North Korean warheads are probably purely ballistic, the impact point of the warhead would be largely set by the final course corrections of the last booster stage, which occurs only a fraction of the way into the entire flight.

So they can tell from radar tracking approximately where the impact point is and how far the missile missed by.