RE: North Korea Now Making Missile Ready Nuclear Weapons
August 14, 2017 at 10:24 pm
(This post was last modified: August 14, 2017 at 11:18 pm by Anomalocaris.)
It appears North Korea's recent spectacular missile performance advancement has been made possible by using soviet ballistic missile engine technology made available by Ukraine.
The missile engine in question powered soviet SS-18 ICBM. If true, this is bad news. SS-18 was a very powerful heavy ICBM with a 8 ton payload capacity sufficient to deliver 10 independent warheads or one very large, unminiaturized warhead in the size and weight ballpark of the primitive atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and nagasaki. Prior to this North Korea had been trying to refine and enlarge 1950s vintage SCUD class liquid fuel engines, which pre-dated soviet union's own 1st successful ICBM, and not having a whole lot of luck with it. Their earlier engines also use fuel that can't be stored for long periods aboard the missile, necessitating long refueling period period to launch, and giving significant warning in the process.
This is a much more advanced engine, it uses storable liquid fuel, allowing the missile to be fully fueled in the factory, and then stored, and can be launched with just minutes of preparation, effectively giving no warning.
The credibility of North Korean ICBMs threat went from not very real, because their engines are unreliable, their warheads too big, and they can't launch without length preparation that will alert us, to yeah, they likely can drop one somewhere on the continental US anytime they want, the only question is whether they will annihilate downtown or miss and wipe out a suburb.
The missile engine in question powered soviet SS-18 ICBM. If true, this is bad news. SS-18 was a very powerful heavy ICBM with a 8 ton payload capacity sufficient to deliver 10 independent warheads or one very large, unminiaturized warhead in the size and weight ballpark of the primitive atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and nagasaki. Prior to this North Korea had been trying to refine and enlarge 1950s vintage SCUD class liquid fuel engines, which pre-dated soviet union's own 1st successful ICBM, and not having a whole lot of luck with it. Their earlier engines also use fuel that can't be stored for long periods aboard the missile, necessitating long refueling period period to launch, and giving significant warning in the process.
This is a much more advanced engine, it uses storable liquid fuel, allowing the missile to be fully fueled in the factory, and then stored, and can be launched with just minutes of preparation, effectively giving no warning.
The credibility of North Korean ICBMs threat went from not very real, because their engines are unreliable, their warheads too big, and they can't launch without length preparation that will alert us, to yeah, they likely can drop one somewhere on the continental US anytime they want, the only question is whether they will annihilate downtown or miss and wipe out a suburb.