There are now barely more than a few days between repeated announcements of new missile tests in Asia. This time, it is North Korea's turn to have announced the successful firing of a new type of ballistic missile launched from a submarine, designated by the term Submarine-Launcher Ballistic Missile, or SLBM .
But this time it is not an imposing intercontinental missile intended to strike distant strategic targets such as American cities, but a missile of smaller dimensions, whose shape and flight plan are reminiscent of the tests carried out in recent years by Pyongyang, and which posed so many difficulties for the South Korean and Japanese anti-missile systems.
Indeed, the photos published by the official press agency of North Korea reveal a missile whose appearance is reminiscent of the KN-23 missile, and the Russian SS-26 Iskander-M from which it is very probably derived, and which a version transported by rail was tested on September 16. The trajectory followed by the missile, with a peak at 60 km and a distance traveled of 450 km, also recalls the performance of this missile designed to operate under the engagement floor of the THAAD and SM-3 anti-ballistic systems deployed in Japan and South Korea by the US Army and the South Korean and Japanese naval forces.
And if no precise reference makes it possible to determine the exact size of the missile in the published photos, these parameters are sufficient to estimate with a reduced margin of error that the new missile tested by Pyongyang does indeed belong to this family.
However, such a missile, much more compact than the very imposing Pukkuksong intercontinental ballistic missiles which were unveiled last year, offers increased flexibility of use for North Korea, which would then be able to equip small submarines with them, and not the imposing Sinpo which serves as platform for intercontinental SLBMs in the country.
With a range of 500 km, the missile is in fact perfectly capable of hitting important targets in Japan and South Korea, and can therefore be distributed aboard numerous submarines that would be almost impossible to neutralize. simultaneously to deprive the North Korean authorities of potentially nuclear strike capabilities, as is the strategy currently implemented by Seoul to neutralize the nuclear threat of its neighbor.
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