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N Korea confirms missile tests; vows to bolster nuclear war deterrent

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By KIM TONG-HYUNG

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What a shame USA has made this kind of thing necessary rather than allowing countries to spend the money and use the resources required for nuclear arsenals on making life better for the population.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Kim Il Sung took power.

The Kim regime was established by Stalin with support from Mao, setting in motion the Kim cult of personality, which has been maintained for decades by Stalin and Mao's successors.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

China: Shhhhhh. Olympics on soon.

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Very slow moving missiles less than 500 MPH and 2 1/2 hours plus in the air. Any modern navy vessel with a CIWS will have no trouble downing such missiles.

Not really anything to be concerned about at this point. Just bellicose posturing and wasting money better spent on food and medicines for North Koreans.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

(Recapping a piece on another thread)

Apparently, North Korea is trying to perfect the know-how of building short-/long- range cruise missiles. If North Korea had perfected that know-how it would mean the expensive U.S.-made AEGIS missile defense systems had become meaningless and useless. Russia and China are said to already possess such missiles.

Military technology seems to be progressing rapidly, especially with the advent of IA technology, making deployment of large contingents of troops in overseas bases superfluous. Thus, building an air base for a U.S. Marine Corps air squadron in Henoko, Okinawa is nothing but nonsense and shenanigans.

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Apparently, North Korea is trying to perfect the know-how of building short-/long- range cruise missiles. If North Korea had perfected that know-how it would mean the expensive U.S.-made AEGIS missile defense systems had become meaningless and useless. Russia and China are said to already possess such missiles.

That is very far from true. Aegis was designed specifically to handle large volume missile attacks. The old Soviet Navy could throw many hundreds of missiles at a carrier strike group from long range bombers, subs and surface ships and the missiles would arrive from several different directions. It is optimized for this. The system can track and target hundreds of missiles simultaneously. The US Navy also pioneered vertical launch systems to allow ships to shoot missiles more rapidly than the older style mechanical arm launchers that could only launch one or two missiles at a time before parking to reload. When hundreds of enemy missiles are coming your way how fast the ships can shoot back matters. VLS can shoot about on missile per second per VLS array. Most DDGs and CGs have VLS arrays fore and aft so the rate of fire can be two missiles per second. Aegis can keep up with this.

In the years since it was introduced it has demonstrated the ability to track surface skimming cruise missiles, artillery shells (a capability used in Lebanon to find and counter attack Syrian artillery shooting at the US Embassy and the Marines guarding it). The radars can track space objects and using SM-3 can hit satellites and ballistic missiles. SM-3 Block II demonstrated the ability to knock down an ICBM, which is the fastest moving and most difficult target there is. The new SPY-6 and SPY-7 AESA radars coming on line are vastly more powerful but are low probability of intercept because each TR module can scan on a different frequency. That also makes it essentially impossible to jam. Because they are electronically scanned they can beam form in ways that will allow the radar itself to focus energy on incoming targets and destroy them (some AESAs carried by modern fighter aircraft can do this too at lower energy levels to electronically disable targets). More recently Aegis battle management software has been compressed into something that can run on a laptop computer allowing it to be plugged into all kinds of systems never designed to run it. It is so effective other branches of the military are adopting it as a battle management tool for other kinds of weapons.

US Navy ships train against missile surrogate targets like the subsonic sea skimming BQM-74 Chukar, BQM-177 and the supersonic ramjet powered GQM-163 Coyote. The AQM-37 is a Mach 4 high altitude screamer. The Navy is very good at shooting those down and has a variety of weapons that can do so, Standard SM-2/SM-6, ESSM, RAM and CIWS (see-whiz). Dozens of these targets are shot at the fleet during RIMPAC exercises to simulate "stream raids" and they get shot down very efficiently.

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When Putin find himself in a hole, he should stop digging or he will dig his own grave with his teeth in Ukraine

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Kim is just going to keep increasing these tests until the US pays him the attention he seeks. That is all this is about.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Desert Tortoise,

The Aegis system may deal with a volume of simultaneously incoming missiles as far as they are ballistic missiles. But what if they were low altitude-flying hypersonic cruise missiles?  

Your detailed description of newly developed missile systems doesn't refute my contention that "building an air base for a U.S. Marine Corps air squadron in Henoko, Okinawa is nothing but nonsense and shenanigans".

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The Aegis system may deal with a volume of simultaneously incoming missiles as far as they are ballistic missiles. But what if they were low altitude-flying hypersonic cruise missiles?  

Sigh. There is currently no such thing as a low flying hypersonic cruise missile. A cruise missile is an air breathing missile and no nation has an air breathing hypersonic missile in service. On Australia and the US have successfully demonstrated an air breathing hypersonic scramjet engine in flight. The US X-51 Waverider holds the current record for the longest sustained air breathing hypersonic flight, something over 3 minutes and it was at very high altitude. There is something much more advanced in development that will switch from a turbojet to scramjet eliminating the need for a booster rocket. That tech has been in development for several decades. The engineering challenges are not trivial.

What the Russians and Chinese have, and the US btw, are Hypersonic Glide Vehicles. They are shot into space on a ballistic missile and instead of a normal warhead detaching from the nose of the missile and re-entering on a predictable ballistic profile, the warhead is a glider. It has more maneuverability than a conventional ballistic re-entry vehicle and can trade airspeed for glide distance and maneuverability to a point but they are unpowered. They are not able to fly any great distance at one altitude, they fly a descending profile. The US Army system will field next year and the Navy's using the same HGV a year after that. The US will probably be the first with an HGV at sea.

The USAF is attempting to build a system that air launches from a bomber using a rocket that is supposed to reach Mach 20 before a different HGV is released. They are not there yet. Mach 20 is more than twice the speed of the current record for an air launched rocket.

Your detailed description of newly developed missile systems doesn't refute my contention that "building an air base for a U.S. Marine Corps air squadron in Henoko, Okinawa is nothing but nonsense and shenanigans".

The Marines are the ones who would defend the Senkaku Isiands and other Japanese island holdings against the PLAN. The Marines new CONOPS are to land small forces on islands in coordination with the Navy, set up anti-ship missiles like the Norwegian JSM and rocket systems like HIMARS on robotic launch vehicles and create a cross fire in coordination with the Navy against an enemy's ships, the Navy hammer and the Marines anvil. When the battle is over they can quickly withdraw. Small teams armed with anti ship missiles on the many small Japanese islands can make it very costly for the PLAN to attempt to pass between Japanese islands. A new class of small landing ships is being developed for the Marines to support these operations working with the V-22a. The Marines have already transferred all of their armor and much of their tube artillery (big field guns) to the US Army as their force structure evolves to one designed to fight maritime targets. All of these changes are aimed at defending Japan and Taiwan from a Chinese attack. Without Marines on Okinawa it is impossible to have the necessary forces in place. Moving the Marines to Taiwan would probably invite an immediate attack and Guam is too far away.

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Btw, SM-3 Block II can hit those Chinese missiles in space before they can release their HGV and any decoys.

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Desert Tortoise,

There is currently no such thing as a low flying hypersonic cruise missile. 

Are you sure?

See a Jiji Press-distributed article of Nov. 7, 2021, entitled: 「極超音速兵器、開発競争が過熱=中ロ先行、米国に焦燥感 ...」("Race to develop hypersonic weapons heating; China and Russia ahead of US, making it worry")

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