Iran Military Forum

Analysts: North Korea's New Missiles Are Fake

(TOKYO) — Analysts who have studied photos of a half-dozen ominous new North Korean missiles showcased recently at a lavish military parade say they were fakes, and not very convincing ones, casting further doubt on the country's claims of military prowess.

Since its recent rocket launch failure, Pyongyang's top military leaders have made several boastful statements about its weapons capabilities. On Wednesday, Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho claimed his country is capable of defeating the United States "at a single blow." And on Monday, North Korea promises "special actions" that would reduce Seoul's government to ashes within minutes.

But the weapons displayed April 15 appear to be a mishmash of liquid-fuel and solid-fuel components that could never fly together. Undulating casings on the missiles suggest the metal is too thin to withstand flight. Each missile was slightly different from the others, even though all were supposedly the same make. They don't even fit the launchers they were carried on.

"There is no doubt that these missiles were mock-ups," Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker, of Germany's Schmucker Technologie, wrote in a paper posted recently on the website Armscontrolwonk.com that listed those discrepancies. "It remains unknown if they were designed this way to confuse foreign analysts, or if the designers simply did some sloppy work."

The missiles, called KN-08s, were loaded onto the largest mobile launch vehicles North Korea has ever unveiled. Pyongyang gave them special prominence by presenting them at the end of the parade, which capped weeks of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the country's founding father, Kim Il Sung.

The unveiling created an international stir. The missiles appeared to be new, and designed for long-range attacks.


That's a big concern because, along with developing nuclear weapons, North Korea has long been suspected of trying to field an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, capable of reaching the United States. Washington contends that North Korea's failed April 13 rocket launch was an attempt to test missile technology rather than the scientific mission Pyongyang claims.

But after pouring over close-up photos of the missiles, Schiller and Schmucker, whose company has advised NATO on missile issues, argue the mock-ups indicate North Korea is a long way from having a credible ICBM.

"There is still no evidence that North Korea actually has a functional ICBM," they concluded, adding that the display was a "dog and pony show" and suggesting North Korea may not be making serious progress toward its nuclear-tipped ICBM dreams.
North Korea has a particularly bad track record with ICBM-style rockets. Its four launches since 1998 — three of which it claimed carried satellites — have all ended in failure.

Though North Korea frequently overstates its military capabilities, the missiles displayed this month might foreshadow weapons it is still working on.

David Wright, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists who has written extensively about North Korea's missile program, said he believes the KN-08s could be "somewhat clumsy representations of a missile that is being developed."

Wright noted that the first signs the outside world got of North Korea's long-range Taepodong-2 missile — upon which the recent failed rocket was based — was from mock-ups seen in 1994, 12 years before it was actually tested on the launch pad.
"To understand whether there is a real missile development program in place, we are trying to understand whether the mock-ups make sense as the design for a real missile," he said. "It is not clear that it has a long enough range to make sense for North Korea to invest a lot of effort in."

Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former scientific adviser to the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, said the Taepodong-2 design remains the more real future threat — though even that remains at least a decade away — and the KN-08 is simply a smoke screen.

"I believe that these missiles are not only mock-ups, but they are very unlikely to be actual mock-ups of any missiles in design," he said. "Fabricating a missile like the KN-08 would require a gigantic indigenous technical effort. ... The only way North Korea could develop such a missile with its pitiful economy would be if someone gave it to them."

He noted that a comparable U.S. missile, the Minuteman III, required "decades of expertise in rocket motors, and vast sums of intellectual, technological and financial capital."

Much attention, meanwhile, has been given to the 16-wheel mobile launchers that carried the missiles during the parade, which experts believe may have included a chassis built in China. That raises questions of whether China has violated U.N. sanctions against selling missile-related technology to Pyongyang.

Some missile experts say the launchers were designed to carry a larger missile than the 18-meter-long KN-08, and argue that North Korea would not have spent millions of dollars on them unless it has, or intends to have, a big missile to put on them.
But Wright said the launchers, like the missiles they carried, could also have been more for show than anything else.
"Given the international attention it has gotten from parading these missiles you could argue that the cost of buying the large trucks — which add a lot of credibility to the images of the missiles — was money well spent in terms of projecting an image of power," he said.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2113135,00.html#ixzz1tDd0MEHa

Some time ago I made a 3D model of the new North Korean long range missile but I didn’t find the time to publish pictures of it together with an assessment of the things I have learned about the missile by modeling it.
First let me say that I don’t think that the missile is fake. I also think that its size and design fits those of an ICBM of the upper range spectrum of 10.000km.
The missiles displayed are almost certainly mock-ups and for security reasons this makes sense.
Here some facts:
North Korea, as well as Iran have almost certainly the complete technology of the R-27 family, except maybe for warhead design. This as well as older Nodong technology is the basis of this missile and the reason for its performance and size as an ICBM.
The North Koreans have a history of using R-27 technology with their Musudan IRBM and the next logical step is the use of this high-performance technology in an ICBM.
The warhead section might look large but if the North Koreans have advanced soviet nuclear warhead designs as the “father of the Pakistani bomb” Khan has claimed, it might be very lightweight.

Now to the missile design:
The first stage is 8.42m long and has a diameter of 2m. I suspect it to use a cluster of two motors, either based on the R-27 main engine or Nodong. Those motors are in the 30tons thrust range and a missile of this size needs thrust in the range of 60tons. The steering of the first stage is likely archived by the use of venier motors rather than a jet vane thrust vector system.
The second stage is 4.36m long and has also a diameter of 2m. For some reason it doesn’t use the R-27 design feature of a motor built-in/submerged into the tank, as the first and second stage of the missile do.
The reason for this approach might be just the use of a proven, low risk approach in the design. The basic principles of the first and third stage have already been tested on the Musudan and Iran’s Safir upper stage and can be considered mature designs. The chance of those stages for an ICBM are just design modifications and likely won’t need flight testing to be considered to have a high success rate.
Therefore I suspect that for the additional velocity increase, the North Koreans used the Nodong motor in this stage, together with the proven jet-vane steering system. At about 30tons thrust this would make sense and the North Koreans have already experience on such a stage with their Unha-2 and Unha-3 SLV’s. Therefore also this stage represents just a modification of a already flight-tested stage. Using R-27 technology would have resulted in a more compact design but it’s not a must, Nodong technology seems to be enough for this part of the ICBM design.
The third stage is 3.57m long and has a diameter of 1.5m. As already mentioned it’s based on the Iranian Safir second stage. It’s diameter increase compared to the Safir might have resulted into another pair of the R-27 venier motors. But the 3ton thrust of the two R-27’s of the Safir might be already enough for this stage and it would fit into the path of the rest of the missile design, namely the use of modifications of already flight-tested stage designs.

The arrangement of ullage and retro-rockets makes also sense. The first stage has retro-rockets to decelerate it after separation of the first stage.
The second stage has somewhat mysterious new ullage rockets built into the section of the stage motor. Because the second stage doesn’t use an motor built-in the tank, there is space for such a ullage rocket system in this section of the stage. This stage also has no retro-rocket system; therefore the third stage has to imminently start its ullage rockets after separation. The re-entry vehicle brought to its course and the retro-rockets of the third stage decelerate it after separation.
The RV is somewhat large, 3.250m long. It would have potentially enough space for a single 1,5ton R-27 venier motor, feed by a pressured tank system. The only reason for such a system would be maneuvering of the RV to avoid ABM systems, using it for course correction would be an option if advanced guidance systems are used. But both of these uses are rather unlikely given the technological level and ICBM experience of the North Koreans.
Noteworthy is that the RV-design is a rather low-drag design compared to the Musudan. Given that the terminal velocity of the Musudan is lower than that of this new ICBM, there must have been a technological jump in North Korea.

The dimensions of the model are based on the tire size of the Chinese WS51200 vehicle; these can be found on this website http://www.cnweapon.com/html/news/2012-04/news66335.html
They have a diameter of 1.6m.