New North Korean missiles are fakes claim Nato experts

SIX ominous new North Korean missiles showcased last week at a lavish military parade were fakes, and not very convincing ones, according to two German defence analysts.

The weapons displayed on 15 April 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 type. 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 Armscontrolwonk.com that listed the discrepancies. “It remains unknown if they were designed this way to confuse foreign analysts, or if the designers simply did some sloppy work.”

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The KN-08 missiles were loaded on to 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.

But Mr Schiller and Mr Schmucker, whose company has advised Nato on missile issues, argue the mock-ups indicate North Korea is a long way from having a credible intercontinental ballistic missile (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.

David Wright, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, believes the KN-08s could be “somewhat clumsy representations of a missile that is being developed.”

He said: “We are trying to understand whether the mock-ups make sense as the design for a real missile.”

The three main indicators suggesting the warheads were fake:

• Bolt position means missile cannot be secured for launch

• Separation stage markers appear to be painted on

• Warhead is thin metal stretched over framework

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