Thursday, July 25, 2019, North Korea has test-fired a new type of short-range ballistic missiles, near the eastern coastal city of Wonsan. This new missile seems to be very similar to the Russian-made Iskander short-range ballistic missile.
This picture, released on the Twitter account of the Korean Central News Agency on July 26, 2019, shows a missile being launched from a site near the North's eastern coastal town of Wonsan the previous day.(Picture source Twitter account KCNA)
North Korea armed forces fired two unidentified missiles into the eastern waters early on Thursday, July 25, 2019, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The missiles would have flown around 600 kilometers at an altitude of around 50 km, according to a South Korean officer at the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
According to a statement of the KCNA (North's Korean Central News Agency), North Korea has performed a test-fire of a new tactical guided missile. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally organized and guided the demonstration of this new type of missile.
North Korean state media reported Friday, July 26, 2019, that Kim Jong Un had been able to confirm the “specific features of the low-altitude gliding and flight orbit of the tactical guided missile, which will be hard to intercept, as well as its combat power.”
New North Korean mobile tactical missile showed at the military parade on February 8, 2018, suggests that the system is based on the Russian Iskander (9K720) ballistic missile. (Source KCNA via the Internet)
During a military parade on February 8, 2018, celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Korean People’s Army, North Korea’s armed forces displayed a number of missile systems including a new mobile missile platform that looked very similar to the Russian 9K720 Iskander-M which is in service the Russian armed forces.
The ballistic missile forces of the South Korea army includes the local-made version of the Russia Scud-B and Scud-C, called Hwasong-5 and Hwasong-6 as well as the OTR-21 Tochka, called KN-02 in North Korea.
The 9K720 Iskander NATO reporting name SS-26 Stone is a mobile short-range ballistic missile system produced and deployed by the Russian Armed Forces. The Iskander has several different conventional warheads, including a cluster munitions warhead, a fuel-air explosive enhanced-blast warhead, a high explosive-fragmentation warhead, an earth penetrator for bunker-busting and an electromagnetic pulse device for anti-radar missions. The missile can also carry nuclear warheads. It has a maximum firing range of 50 km.
The latest version, the Iskander-M has two 9M723 ballistic missiles that can be fired to a maximum range of 500 km. The missile is flying at a speed of Mach 6-7 with a flight altitude from 6 to 50 km. It uses both inertial and optical guidance systems to achieve an accuracy of 10-30 m CEP. It can carry conventional and nuclear warheads up to 700 kg and employs a maneuverable re-entry vehicle (MaRV) and decoys to defeat theater missile defense systems.
