North Korea’s New ICBM May Not Have Enough Power To Deliver a Nuclear Payload to the US
|Here is an interesting read from the Associated Press about what experts are saying about North Korea’s new ICBM:
North Korea released dozens of photos Thursday of the Hwasong-15, a new intercontinental ballistic missile it claims can reach any target in the continental United States. The photo dump, published in the paper and online editions of the ruling party’s official daily, is a goldmine for rocket experts trying to parse reality from bluster.
Their general conclusion is that it’s bigger, more advanced and comes with a domestically made mobile launcher that will make it harder than ever to pre-emptively destroy. But there’s a potentially major catch: it might not have the power to go much farther than the West Coast if it is loaded down with a real nuclear warhead, not a dummy like the one it carried in its test launch on Wednesday. [Associated Press]
You can read more at the link, but experts are skeptical that the North Koreans have miniaturized their nuclear warhead to a low enough weight to where this ICBM can deliver it to the US West Coast.
Domestically made? I remember reading an article saying they bought the trucks from China. Dual Use, the base unit was originally a lumber hauler:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-china-truck/north-korea-appeared-to-use-china-truck-in-its-first-claimed-icbm-test-idUSKBN19P1J3
China gave the North Koreans a big enough truck to move an at least partially designed and manufactured Chinese missile around. Seems that China needs to more to stop Fatty, or at least do less to help him.
Funny, just read an article that said the missile carried a exact replica dummy warhead, proving the missile can carry the payload weight. AP is fake news anyway…
If your enemy says he wants to kill you, believe that he wants to try.
And now li’l rocketman proved he is a “clear and present danger”, so he got Mattis on his tail. I’m not thinking that will prove to have been the smartest move.
But we’ll see. We have no idea what is planned for the norks.
“That’s a nice capital city you got there… be a shame if something happened to it…”