a lot has been made about North Korea's land-based ballistic missile technology and their potential nuclear warheads, however there is one lesser reported weapon that North Korea has been pursuing that poses a much larger threat to the US and its allies in the region that weapon is the ballistic missile submarine
ballistic missile submarines have been around since the Cold War Russia the US the UK France India and China each operate at least one of these types of submarines, the boats carry intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads similar to that of land-based ballistic missiles, their major advantage is that they can hide and fire their missiles from anywhere in the ocean,
submarines are extremely difficult to detect especially when they could be anywhere they can simply sit silently deep in the ocean awaiting the order to launch this allows them the ability to likely survive any first strike in their country and retaliate with devastatingly powerful nuclear-armed missiles, they can also launch a strike from any direction meaning that they could go around or avoid any regional ballistic missile defenses, therefore operating ballistic missile submarines practically ensures the country's protection from attack as any aggressor knows a counter-attack would be inevitable and North Korea is beginning to become one of those countries
North Korea's first and only ballistic missile submarine is called the SINPO after the shipyard and the city in which it was built the boat was first spotted on satellite imagery of the area in 2014 it appears to be armed with one SLBM or submarine-launched ballistic missile which protrudes through its hall and into the counting Tower the boat is relatively small only 65 meters or 215 feet long compared to the US ohio-class ballistic missile submarine which is over two and a half times longer, it's small size allows it to only carry the one missile compared to the Ohio's 24 missiles, the missile on board is a Pukkuksong-1 known in the West has a KN-11 it appears very similar to old Soviet R-27 submarine launched ballistic missiles and has similar specifications, its range is somewhere between 1000 to 2500 kilometers making it a medium-range ballistic missile this coupled with the subs estimated 2500 kilometer range means it still cannot reach the US mainland but puts all major US bases in the region like Guam and Okinawa and their allies like Japan and South Korea well within its reach
Pukkuksong-1 has been tested twelve times since 2014 most of these tests have not been launched from the submarine itself but from land-based sites or underwater barges these sites can be seen clearly in satellite imagery of the area and then finally on the 24th of August 2016 they had their first fully successful ballistic missile launch from the submerged submarine, this act was repeated again in February of 2017 both times the missile flew about 500 to 600 kilometers in the direction of Japan also with the recently released US intelligence report North Korea's miniature nuclear warheads can be fit onto the missile
North Korea's first and only ballistic missile submarine is called the SINPO after the shipyard and the city in which it was built the boat was first spotted on satellite imagery of the area in 2014 it appears to be armed with one SLBM or submarine-launched ballistic missile which protrudes through its hall and into the counting Tower the boat is relatively small only 65 meters or 215 feet long compared to the US ohio-class ballistic missile submarine which is over two and a half times longer, it's small size allows it to only carry the one missile compared to the Ohio's 24 missiles, the missile on board is a Pukkuksong-1 known in the West has a KN-11 it appears very similar to old Soviet R-27 submarine launched ballistic missiles and has similar specifications, its range is somewhere between 1000 to 2500 kilometers making it a medium-range ballistic missile this coupled with the subs estimated 2500 kilometer range means it still cannot reach the US mainland but puts all major US bases in the region like Guam and Okinawa and their allies like Japan and South Korea well within its reach
Pukkuksong-1 has been tested twelve times since 2014 most of these tests have not been launched from the submarine itself but from land-based sites or underwater barges these sites can be seen clearly in satellite imagery of the area and then finally on the 24th of August 2016 they had their first fully successful ballistic missile launch from the submerged submarine, this act was repeated again in February of 2017 both times the missile flew about 500 to 600 kilometers in the direction of Japan also with the recently released US intelligence report North Korea's miniature nuclear warheads can be fit onto the missile
the SINPO is classified as a SSB the SS standing for a submerged ship a classification all submarines have and the B mediant carries ballistic missiles sub ballistic missile submarines like that of Russia in the US are SSBN the BN meaning that the submarine is nuclear-powered while the boat is a significant force multiplier it appears to be more of a testbed for a future more powerful submarine, North Korea is extremely secretive and is very careful in releasing information but it does appear that they are working on a new ballistic missile submarine tentatively called the SINPO-C this new class of submarine will likely carry more and upgraded missiles
for now the submarine mostly stays in its port at the SINPO shipyard, satellite imagery over the years shows that it rarely leaves and it has never yet gone out on a deployment for an extended period of time but once North Korea can hammer out the problems and perfect their design this new class of submarines will give them a significant boost in national defense they will make any attempt at a first strike on them by the US and their allies many many times more difficult and almost certainly resulting in the catastrophic perfect nuclear counter-attack on the allies in the region
