This is downright giggle-inducing; North Korea, that isolated Stalinist dictatorship run by a stunted little gargoyle with bad hair from a long line of stunted little gargoyles with bad hair, that Communist shithole that can’t even feed its own citizenry, claims to have launched a nuclear ballistic missile submarine.
Here’s the funny part: It’s not nuclear (supposedly it carries nuclear-tipped missiles, but it’s Diesel/electric powered) and it’s based on an old Soviet Romeo-class sub. The Romeo class was built between 1957 and 1961. That’s right. All these subs are older than I am, and I’m no spring chicken.
Kim Jong Un was present for the launch of the North Korean Navy’s (KPN) latest submarine on September 6. The new submarine is actually a rebuilt Soviet-designed Romeo Class boat, but radically modernized. It has been named “Hero Kim Gun-ok” (김군옥영웅) and given the hull number 841.
Significantly, the submarine has a missile compartment added with 10 missile tubes. Given the Hermit Kingdom’s investment in ballistic missiles, it is likely that these are nuclear capable.
But how capable? The amount of tech savvy demonstrated by the Norks to date has been underwhelming.
The modification to the Romeo class submarine is so extensive that it almost appears to be a new boat. The new missile compartment, with two rows of five missile hatches, is in a section built into the sail. The bow has been shortened, reshaped and the diving planes moved to the sail.
We can speculate that the missiles are the Pukguksong family of submarine launched ballistic missiles. These are between 9.7 and 10.6 meters long and 1.5 and 1.8 meters in diameter depending on the exact version. The missile hatches however appear smaller, either for a shorter ranged ballistic missile first seen in October 2021, or for a cruise missile. North Korea has recently shown the ‘Hwasal-2′ cruise missile which approximates the U.S. Navy’s famous Tomahawk weapon.
Here’s the sub (image from article):
Here’s a drawing of the original Soviet Romeo design:
That new bow they grafted onto this ancient Russian submarine looks like papier-mâché. One has to doubt the seaworthiness of this abortion; hell, one has to doubt the harbor-worthiness of this thing.
The best thing that could happen to the United States Pacific Fleet would be for the Norks to try to actually take this thing to sea. I have a funny feeling it would disappear within a few months.
