On April 2, North Korea launched a new medium-range ballistic missile, the Hwasong-16B. Traditionally, the launch was personally led by Kim Jong-un. The Hwasong-16B missile is equipped with a newly developed hypersonic glide warhead. North Korea said it has fully denuclearized its missiles and armed its hypersonic missiles with nuclear warheads. The Hwasong-16B solid-propellant missile flew about 1000 km reaching a maximum altitude of 101.1 km, hitting a conditional target in the waters of the Korean East Sea. South Korean authorities said they estimated the total distance traveled by the missile to be about 600 km. The estimated flight range of the Hwasong-16B missiles is up to 5,500 kilometers
North Korea
- Thread starter Diane Lane
- Start date
The head of the DPRK, Kim Jong-un, visited a military plant for the production of launchers for the Hwasong-11Ra missile systems, according to the Western classification, the Hwasong-11D is a smaller analogue of the Russian Iskander-M tactical missile. Kim Jong-un expressed great satisfaction with the result of production at the enterprises in the first half of this year and especially emphasized the need to fulfill the military production plan for 2024. It is worth noting that in the DPRK, Kim Jong-un quite often visits military production; he previously visited this plant where he demanded that flaws in production be eliminated. The Hwasong-11Ra short-range tactical missile was first tested in 2022, the missile was launched at a range of 110 km, the estimated flight range of these missiles is up to 180 km. In less than a year, the Hwasong-11Ra missile system was finalized and put into service; by the spring of 2023, it began to enter service with combat units