Seoul deploys Spike missiles to protect Yellow Sea islands

The South Korean military said on Sunday that it recently deployed on Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong islands in the Yellow Sea Spike missiles from Israel that can be used for precision strikes on North Korea’s coastal artillery guns. The new weapons are expected to significantly boost the South’s capability to cope with the North’s coastal artillery guns and long-range artillery guns.

The North is known to have deployed more than 100 long-range artillery guns, including 76.2mm coastal artillery guns with a 12-kilometer range in coastal regions north of Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong islands and 122 mm rockets with a 20-kilometer range in inland regions.

The satellite-guided Spike missiles have a max range of 25 kilometers and weighs 70 kilometers. If fired from a vehicle or a helicopter, the missile is capable of destroying through precision attacks North Korea’s coastal artillery guns that are hidden within underground pits at inland military bases in the North’s western coast, as the missile is guided by infrared ray. While the missile can automatically trace the coordinate of a preset target, the operator can guide the missile in person to the target by viewing images taken by a camera mounted at its warhead.

Spike missiles are capable of striking moving targets including armored vehicles by tracking with a tracking device and thanks to the military-purpose global positioning system, can also dodge GPS interference by the North, according to South Korean military sources.