‘North's new multi rocket launcher poses fatal threat to S.Korea,'

North Korea’s state media outlets reported on Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un conducted onsite advisory inspection on the final test of the new large-caliber multi rocket launcher, which is close to deployment to combat. The North’s Korea Central News Agency reported that Kim expressed deep satisfaction about the high preciseness of the new multi rocket launcher. The test is believed to refer to test firing of the new multi rocket launcher toward the East Sea from south of Hamheung, South Hamkyong Province on Monday.

A ranking South Korean military official said, “We are devising countermeasures, judging that the deployment to combat of the new multi rocket launcher is drawing ‘very near.’” However, the South has few effective measures to counter with. Since shells from the new multi rocket launcher have flying altitude that is lower than a ballistic missile, they are more difficult to intercept. It is impossible to intercept the shells from Patriot Missile (PAC-2) possessed by the South Korean military or the Korean Air Missile Defense system that will be deployed in the early 2020s.

If the North launches surprise attack with the new multi rocket launcher as it staged the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea in 2010, the South has few measures to counter the attack with. The new multi rocket launcher has a larger caliber (300 mm) compared with the conventional multi rocket launcher with 240 mm, and hence provides far strong fire power. The new rocket launcher can also use highly destructive shells including high explosives with a larger radius for causing causalities, and dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM).

What is worrisome is that the new rocket launcher boasts high preciseness in hitting the target as well. The South Korean military judges that since the launcher adopts Glonas, a Russian-made global positioning system in shells, it has reduced Circular Error Probable (CEP, or the radius in which half of the missiles that are fired at the target fall) to about 10 meters. The Rodong Sinmun of North Korea carried a photo in which a shell fired from a mobile rocket launcher precisely strikes the cross shape target on rocky wall in the sea. Of more than 170 sells the North fired when it staged attack on Yeonpyeong Island, some 90 fell into the ocean and the other 80 fell randomly in inland areas of the island. However, if the North launches attack with the new multi rocket launcher, it will be able to stage a precision strike at the target of South Korean and U.S. military units, which is feared to cause major damage.

Kim Jong Un ordered the North Korean military to develop a new multi rocket launcher that mimics the Chinese military’s multi rocket launcher (WS-1B) after witnessing a very poor accuracy ratio during the attack on Yeonpyeong. That is, the North’s multi rocket launcher capability has completed evolution from ‘massive attacks’ to ‘precision attacks’ over the past five years since, and is very close to deployment to combat.

The North is believed to have extended the maximum range with the new multi rocket launcher to up to 200 km by taking into consideration the distance between Seoul and Pyongyang (180 to 200 kilometers). The fact that "Between Korean People," the North’s propaganda media outlet targeting the South, produced and disclosed a video clip showing that the North’s aiming at and destroying the South Korean presidential office is interpreted as threat indicating that if the North fires the launcher from a site near the demilitarized zone, it will include within the launcher’s striking range major facilities in the South including the presidential office, the U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, and South Korea’s Gyeryongdae military base near Daejeon.

Quoting comments by Bruce Bennett, a researcher at the Rand Institute in the U.S. and expert on the military on the Korean Peninsula, Defense One, a media outlet specializing in military affairs in the U.S., said on Monday that the North will continue missile tests through May. “The North Korean leadership will not stop provocations in order to display the image of its strength ahead of the seventh ruling Workers’ Party convention, which will take place for the first time in 36 years,” Bennett said. “The North Korean multi rocket launcher (KN-09) is a weapon that has advanced in technological capacity. It poses serious threat to (the U.S. military) bases within the South.”

윤상호군사전문기자ysh1005@donga.com sykim@donga.com