Quote:
Originally Posted by Delgard
And they are just now talking about it? But, The Diplomat writes quality as compared to quickness.
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Yeah, there's been suspicions for a while, but at least they've taken the time to put it together. Will be interesting when we get some pics of the new boat, I doubt they'll put the missiles in the sail if they're hoping to get four of them in there, IIRC most sail launched boomers didn't have more than three in there. So either they'll have quite a long conning tower, or they're going to stick the things in a missile compartment in the hull...in which case will they go for a hump based design like the Delta and Type 094, or a flatter surface like an Ohio or Triomphant.
I'm also interested in how they're going to deploy these new subs, since they're not exactly going to be the most stealthy things around, so you can pretty much guarantee that each SSB will get an ROK tail as soon as it leaves port, probably a USN one too for that matter, maybe even a JMSDF one, and any of those tails will blow it out of the water as soon as it even looks funny at South Korea. So the plan to deploy it south of the THAAD and then destroy the THAAD system by attacking from its blindspot is a bit of a suicide mission. If I were KJU I'd be looking into creating a bastion for them somewhere in the western sea...but this then brings up another question. What would they be used for? Since the usual idea of an at sea deterrent is to have either a second strike capability (in the case of the US) or a strike capability which cannot easily be destroyed (in the case of the UK) so either the DPRK is going to use the SSBs as a back-up in case his land based forces get taken out, or he's got them as a second strike capability along side his first strike capability in his land based forces...in which case, a second strike against who? By the time the dust has settled after the first exchange the ROK will be wrecked, Japan badly damaged and the damage more spread out the further away from the DPRK you get...but the Pukguksong SLBM cannot reach the US from the DPRK, and the Gorae would be committing suicide if it tried to approach the US west coast...so who would that second strike ability be used against? Any US invasion force mustering points perhaps? Or perhaps the size of the new Gorae is to future-proof it for the next generation of Puksuksong missiles which might have increased range.
Ideally, we know that the goal of the DPRK would be to have SLBMs equivalent to the Russian R-39, so they can put their SSBs into a bastion and have the ability to hit the US from there.
I think they'll be able to do it, and sooner than we'd expect, it took the PRC about 20-30 years to go from the JL-1 to the JL-2, which has a longer range than the R-39, I give the DPRK 10 years maximum before they have the missile...maybe another five for the submarine, another ten if they decide to make it an SSBN rather than SSB.