North Korea has proven adept at selling missiles around the world -- to Iran, Syria and Pakistan, among others. Most of them are modified Soviet-era Scud missiles, but for many years, there’s been speculation about the North Korean modifications. How did a country so poor manage to reverse-engineer and manufacture a complex missile?Now, Robert H. Schmucker and Markus Schiller of Germany have come up with an answer: the North Koreans didn’t do it on their own.
In a draft paper just posted at the missile proliferation blog Capabilities times Intentions, the two experts argue that North Korea managed to procure the technology from the former Soviet Union and Russia.
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Schmucker and Schiller are not even close. It was better to work as historians than to work by theoretical models preparing a prediction which might work.
ReplyDeleteThe true story is printed on Wikipedia (!).
North Korea obtained its first Scud-Bs from Egypt in 1979 or 1980. These missiles were reverse engineered, and reproduced using North Korean infrastructure, including the 125 factory at Pyongyang, a research and development institute at Sanum-dong and the Musudan-ri Launch Facility. The first prototypes were completed in 1984, and designated Hwasong-5. They were exact replicas of the R-17Es obtained from Egypt. The first test flights occurred in April 1984, but the first version saw only limited production, and no operational deployment, as its purpose was only to validate the production process.
Production of the definitive version began at a slow rate in 1985. The type incorporated several minor improvements over the original Soviet design. The range was increased by 10 to 15 percent and the it could carry High Explosive (HE) or cluster chemical warheads. Throughout the production cycle, until it was phased out in favour of the Hwasong-6 in 1989, the DPRK manufacturers are thought to have carried out small enhancements, in particular to the guidance system.
In 1985, Iran acquired 90 to 100 Hwasong-5 missiles from North Korea. A production line was also established in Iran, where the Hwasong-5 was produced as the Shahab-1.
North Korea simply used the high number of launches from Iran during the Gulf War (from 1985 to 1989) to improve its results and reliability. This test data was crucial to the further development of ballistic missiles. The introduction of further ex-Soviet scientists and - more important - Pakistani technology from Abdul Qadeer Khan did the rest.