North Korea is building its largest, most advanced warship ever, reveal satellite photos
World: The satellite pictures reveal construction of weapons and other systems of the vessel, likely to be a guided-missile frigate (FFG), that can carry missiles in vertical launch tubes.
New satellite images have emerged and appear to show that North Korea is building its biggest warship ever—most likely more than double the size of any vessel in its fleet at present.
Images taken by Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs, both independent satellite providers, on April 6, show the ship under construction at the Nampo shipyard on the west coast of North Korea, nearly 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the capital Pyongyang.
The satellite pictures reveal construction of weapons and other systems of the vessel, likely to be a guided-missile frigate (FFG), that can carry missiles in vertical launch tubes.
“The FFG is approximately 140 metres (459 feet) long, making it the largest warship manufactured in North Korea,” reveals an analysis by Joseph Bermudez Jr. and Jennifer Jun at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The FFG is almost at par in size with the US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers that are about 505 feet long, while the under-construction Constellation-class frigates will be 496 feet long.
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Kim Jong Un’s regime has been furthering rapid modernisation of the armed forces, developing new weapons and testing intercontinental ballistic missiles that can any location in the US.
North has been increasing its military might even though the UN sanctions restrict its access to materials and technology needed to develop weapons.
Most analysts concur that Pyongyang’s deepening ties with Russia since the Ukraine war could be helping it evade the UN sanctions, and Moscow may be offering the technology for the frigate’s missile systems.
Pictures of the ship appeared in a state-run Korean Central Television report and showed Kim inspecting the ship’s construction.
The KCTV video revealed the warship could have weaponry possessed by modern navies, including vertical launch cells that can fire a variety of missiles.
The ship also seems to have phased-array radar that can track threats and targets more accurately and quickly.
“Modern warships represent an integration challenge of communications, electronics, weapons, and both electronic and acoustic sensor technologies that is not so easily achieved,” Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain and Hawaii-based analyst told CNN.
Almost any shipbuilder can get the hull and propulsion systems right, he added.
South Korean lawmaker Kim Byung-kee, who is also a member of the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee, doubts if Pyongyang has the technical know-how to build an advanced warship or the infrastructure to support it.
“Operating such a big military warship takes a significant amount of budget. They not only have to build a warship but also make a team that would operate it, and it costs to operate it, including the equipment and fuel,” he said.
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“If North Korea equips the new frigate with the hypersonic ballistic missile it claims to have successfully tested, that will have a game changing impact in the regional security,” he added.
Experts who reviewed the satellite images told CNN it will take a year or more before the new warship can start sea trials.
The North Korean navy has 400 patrol combatants and 70 submarines, a significant number, but most of them are old and small, as per the 2021 report of US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
The report added that North Korean navy would largely be engaged in coastal defence in any conflict with South Korea or the US, both of which have vastly superior naval forces.
But Kim has been pushing to modernise North Korea’s navy by also developing submarine-launched missiles and the subs to carry them.
“Now that we are soon to possess large surface warships and submarines that cannot be anchored at the existing facilities for mooring warships, the construction of a naval base for the large warships has become a pressing task,” Kim said while inspecting a site for a new naval port last September.
A nuclear-powered submarine is under construction at a shipyard in the North Korean port of Sinpo, and another frigate or destroyer is in the works in Chongjin, said Yu Yong-won, a South Korean lawmaker.