The Republic of Korea Army has begun its first operational deployment of the brand new Hyunmoo-5 tactical ballistic missile, which integrates the most important tactical warhead ever to be carried by a ballistic missile at an estimated 8,000 to 9,000 kilograms. Developed as a part of the Korean Large Punishment and Retaliation technique, the missile seems to have been designed to have the ability to goal North Korean underground amenities, and emphasises excessive impression velocity, penetration, and precision steerage to destroy deeply buried command centres and army bases. To put the dimensions of its warhead in perspective, nearly all tactical ballistic missiles carry warheads of between 500 kilograms and 1000 kilograms, with the Russian Iskander-M carrying a 500kg warhead, whereas the American ATACMS carries a 227kg warhead.
Beforehand all ballistic missile varieties with comparable weights to the Hyunmoo-5 have been nuclear armed strategic weapons, such because the Russian Sarmat, the world’s largest missile, which carries a warhead estimated at 8,000-10,000 kilograms. The place the Sarmat has a launch weight of 208,000 kilograms, nevertheless, the Hyunmoo-5 weighs simply 36,000 kilograms, that means the warhead weight makes up a proportion of its complete weight that’s roughly 5 occasions as nice. Though this considerably limits its vary, the combination of such a big warhead on a missile of its measurement is unprecedented, and permits the Hyunmoo-5 to be deployed from cellular launch autos, quite than from silos as is the case for the Sarmat.
The facility of the Hyunmoo-5’s warhead is mixed with a hypersonic impression velocity, permitting the missile to penetrate deep into the bottom earlier than detonating, making it probably thew world’s most formidable non-nuclear bunker buster weapon. North Korea is estimated to deploy by far the world’s largest community of underground bunkers and fortifications relative to the dimensions of its territory, together with massive munitions factories, multi-storey army amenities, and command centres buried deep underground. The chance stays that a number of Hyunmoo-5 missiles might be launched in opposition to a single goal to penetrate notably deep underground. North Korea has itself examined superior bunker buster missiles with notably massive warheads, with the KN-23B carrying a 2,500 kilogram warhead, whereas a brand new by-product of the design first flight examined in September 2024 carried an expanded 4500 kilogram warhead, the Hwasong-11-Da-4.5. Earlier than the service entry of the South’s Hyunmoo-5, this was the most important warhead ever built-in onto a tactical ballistic missile. The 2 Koreas are anticipated to proceed to guide the world within the warhead weights of their tactical missiles, with North Korea anticipated to proceed to export its personal missiles to Russia.
