Are Some of North Korea's Long-Range Missiles Fakes?

gbrumfiel writes "North Korea has not been shy in announcing plans to destroy the United States, but questions remain over whether it has the nukes or the missiles to do so. Now NPR reports on open-source intelligence showing that one of the North's most 'advanced' weapons might actually be a decoy. Six KN-08 missiles were paraded last year, but each showed differences in the way they were assembled. Is it all a bluff? Or are the missiles part of a real program?"

Comments

for the love of god

[Charliemopps]

Seriously folks... they HAVE nukes. We know this. They've detonated them underground, we've detected the flash. It's fact. (unless both they and our own government is lieing to us... a distinct possibility)

Do they have missiles that can launch them? Who gives a shit? Any ballistic missile they would have would be trivial for our military to shoot down. They do, however, have very sophisticated submarines. All they need to do is load one of their nukes on a sub and sail it into a major harbor anywhere in the world and viola, world catastrophe. This is the threat we should be worried about. The whole missile thing is just sabre rattling, irrelevant of their real capabilities. They'd need thousands to overwhelm our defenses.

Re:Duh

[IndustrialComplex]

What do we do with prototype units in the US?

We clean them up, paint them, and turn them into static displays for putting outside of VFWs.

Of course the missiles used in a parade are going to vary, it is a huge waste (and security risk) to have your actual assets all placed in one location and out in the open. This isn't surprising at all.

Re:Duh

[Hadlock]

There were 13 iterations of the Saturn V, they didn't even have the same paint job, let alone configuration. The first stage had anywhere between 7 and 12 helium tanks inside of the kerosene tank depending on the version. About the only similarity between each rocket was the diameter of the last stage, where it met with the Apollo capsule. Each engine was different, custom built.