George1 Fri May 08, 2020 11:19 pm
The first successful test of the South Korean ballistic missile Hyunmoo 4
As the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on May 7, 2020, citing a statement by a representative of the South Korean government, "last month" the South Korean Ministry of National Defense carried out the first successful test launch of a new national-developed ballistic missile Hyunmoo 4. The exact launch date was not announced.
The test was carried out from a missile test site of the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) of the Ministry of National Defense of South Korea in Anhyn (Chuncheon Namdo Province) on the west coast of South Korea. It is reported that two test launches were made, but only one was successful.
Earlier, South Korea tried to make the first flight test of the Hyunmoo 4 rocket in Anhui from March 16 to 22, 2020, but, according to reports, both launches made then were unsuccessful.
Little information is known about the Hyunmoo 4 missile, but it is believed that this is the development of the Hyunmoo 2C ballistic missile with maintaining a maximum range of up to 800 km, but with an increase in the weight of the warhead from 500 kg to 2000 kg. Presumably, the warhead of the Hyunmoo 4 missile is penetrating and designed to destroy highly protected targets in the DPRK. It is known that a rocket has two solid fuel stages.
In October 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to the next review of the US-South Korean Missile Development Agreement (Missile Development Guideline), allowing the South Korean side to create rockets with a maximum range of up to 800 km and warhead weight of up to 2000 kg. This allowed South Korea to launch OCD on the Hyunmoo 4 rocket with a warhead of this mass.
Recall that the United States, for political reasons, prevented the creation of long-range missiles in South Korea, and still keep South Korean missile developments under contract control. In the 1970-1980s, the first South Korean operational-tactical ballistic missile Hyunmoo 1 with a firing range of up to 180 km, which was "legalized" only by agreement with the USA, was actually developed in secret from South America on the basis of the old American Nike Hercules anti-aircraft missile in South Korea. 1990 year. In 1997, the United States and South Korea signed the Missile Development Guideline, which gave the South Korean side the right to develop ballistic missiles with a range of up to 300 km and a warhead weighing up to 500 kg, which was reinforced by South Korea’s accession to the Missile Technology Control Regime in 2001.
As a result, in South Korea, under the auspices of ADD, the Hyunmoo 2 operational-tactical solid-fuel ballistic missile (now designated Hyunmoo 2A) was developed with a range of up to 300 km and a warhead weight of up to 500 kg, which entered service in 2011.
In 2012, the American side signed a revised missile development agreement with South Korea, which gave South Korea the opportunity to create ballistic missiles with a range of up to 300 km and a warhead weight increased to 2000 kg, as well as a range of up to 500 km and warhead weight up to 1000 kg and with a range of up to 800 km and warhead weight up to 500 kg.
South Korea immediately began developing missiles with such parameters. In 2015, the first test of a rocket conventionally designated as open source as Hyunmoo 2B was made, with a firing range of 500 km and a warhead weighing 1000 kg, and in April 2017, a rocket conventionally designated as open source as Hyunmoo 2C, with with a range of 800 km and a warhead weight of 500 kg.
Now, with a new revision of the missile development agreement in 2017, South Korea was able to increase the mass of the warhead of missiles with a range of 800 km from previously allowed 500 kg to 2000 kg, which led to the creation of the Hyunmoo 4 rocket.
The Hyunmoo 2 and Hyunmoo 4 missiles were developed under the auspices of the Defense Development Agency (ADD) of the Department of National Defense of South Korea with the participation of the broad cooperation of South Korean defense companies. The direct manufacturer of the Hyunmoo 2 series missiles is Hanwha Corporation. Moreover, the appearance of the Hyunmoo 2 series missiles looks very similar to the Russian ballistic missile 9M723 of the Iskander-M complex, which gives rise to speculation that Russian enterprises may have provided some assistance in the development of South Korean missiles, especially since cooperation in The 2000s and 2010s of a number of Russian defense companies (in particular, NPO Mashinostroeniya OJSC) with the South Korean side in developing combat missile systems (including airborne, anti-theft and anti-aircraft) have been known for quite some time.
It should be noted that at the same time, South Korea has also been developing and since 2006 has been manufacturing and deploying the Hyunmoo 3 (Tianlong) family of ground and sea-based cruise missiles, in several versions, whose range has increased from 500 to 1,500 km (warhead weight to 500 kg).
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