CBC: North Korean missiles dismissed as fakes

[pampango]

A North Korean vehicle carrying a missile passes by during a mass military parade on April 15 in Pyongyang to celebrate
the centenary of the birth of late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. The missile is being dismissed by analysts as fake.

A half dozen ominous new North Korean missiles showcased at a lavish military parade were clumsy fakes, analysts say, casting more doubt on the country's claims of military prowess after its recent rocket launch failure. The weapons displayed April 15 appear to be a mishmash of liquid-fuel and solid-fuel components that could never fly together. Undulating casings on the missiles suggest the metal is too thin to withstand flight. Each missile was slightly different from the others, even though all were supposedly the same make. They don't even fit the launchers they were carried on.

"There is no doubt that these missiles were mock-ups," Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker, of Germany's Schmucker Technologie, wrote in a paper posted recently on the website Armscontrolwonk.com that listed those discrepancies. "It remains unknown if they were designed this way to confuse foreign analysts, or if the designers simply did some sloppy work."

North Korea has long been suspected of trying to field an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, capable of reaching the United States. Washington contends that North Korea's failed April 13 rocket launch was an attempt to test missile technology rather than the scientific mission Pyongyang claims. But after poring over close-up photos of the missiles, Schiller and Schmucker, whose company has advised NATO on missile issues, argue the mock-ups indicate North Korea is a long way from having a credible ICBM.

"There is still no evidence that North Korea actually has a functional ICBM," they concluded, adding that the display was a "dog and pony show" and suggesting North Korea may not be making serious progress toward its nuclear-tipped ICBM dreams.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/04/26/north-korea-missile-analysts-fake.html

It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

[AsahinaKimi]

1. Papier-mache?

Would be funny if so.....

[LeftinOH]

2. Reporting that fact will just make them even angrier than they usually are.

Expect a melodramatic rain of hyperbole from the the DPRK news service in response.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. I don't know why countries

keep thinking that the "other guy" parades live rounds down the street during *ceremonial* events. But then maybe it's the media that instigates this sort of nonsense to generate equally appalling responses.