DPRK Navy ships

[sahureka]

CIWS 30mm and Torpedo Tube 533mm

 

[Sferrin]

Makes the new US frigate look like a sad sack.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1916131505593848275

View: https://x.com/stoa1984/status/1916131505593848275

https://twitter.com/x/status/1916162696816349558

View: https://x.com/JosephHDempsey/status/1916162696816349558

 

[SUPER=BUG]

Quite a beautiful battleship, they have done a good job.

 

[Ainen]

Furthermore the Western Pacific is getting more and more militarized every year, with various nations building up and modernizing their navies and the USN shifting their attention from the unimpressed European theater to the crucial WESTPAC. And especially with neighbors like Japan and the ROK, which field large fleets, it makes sense to just go "fuck it we ball". I can also imagine that the Chinese are very content with this development, as it would mean that in the future there would be aa sizeable, friendly Navy in the region which could distract and deal with lesser adversaries in a potential conflict against the United States (or alternatively also be used to harass USN ships).

For China, most North Korean strengthening is trouble, not asset.

China doesn't really need help in this regard, and it can't somehow skip region right next to Beijing. For same reason, if DPRK will be seriously threatened, China will intervene even despite negative feelings towards Pyongyang.

But DPRK tricks (nuclear, missile program) bring a lot of trouble for China. China is most certainly not interested in geopolitical tension in the region...and DPRK not just brings it, it also holds keys of this instability. Not Beijing.

Last thing Beijing wants is genuine pretext for USCG presence off peninsula(or THAAD, or ROK ballistic missile program, or, or). North gives this pretexts all the time.

 

[lancer21]

Petty politics would be best left out of the discussion, this is about DPRK ships so better stick to that.

If i'm counting correctly, apart from the 74 VLS tubes of various sizes, there are still apparently 8 inclined tubes for possibly Hwasal CMs, plus 8 tubes of the Kashtan, so this ship possibly has 90 (!) ready to fire weapons. Not to mention the gatlings. So it has practically the tube firepower of a 052D class DDG on likely a smaller displacement.

 

[Gwalker18]

Are these loitering torpedoes?

 

[Gwalker18]

CIWS 30mm and Torpedo Tube 533mm
View attachment 768084

Torpedoes or this (Circled in Yellow)

 

[sahureka]

View attachment 768085

View attachment 768086
Makes the new US frigate look like a sad sack.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1916131505593848275

View: https://x.com/stoa1984/status/1916131505593848275

https://twitter.com/x/status/1916162696816349558

View: https://x.com/JosephHDempsey/status/1916162696816349558

+
In the centre of the ship is a structure resembling that of the Amnok-class corvette from which the Hwasal-2 (2x4) cruise missiles are launched

Here on the Choi Hyun 51

Numbers 2 and 3 are for the venting of missile launch gases
Number 2 in ready-to-launch conditions a door slides to the side opening the vent
Number 3 is an always open arrangement

for comparison note the structure from which the cruise missile is launched from the Amnok-class corvette

 

[lancer21]

Another point of interest is what appears to be the missile for the Kashtan like system (see under the system itself).
PS: Actually, that seems a lot more like a Pantsir-M system.

 

[sahureka]

Torpedoes or this (Circled in Yellow)

looks like the russian anti-submarine missiles 91РЭ2 which is launched by VLS from ships

 

[Scott Kenny]

21" ASW torpedoes is interesting.