Posted on 08/16/2017 1:45:19 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
North Korea likely can make missile engines without imports: U.S.
Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea likely has the ability to produce its own missile engines and intelligence suggests it does not need to rely on imports, U.S. intelligence officials said on Tuesday.
The assessment disputes a new study by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies that said that the engines for a nuclear missile North Korea is developing to hit the United States likely were made in factories in Ukraine or Russia and probably obtained via black market networks.
The New York Times cited the study on Monday. The newspaper's report said that classified assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies mirrored the IISS finding.
"We have intelligence to suggest that North Korea is not reliant on imports of engines," one U.S. intelligence official told Reuters. "Instead, we judge they have the ability to produce the engines themselves."
The U.S. officials did not disclose any details of what underpinned the assessment on the high-performance liquid-fueled engines, called RD-250's.
Ukraine denied that it had ever supplied defense technology to North Korea. The Ukrainian factory cited in The New York Times, state-owned Yuzhmash, said it had not produced military-grade ballistic missiles since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
P!
Maybe the reason for this about face is to keep anyone from looking too deeply into where the Norks got engines and engine technology.
More unnamed sources and classified leaks from the NY Slimes.
There is a difference between “working on” and developing and producing. A custom car shop may buy a crate engine that someone else “developed”, but getting it to work as an integrated part of a select vehicle is still referred to as “working on” the drive train. At what particular instance was the intel that North Korea was “working on”, or was it “developing” any certain rocket engine? Do most journalists know which is which?
I think journalists are confused by what “intel” they think they are told, and I think they have sometimes been intentionally confused by the “intel” leakers who spoke to them.
The problem with tales of places like Ukraine or Russia is the actual truth is often even harder to find and few western journalists can or will do on the ground grunt work there to try to find the truth. They mostly pass on what they are told, and what they are told often enough is disinformation, for all sides. When they are reporting what we know, then the North Koreans (or whom ever) know that is what we know. There is good security reasons for our enemies to think we know or believe X when what we know or believe is Y. The less accurate our intel seems to them, the better that is to us, if what they think we know is not what we actually know. The journalists can be used for keeping our enemies guessing.
Then also there has been numerous reports that Iran and Korea have been working closely together on their missile developments. Who needs Ukraine if you have the Mullahs in Tehran helping you evade sanctions, particularly now that so many sanctions on Iran have been lifted. Maybe all these “Ukraine” reports are to divert attention from earlier Iran-connection reports.
What is the truth about North Korean rocket engines? We will likely not know exactly, unless and until we capture one.
Deep State protectung its friends in Kiev and those in Congress who back them by leaking “ classified” information
Notice the crank out of “ the Russians did it” coming out of Kiev at the same time
One would almost think that paid lobbyists were at work.....
As you said, there many possibilities.
So, are we supposed to be scared and bloodthirsty again?
Because I’m not.
Building rocket engines is no harder than building car engines - IF someone has given you the technology. Do we have the Germans to 'thank' for this mess?
Why would NK buy rocket motors?
They are experts at stealing plans for anything. With plans, rocket motors can be made by many machine shops.
If you don’t build your own, you are then dependent on your supplier to replace the ones used in testing.
Very tricky supply lines. How do you create improvements if you don’t build them yourself?
One of the points Elleman report made was that N. Korea has no history of experimenting with this type of engine before. He claims that Musudan and Hwasung rocket are completely different.
NK like the Chinese are experts at making copies. I agree, buy a few, reverse engineer them and build more yourself. They easily have the machining ability.
The high temp nozzle alloys would be much harder to find and machine.
The turbo pump is what’s new, greatly increases efficiency and range/payload.
With all the improvements, they still need a third stage booster, which means a silo launch to get even a 500 kilo payload past Anchorage.
That’s why they are threatening Guam, as it is the nearest US protectorate to them.
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