Threat Tuesday – What Models are Those?

Courtesy NK Leadership Watch

The Un’er – already famous for his toy tours inspection visits – toured a munitions expo in Pyongyang in mid-April. What I found interesting when looking at the pictures was the ships shown. As seen here, all these ships look to be from the US Navy. From left to right I make them out to be an Aegis destroyer, an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, and on the far right a Spruance-class destroyer.  So what message was being delivered to the NorKs and what does this tell the world? I also note that if one views the KCNA propaganda film that was also released you can see NorK navy ships, but the scales are such that they look huge (indeed, they are built to be larger than the American ships). Is that the subtle message; the NorK navy is still “bigger and better” than others? Once again, I have to wonder just what “truth” is being fed to the Un’er and how his worldview is being shaped.

Threat Tuesday – KJU at Sea

Courtesy news.daylife.com

Seems like the Un’er has been visiting the Navy alot recently. First the East Coast, where he was regaled with stories of sinking American cruisers, and now on the West Coast.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un visits the Korean People’s Army Navy Unit 123 in an undisclosed location in this undated picture released by the North’s KCNA in Pyongyang March 10, 2012 (Rueters)

NK Leadership Watch has many more photos and breaks it down a bit more. KPA Navy Unit 123 is located on Cho’do (Cho Islet or Island). A quick check of GoogleEarth reveals several NorK naval platforms located here.

More importantly, this base feed combat power to the area of the Northern Limit Line, site of the Choenan sinking in March 2011. Given all the NorK rhetoric against South Korea, this visit has to be part of an overall propaganda campaign from Pyongyang.

Threat Tuesday – Loss of USS Baltimore – NOT!

In the Navy! (Courtesy AP Photos)

In this undated photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed in Tokyo by the Korea News Service on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, second left, rides a boat when he visited Unit 158 of the navy of the North Korean People’s Army. (AP Photo)

The NorK Kid continues his toy travels inspection tours of various military units. Not unusual, but thanks to North Korea Leadership Watch we get a few more details. Here Kim Jong Un is visiting Combined Unit 597. Later in the same day he visited Unit 158 of the Korean People’s Army Navy. A very famous units, as KCNA tells us, because it sank CA-68 USS Baltimore.

According to KCNA:

The history of the development of the unit is recorded with feats which strikingly demonstrated the might of the KPA Navy by sinking or destroying a lot of enemy warships including the battle results unprecedented in the world history of naval battles KPA navymen achieved by sinking the U.S. imperialist heavy cruiser “Baltimore” with just four torpedo boats in the naval battle in Jumunjin during the Fatherland Liberation War.

NorK Propaganda Poster (Wikipedia)

The NorKs apparently even have a display in a museum in Pyongyang which claims the same.

Poor “Engrish” aside (a nearly 70-word sentence), the above is a great example of NorK delusional propaganda. The battle referenced is better known as the Battle of Chumonchin Chan which took place on 2 July 1950. As the Naval Historical Center tells it:

In the early hours of July 2, as the allied fleets converged on Korea, U.S. cruiser Juneau, British cruiser Jamaica, and British frigate Black Swan discovered 4 torpedo boats and 2 motor gunboats of the North Korean navy that had just finished escorting ten craft loaded with ammunition south along the coast in the Sea of Japan. The outgunned North Korean torpedo boats turned and gamely pressed home a torpedo attack, but before they could launch their weapons, the Anglo-American flotilla ended the threat; only one torpedo boat survived U.S.-British naval gunfire to flee the scene. After this one-sided battle and for the remainder of the war, North Korean naval leaders decided against contesting control of the sea with the UN navies. The surviving units of the North Korean navy eventually took refuge in Chinese and Soviet ports.

Victorious KPA Navy - or just a Survivor? (Wikipedia)

So let me get this straight; USS Baltimore was not involved and three NorK torpedo boats were sunk. Yet the fourth boat is heralded as the victor in that same Pyongyang museum.

All this makes one wonder just what stories the young NorKster is being told and what he really believes. Is this really just propaganda for the masses? Does Kim Jong Un believe it? Is he inclined to act based on interpretations of history like this? Has he already done so? All the more interesting in light of reports that Kim Jong Un masterminded the sinking of 26 March 2011 sinking of the ROK Navy ship PCC-772 Choenan.

 

 

Threat Tuesday – Jonger Was a Navy Man

Courtesy Daylife.com

The late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (C) inspects a navy vessel in this undated picture released by KCNA December 26, 2011. Kim Jong-il, who ruled isolated and impoverished North Korea from 1994, died on December 17, 2011, according to the state’s media. (Reuters)

Given the photo was released after his death we are forced to assume that one of the Jongers last acts was to visit a navy base somewhere. Build morale; make them feel important. Note the open-top turrets and the general lack of electronics. The seemingly dark-grey paint scheme may work in twilight against a dark landmass. But really, no matter how you cut it, this is still a 1940′s-era boat.

Threat Tuesday – Brits Return to Havana

(Rueters) 15 Nov 2010: British Royal Navy HMS Manchester Type 42 Destroyer enters Havana’s bay beside colonial-era Morro Cabana fortress November 15, 2010. The visit is the first by a British Royal Navy warship to Cuba since pre-revolution days in 1957, and is aimed at strengthening cooperation in anti-narcotics operations and rapid disaster relief coordination between the two countries.

I particularly like the old vs new; the colonial cannons and the modern (well, relatively modern) warship.  Interesting also how a Cold War-era destroyer is now an emmissary for counter-narcs and disaster relief….

Threat Tuesday – Iran’s New WIG

Bavar-2 Radar Evader

(AP Photo) This photo released on Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010, by the Iranian Defense Ministry, claims to show a Bavar-2, or Confidence-2, radar-evading flying boat. Iran’s state TV says the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guard has received its first three squadrons of radar-evading flying boats.

Radar evading?  Really?  Look at that nice FLAT and SQUARE radiator for the engine.  Maybe radar evading if you can count on low and slow.

A net search will reveal that this is probably the same “flying boat” shown testing in 2006.  At that time they advertised that it would be armed; a claim similar to those made today.