North Korea is making what could be its largest, most advanced warship ever, new satellite photos show

The images taken by the suppliers of independent satellites Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs on April 6 show the ship under construction in the Nampo shipyard on the west coast of North Korea, about 60 kilometers southwest of the Pyongyang capital.

Analysts say that the images show a continuous construction of weapons and other internal systems of the ship, which is probably a guided missile frigate (FFG) designed to transport missiles in vertical launch tubes for use against targets in land and sea.

“The FFG is approximately 140 meters long, which makes it the largest warship manufactured in North Korea,” said Joseph Bermúdez Jr and Jennifer Jun at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

By way of comparison, the Class Destructors Arleight Burke of the United States Navy are about 154 meters long and their cold constellation class in construction will be 151 meters long.

The existence of the war ship is not a surprise.

The Kim regime has been involved in a rapid modernization of its armed forces, developing a variety of new weapons and tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach almost anywhere in the United States.

That is done despite the sanctions of the United Nations that have set strict limits in their access to materials and technology to develop those weapons.

But the closest ties with Russia since the beginning of the Ukraine War could be helping North Korea to overcome UN sanctions, analysts say.

Kim Duk-Ki, a retired South Korean admiral, said he believes that Moscow could be providing technology for frigate missile systems.

The images of the ship appeared in a report on the State Central Television published at the end of last year in the plenary session of the end of the year of the party of the ruling workers. The images showed the Kim leader inspecting the construction of the ship.

The images in the KCTV video show the warship could have the type of weapons that the modern armeds possess, including vertical launch cells that could be used to shoot a variety of missiles.

Analysts also pointed out that the ship seems to be configured to have a phase matrix radar, which can track threats and objectives more quickly and more precisely than was shown with north Korea capabilities.

Despite these indications of advanced war skills, analysts urged caution when making assumptions.

The challenge of building warships

Almost any naval builder can obtain correct helmet systems and propulsion, said Carl Schuster, former Captain of the US Navy and Hawaii -based analyst.

“However, modern war ships represent a challenge of integration of communications, electronics, weapons and technologies of electronic and acoustic sensors” that are not achieved so easily, he said.

In an interview with CNN in March, the South Korean legislator Kim Byung-Kee, a member of the Intelligence Committee of the National Assembly, questioned whether Pyongyang has the technical capacity to build an advanced war ship or infrastructure to support it.

“Operating such a large military warship requires a significant amount of budget,” he said.

“Not only have to build a war ship, but make a team that operates it, and it costs to operate it, including equipment and fuel.

“In addition, a great warship cannot leave on its own. So the question is, can North Korea pay the cost?”

Kim, the South Korean admiral retired, was cautious by not underestimating how the final product would look, especially its lethality.

“If North Korea equips the new frigate with the hypersonic ballistic missile, he said to have successfully tried in January, that will cause an impact that changes the game on regional security,” said the former naval official.

After reviewing the satellite images for CNN, Schuster said that one or more work is probably left before the new North Korean war ship can start sea tests.

“The construction of this ship is being delayed due to the lack of superstructure systems, sensors and weapons for installation,” he said.

The North Korean Navy has around 400 patrol combatants and 70 submarines, according to the most recent estimate of the United States Defense Intelligence Agency (Dia) in a 2021 report.

Although that is a lot of boats, most of them are old and small.

Joseph Dempsey, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote in a January blog post that Pyongyang only has two main surface combatants. These Najin-War-class frigates of 1450 tons dating from the early 1970s-are obsolete, he wrote.

The day report said that the North Korean Navy would be greatly reduced to coastal defense in any conflict with South Korea or the United States, which have much higher naval forces.

But North Korean leader Kim has been pressing to modernize his naval fleet. It is also developing missiles released with submarines and submarines to take them.

In September, Kim inspected the site for a new Naval Port.

“Now that we soon have large warships and surface submarines that cannot be anchored in existing facilities to tie warships, the construction of a naval base to execute the last large warships has become a pressing task,” he said at that time.

Yu Yong-Won, a South Korean legislator, said that the ship under construction in the courtyard of Nampo is just an example of Kim trying to modernize its Navy.

A submarine with a nuclear power is being built in a shipyard in the North Korean port of Sinpo and another frigate or destructive is in process in Chongjin, said Yu.