According to a report by the Korean Central News Agency quoted by the global network, on April 2, local time, the General Missile Administration of the Korean People's Army successfully carried out the launch test of the Hwasong-16B hypersonic vehicle at Suncheon International Airport in western North Korea, possibly near Pyongyang. After flying about 1,000 kilometers and performing a jump and sideslip maneuver as planned, the hypersonic vehicle successfully splashed down on a predetermined target in the northwest of the Sea of Japan. KCNA announced that the flight test was a complete success.
Technical analysis of this test launch
Regarding the flight test of the hypersonic vehicle carried out by the DPRK, Big Ivan, including many bigwigs, immediately made a judgment after seeing the articles and photos published by the Korean Central News Agency, the flight trajectory of the Hwasong-16B, and even some people saw the bulletins of the Joint Staff Supervision Department of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. North Korea has carried out a very successful test launch of a hypersonic vehicle, and both the hypersonic vehicle itself, the test process, and the test effect have reached an extremely high level:
For example, judging from the appearance of the Hwasong-16B hypersonic vehicle, the hypersonic vehicle adopts a typical solid rocket engine take-off section, plus the front-section glider design, there is a fairing transition section between the front stage glider and the rear stage of the solid rocket motor take-off section, and the number Hwasong-16 is nothing to say, as early as 2021 Pyongyang held "self-defense" It was exhibited at the annual National Defense Development Achievement Exhibition, and two test launches were carried out on January 5 and 11, 2022, but the Hwasong-16 at that time used a liquid rocket engine, and the fuel filling port at the tail of the rocket engine and the main nozzle of the first-stage rocket engine and the characteristics of the traveling aircraft were very obvious, while the Hwasong-16B model of this test launch upgraded the first-stage booster from a liquid rocket engine to a solid rocket engine, and used a submersible nozzle, and the technical design of the overall rocket engine was very advanced.
The larger upgrade is in the design of the hypersonic glider, the previous Hwasong-16 adopts the first generation of technical level characteristics of the bicone hypersonic glider configuration, this configuration of the gliding lift-to-drag ratio is average, not suitable for the aircraft to implement a wide range of side-slip maneuvers at the end of the aircraft, it is the previous generation of hypersonic glider technology, but its technical advantages are relatively simple to manufacture, the load ratio is relatively high, the requirements for aerodynamic design and testing are relatively low, it is an easy to achieve configuration in engineering, such as the LRHW that the US military is currently developing/IRCPS, etc., is a typical hypersonic vehicle with a double cone configuration.
But the Hwasong-16B's gliding body configuration is simply jaw-dropping, and it uses a complex multi-curved waverider shape design, which is the configuration we see on the DF-17 hypersonic vehicle. The design of this glider is extremely demanding for materials, thermal management, and aerodynamics, otherwise it is easy to lose stability or overheat and burn. However, the advantages of this type of glider are quite huge, the biggest advantage is that it has excellent maneuverability, which can support the aircraft to jump and slide in near space to achieve the best penetration efficiency, and is considered to be a generation ahead of the bicone hypersonic glider configuration.
North Korea has used this configuration on the Hwasong-8 hypersonic vehicle before, but Hwasong-8 only conducted a test launch on September 14, 2021, and the test launch was also unsuccessful, it is said that it only flew more than 200 kilometers, and the gliding speed is less than 3 times the speed of sound, which cannot reach the technical threshold of hypersonic gliding at all.
Judging from the implementation of this test, the KCNA report is full of details and is extremely transparent. It is pointed out that during this flight, the Hwasong-16B hypersonic vehicle performed two jumps in boost-glide, with the apex altitude of the first jump reaching 101.1 km and the second jump apex altitude of 72.3 km, which are located outside and near space, respectively. At the end of the trajectory, the Hwasong-16B hypersonic vehicle limited the gliding speed and altitude by implementing the delayed start of the two-stage engine and the active orbit change of the active stage, and successfully limited the range to less than 1,000 kilometers, and the final range was about 1,000 kilometers.
According to the photos published by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) of Comrade Kim Jong Un observing and guiding the launch of the Hwasong-16B, it is clear that the Hwasong-16B has drawn a relatively straight trajectory from the Pyongyang area to the northeast, but this trajectory has slightly deviated, which means that the Hwasong-16B not only performed a jump maneuver but also a sideslip maneuver during the flight.
Judging from the flight trajectory of the Hwasong-16B test launch, this is a 100% hypersonic vehicle test test, including the highest point of the active segment pressed down and sliding, multiple jumps during the gliding process, and the implementation of complex maneuvering orbit changes and other elements of hypersonic vehicles, in addition, KCNA also announced that the General Administration of Missiles of the People's Army also deliberately limited the test launch range of the Hwasong-16B, and the measures adopted are mainly active control, which increases the control difficulty of this hypersonic vehicle, so in this sense, the Hwasong-16B can be called a fake, complete hypersonic vehicle。
The actual effect of the test shot
The last point is that judging from the actual effect of this test launch, for North Korea, the test launch of Hwasong-16B has undoubtedly achieved the intended purpose, and from the perspective of actual combat, it is estimated that South Korea and Japan will be shocked into a cold sweat.
According to the information released by the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Republic of Korea and the Joint Staff Supervision Department of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, they announced in unison that the actual flight range of the Hwasong-16B is only a few hundred kilometers, and that this data is extrapolated by calculating the trajectory, and it is obvious that this data does not match the data released by the DPRK itself. The only explanation is that Japan and South Korea actually did not monitor the whole process of this test launch at all, but from the apex of the more than 100 kilometers of ballistic trajectory at the end of the Hwasong-16B active stage and the glider pressed down to prepare for sliding, it was deduced that the Hwasong-16B has a range of 600 to 800 kilometers. However, what I never expected was that the Hwasong-16B is a hypersonic vehicle, and it is estimated that its performance is deliberately limited, and the highest point of the ballistic trajectory and the range are not a simple correspondence similar to that of ballistic missiles, so the notification data of Japan and South Korea is completely distorted. This also proves from the side that the hypersonic vehicle is indeed extraordinary in terms of penetration capability, and the Hwasong-16B hypersonic vehicle tested by North Korea is undoubtedly a huge threat to Japan and South Korea.
What's more, this test launch did not fully demonstrate the true level of the Hwasong-16B, and there may be very large reservations. Judging from the design of the Hwasong-16B, it uses a 7-axle special vehicle, compared with the early Hwasong-16 type, there is one more axle, according to the Hwasong-18 ICBM, a 9-axle special vehicle is used, and the take-off weight is 5 to 6 tons higher than the "Yars" ICBM used by the 8-axle special vehicle, and in the case of about 55 tons, it can be reasonably considered that the take-off weight of the Hwasong-16B is more than 30 tons. In fact, this weight has already exceeded the weight of a typical medium-range ballistic missile, reaching the level of a medium- and long-range ballistic missile.
With a take-off weight of about 30 tons, even if a conventional trajectory is used, it can reach a range of more than 4,000 kilometers, and in the case of using a hypersonic vehicle for range extension, the Hwasong-16B is fully sure to reach a huge range of more than 6,000 kilometers. Not to mention that this range is more than enough to replace the Hwasong-12 as the "Guam Express" of the Korean People's Army, and it is even sure to hit Palau and northern Australia, while the GBI interceptor missile launch position at Fort Greeley, Alaska, and the SBX sea-based early warning radar and other key parts of the US missile defense system are also within the strike range of the Hwasong-16B.
If the KPA's solid rocket engine technology is advanced enough, then the Hwasong-16B is a proper small ICBM with a light warhead, and the Korean People's Army's version of the "Gnome" ICBM is a tactical match.
North Korea picked up the manual?
Writing this, Big Ivan can only say that North Korea's ballistic missile technology and hypersonic vehicle technology have gone against the sky, and it can already be described as North Korea's speed, which is completely inconsistent with any objective laws.
For example, this hypersonic vehicle, the test launch of Hwasong-8 in 2021 basically failed, and in early 2022, two hypersonic vehicles with a double cone were test-launched. As a result, North Korea has completed the configuration of the waverider body in just two years, and even the high-efficiency solid rocket engine has been completed, and the two bombs have been successfully combined with a test launch, which has achieved extremely high gliding efficiency and test launch effect, which can no longer be described by common sense, and it can probably be said that the villagers along the Yalu River have shared with you that hypersonic aircraft technology is more reasonable.
What's even worse is that at present, all over the world, the United States does not have this kind of hypersonic vehicle responsible for polyhedra in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan do not have it, and Russia's "Dagger" and "Zircon" are definitely used in a spiral configuration, and complex polyhedra either do not have it, and if there is, it is only used on a very small number of intercontinental ballistic missiles. How the DPRK suddenly clicked on the technology tree of hypersonic vehicles and the technology of waverider body research and development and manufacturing technology as soon as it came up with extremely limited scientific research strength is a mystery for the ages.