Bluffer’s guide: North Korean Naval Power 2007

Violet Oboe said:

Dear Planeman are there any indications how long the vessel has been moored at this place?

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No, but the imagery is at least a year old, probably several years old.

Violet Oboe said:

Do you know of a NK military yard possibly capable of building a Krivak class frigate?

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not by name but there is no doubt that they can built ships this large, as they build freighters and have in years past built several Frigates, albeit smaller. Indications are that North korean ships aren't any worse built than anyone elses though obviously often rather basic.

The size isen't the issue, but the level of sohpistication. When the pr. 1135 emerged it presented a huge technological cap to its precessors, pr. 50 and 42 classes. Untill these ays NK hasen't showed anymore sophisticated shipbuilding than for the level of the mentioned forerunners of Krivak class.

As the ship seems to be stripped out of its equipment, I'm more and more douptfull of it ever being operational. North Koreans haven't showed any indications that they could master gas turbines, complex radar and sonar suites, automatic naval guns, SAMS, modern SSMs and ect. In the best DPRK could make the ship running with diesels and with post WWII era gun armament (and perhaps silkworms) so it definetly wont reach even near the Krivaks capability which was new in the 1970's...

I think that you are being unfair on the North Koreans. The technology you mention is well within their grips, just that the leadership somewhere seems to have let the world pass them by. They get the engines off Russia or just use diesels as the Iranians did for the Moudge - and I'm sure that has more to do with obsessive self-depenmdancy rather than inability to buy engines in from Russia or China.

Most of the public info we have surrounding DPRK surface combattants is pre-1990s(?)! Even Janes seems somewhat disinterested, so a lot of minor developments may have occured since then, such as buying in at least a few automativc medium guns - hell even Iran is looking for export customers for its ripped off OTO-Melara 76mm.


This in part was the key finding that this research found: Most of the puiblic info like Global Security and FAS is years out of date and plenty of little leads point towards various developments since then that simply aren't publically known, at least not widely.

So we don't know much about the Krivak but we can see what is 99.99% a Krivak sitting in a DPRK harbour - and the public internet world seems totally unaware. Until now

well Iran's situation isent the same
But also consider the difficoulties that China had in warship building in the 80's. It took almoust 25 years to create even a workable ship class with foreing gas turbines and sopishticated eletronics...
Look even Russia. Why have tehy only produced Sovromenyys after 91?? Becouse all the naval gas turbine expertice remained in Ukraine and they havent been able to set up an domestic lines for it. Even China cannot make naval gas turbines, they have just begun to produce airborne ones. Why you suddenly think that NK can do them? Is there any evidence that aircraft turbofans has been devolped and produced domestically in NK??

Im not being unfair, Im being rational and realistic.

I think that your 'unfair' assumption is that in order to have a Krivak they must have to build their own gas turbines - they clearly got the design (if not the whole ship) from Russia or maybe Ukraine, so why not just get gas turbines at the same time? Russia can build gas turbines, but it's a neglected area of development (which is a bad thing for Russian Navy IMO). Similar goes for PLAN - someone somewhere has made a short-termist business descision to opt for boilers rather than invest in gas turbines .. until wayyyy too late. One of the obsticles to indiginous gas turbine development is the relatively low production runs - cost benefit.

Yeas...but then again, I think you just surrender to the world of "If it could be this way, it could be that way too."
If we want to speculate, we should seek the most reasonable explanation to the evidence we have....and that (unfortuanetly) speaks for the fact that the Ship is there to be scrabbed.

Very nice guide thanks

Dumb question:


What is that T-shaped thing in aft/rear section of the ship?

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As for NK, if they have the $, I'm sure they could import the necessary components and engines. Though adding 1 frigate is not going to make their Navy powerful by any means.

Towed sonar housing.