North Korea Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

To quote from a famous movie, "big son of a bitch". Was looking at some subs with that kind of diameter, a Pr. 667 Delta is about that size. A friggin' Delta.
What do netizens think of length, displacement and likely missile load?

If it gets as big as Delta then surfaced weight at minimum would be 8000 ton and at most 14000 ton.

Same weight or much heavier than frigates they are making and perhaps if latter weight then maybe even as heavy as two frigates.

A ship that large is simply uneconomical to keep inshore. Does it seem that Kim is really ambitious enough to want to seize control of the Sea of Japan?!?

An ambition so large that it seems to be insanely unimaginable, when the Japan-South Korea-US alliance has simply enjoyed naval dominance for a long time. Hopefully Kim learns the lesson of the Kaiserliche Marine and Kriegsmarine.

As the sub must be almost certainly a SSBN, it makes sense from the point of view of the bastion concept, adding another leg to DPRK's nuclear deterrent. It's role is to ensure a reliable second strike capability. Would be deployed relatively close to DPRK shores under the cover of friendly air, missile and naval forces. Perhaps this is why the new frigates are being built, to protect said bastion with among others their long range SAMs. Although they could probably launch nuclear tipped Hwasals themselves.

mack8 said:

As the sub must be almost certainly a SSBN, it makes sense from the point of view of the bastion concept, adding another leg to DPRK's nuclear deterrent. It's role is to ensure a reliable second strike capability. Would be deployed relatively close to DPRK shores under the cover of friendly air, missile and naval forces. Perhaps this is why the new frigates are being built, to protect said bastion with among others their long range SAMs. Although they could probably launch nuclear tipped Hwasals themselves.

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I don't think it's truly possible for DPRK to make a bastion. They're not strong and technologically advanced enough, and realistically, being sandwiched between ROK and Japan is not exactly the best environment.

Finally, SSBNs are really not a best way to provide littoral deterrent. This is a big boat, unlikely to be all that suitable for littoral ops. Big, and, crucially, damn tall.

What I think is in fact possible is to provide them escorted deployment, where later boats themselves patrol somewhere away from ROK.

For example, up through Tarar strait into sea Okhotsk.

Primary benefit of SSBN is endurance along far less fuel and batteries are needed besides enough for backup systems in case there is need to shutdown the nuclear reactor or to be stationary somewhere and be as silent as possible, only limitation would be amount of food on board and usually nuclear powered submarines have longer endurance because they carry more food as SSN layout is far more efficient.