On March 24, North Korea unveiled the “Haeil,” its first-ever nuclear-armed unmanned underwater car (UUV). The information launched by the North are inadequate to substantiate the Haeil’s existence, its claimed growth timeline and check actions, or its claimed efficiency. However growth of a nuclear-armed UUV is inside North Korea’s technical capabilities.
Based mostly on what has been gleaned up to now concerning the Haeil, it will nonetheless be considerably inferior to North Korea’s nuclear-armed ballistic and cruise missiles when it comes to time-to-target, accuracy and lethality. Its vary limits it to coastal targets in South Korea and southeast Japan. Though this implies it will not be topic to allied air and missile defenses, it will nonetheless be weak to engagement by anti-submarine warfare (ASW) belongings. North Korea claimed this weapon may assault “naval striker teams,” however it’s too gradual to pose a viable menace to ships which might be underway and thus in all probability restricted to attacking ports and identified anchorages. Its gradual velocity, forcing it to face many hours of potential ASW detection threat earlier than reaching goal, makes it an unlikely first-strike weapon, though it will be appropriate as a retaliatory weapon. Even then, many of the injury from a North Korean retaliatory strike would have already got been executed by missiles lengthy earlier than any Haeils arrived. Pyongyang may also see the Haeil as a “lifeless hand” choice to make sure some form of nuclear retaliation after an allied disarming strike or a misplaced struggle, however success can be removed from assured, given allied ASW capabilities.
As is usually the case with North Korea, the UUV would seem to have far more political than army utility. Unveiling the Haeil is in step with the previous a number of years of North Korean drive growth and associated public diplomacy, messaging that:
- North Korea has giant and various nuclear supply capabilities;
- Allied makes an attempt at preemption, decapitation and missile protection will, subsequently, be unsuccessful, and North Korean nuclear retaliation can’t be prevented, particularly towards South Korea; and
- North Korea is very technologically succesful and might construct the identical sorts of weapons the key powers can.
All in all, the Haeil UUV brings little to the desk when it comes to army capabilities. Even its political worth might have already been exhausted in its unveiling. Given these realities, it stays to be seen how a lot Pyongyang will actually spend money on deploying this weapons system.
Data to Date
On March 24, North Korea introduced the existence of a brand new “underwater nuclear strategic assault weapon system,” the “Unmanned Underwater Nuclear Assault Craft ‘Haeil’.” Its mission reportedly is to “stealthily infiltrate into operational waters and make a super-scale radioactive tsunami by means of underwater explosion to destroy naval striker teams and main operational ports of the enemy,” and it “could be deployed at any coast and port or towed by a floor ship for operation.” In response to North Korean state media reporting, the Haeil (Korean for volcano) has been below growth since 2012; has “undergone greater than 50 shakedowns for the previous two years,” together with 29 “weapon checks” that have been “personally guided” by Kim Jong Un; and “its operational deployment was determined on the sixth Plenary Assembly of the eighth Central Committee” of the Employees’ Occasion of Korea (WPK) in January 2023.
Protection of the launch additionally reported a drill by which the Haeil was “deployed” on March 21 and “reached the goal level…set as a mock enemy port with its check warhead detonating underwater” on March 23, “after cruising alongside an oval and pattern-8 course at an underwater depth of 80 to 150 meters within the East Sea of Korea for 59 hours and 12 minutes.” That drill reportedly “verified its reliability and security and absolutely confirmed its deadly strike functionality.” Related images confirmed Kim Jong Un sitting close to the nostril of a torpedo-like object, a floor photograph of a cylinder-like object vaguely seen underwater and apparently in movement, and the plume from an underwater explosion.
On March 28, the North reported that one other check of what it known as the “Haeil-1” had occurred between March 25 and 27. “After cruising alongside a jagged and oval course simulating the space of the 600 kilometers within the East Sea of Korea for 41 hours and 27 minutes,” the Haeil “appropriately set off the check warhead underwater.” Two extra photographs have been launched with a floor picture with a portion of {a partially} submerged torpedo-like object in movement and the plume from an underwater explosion.
Lastly, on the identical day, Pyongyang reported a March 27 assembly by which Kim Jong Un “guided the work for mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles.” The report referred to “new tactical nuclear weapons” and their “interchangeability with totally different weapons methods.” Most significantly, the related photographs depicted what apparently have been at the least 10 items of an built-in “tactical” nuclear weapon. Additionally they confirmed a graphic hanging on a wall of the inspection space with cutaway drawings of the entrance sections of eight totally different supply methods, together with the Haeil, every apparently exhibiting the identical kind of warhead mounted inside.
Is It Actual?
These stories and images are the primary open-source indication of a nuclear UUV however are inadequate to substantiate the Haeil’s existence, its claimed growth timeline and check actions, or its claimed efficiency. Kim Jong Un’s January 2021 report back to the Eighth Occasion Congress famous a job to own “an underwater-launch nuclear strategic weapon which will likely be of nice significance in elevating the long-range nuclear putting functionality,” however the report didn’t particularly reference a UUV and that job was talked about within the context of “solid-fuel engine-propelled inter-continental underwater and floor ballistic rockets” and a “nuclear-powered submarine.” The March 24, 2023 announcement famous that the Haeil was “informally reported” to the Central Committee Political Bureau on the “Defence Improvement Exhibition Self-Defence-2021” held in October 2021, however such a UUV was not seen within the in depth photos launched by North Korea on the time.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Workers (JCS) launched a press release on March 27 saying that “there have been indicators that North Korea has been creating unmanned submarines, however we assess that they’re nonetheless at an elementary degree.”[1] And as one analyst famous, it’s certainly right that we “can’t rule out the likelihood that that is an try at deception.” However growth of a nuclear-armed UUV is inside North Korea’s technical capabilities. For instance, the US and USSR developed nuclear-armed torpedoes within the Fifties. And buying one other kind of nuclear supply system (“based mostly on a brand new operational idea,” within the phrases of the North’s March 24 announcement) can be in step with North Korea’s emphasis over the previous few years on a various nuclear drive immune to preemption and decapitation, and on demonstrating its technological prowess.
Potential Capabilities
The Haeil’s configuration is unsure. Open-source analysts to this point have assessed a diameter of some 500-800 mm (a normal 21-inch torpedo is 533 mm in diameter), and the complete size of the UUV has not been displayed. The March 24 announcement’s reference to the Haeil being “deployed at any coast and port or towed by a floor ship” might counsel that it’s too lengthy and/or too giant in diameter for the standard torpedo tube. (North Korea’s CHT-02D 533-mm torpedo is 7.35 meters lengthy.)
Vary and velocity. Pyongyang has not described the Haeil’s propulsion kind, but it surely nearly definitely depends on batteries. The North claimed a 600-km vary and 41.5-hour endurance (thus, a 7.8-knot common cruising velocity) for the March 25-27 Haeil check. The 59-hour endurance claimed for the March 21-23 check might replicate a decrease common cruising velocity, given the possible tradeoff between velocity and endurance in a battery-powered UUV, however might counsel the car is able to a considerably longer vary. These efficiency claims seem credible given the 500-km vary (with out payload), 110-hour endurance, and a couple of.5-knot cruising velocity of the US battery-powered REMUS 620 UUV, which may dash for transient durations at eight knots. The US system, at 324 mm in diameter and 4.8 m lengthy, might be a lot smaller than the Haeil however presumably is extra technologically superior.
A 600-km vary would allow strikes towards South Korea’s coastlines from all kinds of North Korean coastal places. The UUV would should be launched from the southern a part of North Korea’s east coast to strike targets in Japan (the southeast a part of the Residence Islands). Extra concentrating on flexibility might be gained from launching the Haeil at sea, however any towing or launch platform can be severely weak even just some hundred kilometers off North Korea’s coasts. Thus, the UUV is nearly definitely a theater weapon constrained to coastal targets.
Accuracy. We have no idea how the Haeil is guided or how correct it’s. To attenuate its vulnerability to detection and jamming whereas submerged, it in all probability makes use of an inertial steerage system. The accuracy of naval inertial methods degrades over time, as a lot as some 1.85 km per 24 hours.[2] Ideally, the inertial system can be up to date by exposing an antenna periodically (or at the least as soon as, a couple of hours earlier than reaching goal) to obtain shore-based or satellite tv for pc navigational alerts, however this may increasingly enhance the UUV’s vulnerability to detection whereas doing so, and such alerts are topic to jamming and the destruction of their land-based services.
Lethality. The North Korean schematic exhibiting the newly-unveiled “tactical” nuclear warhead integrated contained in the Haeil is in step with the scale of the warhead proven within the March 28 photographs and the assessed diameter of the UUV. The Institute for Science and Worldwide Safety has assessed that warhead as “possible for North Korea’s expertise and variety of underground checks” and its yield “is probably going within the vary of 10 kilotons” (kt). Opposite to Pyongyang’s claims, a warhead of this yield detonated underwater (or perhaps a very a lot bigger one) wouldn’t produce a “tsunami.” As a substitute, a 10-kt warhead would throw up and irradiate a column of as a lot as a million tons of water that will fall out over an space of a number of miles—severely contaminating ships and land areas inside that zone.[3] However a 10-kt airburst from a missile can be extra damaging (akin to the 15-kt “Little Boy” bomb used on Hiroshima) as a result of a lot of the power of a UUV-based nuclear explosion is contained below water.
Deployment and basing. Assuming Pyongyang really deploys the Haeil, we have no idea what number of could be fielded or the way it could be based mostly. The UUV would fairly possible be deployed in hardened shore installations akin to coastal protection torpedo-launching websites that will be closely camouflaged and/or disguised as civilian or different benign installations. As a result of the Haeil might be hidden in such services earlier than launch, it might be pretty safe from pre-launch assault, barring a fortuitous allied intelligence coup.
It additionally is feasible that Haeils might be towed out to sea by North Korean ships, as famous within the March 24 assertion, throughout a prewar disaster or previous to an assault choice. The ship (maybe a commandeered civilian vessel) may both drop the UUV off at sea or keep tethered to the UUV for subsequent launch. This method would enhance allied alternatives to detect the UUV in transit or at its sea holding space, nonetheless, in comparison with land basing. It additionally can be more durable to make sure launch instructions have been obtained, particularly in wartime, until the UUV was nonetheless tethered to a ship and the ship had not beforehand been attacked.
Restricted Risk Potential
The Haeil can be inferior to North Korea’s nuclear-armed ballistic and cruise missiles when it comes to velocity (and thus time-to-target), accuracy, and lethality; moreover, it’s restricted to in-theater coastal targets. Though it will not be topic to allied air and missile defenses, it will be susceptible to detection and engagement by ASW belongings. A gradual, battery-powered UUV would in all probability be quieter, and thus much less weak to acoustic detection, than North Korea’s standard submarines, however we have no idea how quiet the Haeil is relative to allied detection thresholds.
Not a lot anti-ship functionality. The March 24 assertion referred to attacking “naval striker teams.” The Haeil seems to be too gradual to pose a viable menace to ships which might be underway. It will additionally must have an on-board functionality to detect such teams itself and/or a solution to obtain and act upon exterior concentrating on info—knowledge that will be difficult for North Korea to acquire, particularly in wartime. And each capabilities may enhance the UUV’s vulnerability if used. Subsequently, Haeil’s menace to delivery in all probability is proscribed to ports and identified anchorages.
Unlikely first-strike weapon. The UUV’s extraordinarily gradual velocity, forcing it to face many hours of potential ASW detection threat earlier than reaching goal, makes it unlikely that North Korea would think about using the Haeil alone to conduct a shock nuclear assault or as an assault precursor, or timing the Haeil’s arrival to coincide with that of an preliminary nuclear missile strike. Furthermore, it isn’t clear whether or not North Korea can talk (or talk reliably) with the UUV as soon as underway to cancel an impending assault if circumstances change throughout its many hours of transit. As soon as even standard hostilities start, North Korea’s land-based means to speak with a submerged UUV are more likely to be taken out.
Appropriate for delayed retaliation. Extra possible, the Haeil can be launched concurrently a nuclear missile strike—notably if the North was a) initiating nuclear use; b) preempting what it strongly believed was an imminent allied nuclear assault or an try at a disarming strike towards its missile drive; or c) retaliating towards such assaults, both whereas the assaults have been ongoing or after the actual fact. The injury prompted to allied ASW and command-and-control by the sooner arrival of North Korean missiles in all probability would enhance the Haeil’s means to keep away from interception if efficiently launched. However many of the injury from a North Korean retaliatory strike would have already got been executed by missiles lengthy earlier than any Haeils arrived.
A restricted “lifeless hand.” Pyongyang may also see the Haeil as a “lifeless hand” choice, making certain some form of nuclear retaliation within the occasion {that a}) an allied disarming strike towards its missile drive was in some way profitable, or b) North Korea had misplaced, or was doomed to lose, a traditional struggle or had suffered nuclear devastation. A profitable final UUV strike can be removed from assured, nonetheless, given allied ASW capabilities. And the restricted, albeit horrible, affect of 10-kt coastal strikes towards a rustic with a lot of its inhabitants and business inland might not provide North Korea what it regards as enough consolation or satisfaction.
Extra Political Than Navy Worth
Based mostly on what we will divine from open sources on the Haeil’s capabilities and army potential, the South Korean JCS’s March 27 evaluation that “it’s extremely possible that these claims are exaggerated and manipulated” seems to be right. As is usually the case with North Korea, the UUV appears to have far more political than army utility. Future, extra succesful follow-ons to the Haeil can’t be dominated out—and maybe the North was hinting at this by adopting the “Haeil-1” nomenclature on March 28—however battery-powered UUVs are unlikely to supply any army benefit in nuclear supply over North Korea’s ballistic and cruise missile forces.
Politically, nonetheless, the revealing of the Haeil is in step with the previous a number of years of Pyongyang’s drive growth and associated public diplomacy, which it has used to message that:
- North Korea has giant and various nuclear supply capabilities (referred to on March 24 as “the extra developed, multi-faceted and offensive nuclear assault functionality,” and on March 28 in “the strategic plan…on combining and working nuclear weapons by totally different means within the diversified operation areas”);
- Allied makes an attempt at preemption, decapitation and missile protection will, subsequently, be unsuccessful, and North Korean nuclear retaliation can’t be prevented, particularly towards South Korea; and
- North Korea is very technologically succesful and might construct the identical sorts of weapons the key powers can.
All of those themes come collectively in North Korea’s clear effort to introduce the Haeil in a means that evokes Russia’s Poseidon UUV—all the way down to the declare of with the ability to generate “a super-scale radioactive tsunami.” Not like the Haeil, nonetheless, the Poseidon may be very giant (at the least 1,500-mm diameter), nuclear-powered, has very deep diving, excessive velocity (over 50 knots), intercontinental vary nuclear warhead, and is armed with at the least two megatons (with claims of 100 megatons, though even that might not generate a “tsunami”).
The Backside Line: A Political Assertion Posing a Restricted Risk
As different analysts have concluded, North Korea is unlikely to deploy very many Haeil UUVs and can proceed to depend on ballistic missiles for the majority of its nuclear strike functionality. As a nuclear supply system, this UUV brings little to the desk as a result of its gradual velocity, potential in-transit vulnerability to ASW, and restricted assault functionality. The Haeil is far more invaluable to North Korea as a political messaging instrument, though even a superb a part of that worth might have already got been gained merely by means of unveiling it. It stays to be seen how far more Pyongyang invests on this enterprise.
- [1]
See Colin Zwirko, “North Korea reveals off smaller nuke warhead it says suits on missiles geared toward ROK,” NK Information, March 28, 2023, https://www.nknews.org/2023/03/kim-jong-un-inspects-warheads-as-part-of-push-to-produce-more-nuclear-material; and Jeongmin Kim, “North Korea ‘exaggerated’ about new undersea nuclear drone, Seoul says,” NK Information, March 27, 2023, https://www.nknews.org/2023/03/north-korea-exaggerated-about-new-undersea-nuclear-drone-seoul-says.
- [2]
David Titterton and John L. Weston, “Ship’s Inertial Navigation Programs (SINS),” in Strapdown Inertial Navigation Expertise, 2nd Version (Stevenage, United Kingdom: The Establishment of Electrical Engineers, 2004).
[3]
See David Albright, “Underwater Nuclear Drone: North Korea’s Nuclear Madmen,” Institute for Science and Worldwide Safety, March 27, 2023, https://isis-online.org/isis-reports/element/underwater-nuclear-drone-north-koreas-nuclear-madmen; and Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, The Results of Nuclear Weapons (Washington, DC: US Authorities Printing Workplace, 1977), 52 and 54, https://www.atomicarchive.com/sources/paperwork/results/glasstone-dolan.html.