Daily Stormer The Most Censored Publication in History
Matt Blake
Daily Mail
August 16, 2013
- They were showcased in lavish show of muscle last month in Pyongyang
- But experts cry fake after studying series of high-definition photographs
- One claims ‘undulating skin’ on warheads would render them unable to fly
- Another claims no evidence of ‘retro rockets’, crucial for long-distance flight
The North Korean long-range missiles that jangled nerves across the world when paraded through Pyongyang last month were ‘almost certainly’ fake, government experts and independent researchers have claimed.
The weapons, which were showcased in a lavish show of military muscle to mark the 60th anniversary of the Korean war armistice, were heavily criticised by researchers who insisted they would be unable to fly let alone unleash a deadly attack on the US.
The revelation casts further doubt on the hermit nation’s bellicose showboating after its failed Unha-3 rocket launch in April 2012.
‘My opinion is that it’s a big hoax,’ said Markus Schiller, an aerospace engineer in Munich and former RAND Corp. military analyst.
He said he saw no evidence of ‘retro rockets’ on the back of the Hwasong-13s, hardware that is necessary to propel them into sub-orbital space and strike faraway targets.
James Oberg, an NBC News space and missile expert who witnessed first hand the 2012 failed launch, agreed, pointing to ‘undulating skin’ in the warheads that proves they are bogus.
‘Upper-stage missile skin has got to be really smooth, or else it sets off high-speed turbulent air flow that can both heat the region and also create localized drag effects that can pull the missile far off attitude (direction), or even pull it sideways and thus lead to loss of control and disintegration,’ he said.
Schiller added that North Korea also seems to be trying to inflate the number of Hwasong-13s it claims to possess, saying it reproduces old pictures of warheads to pass them off as new
‘I can tell that on the mock-ups, they simply changed the markings and serial numbers from last year’s parade to make it look like they have more missiles,’ he said.
It is not the first time North Korea’s missile capabilities have been called into question.
In 2012, experts claimed the North Korean missiles that were paraded as part of the 100th anniversary celebrations of the country’s founding father, Kim Il Sung, were also probably fakes.
