“Made in North Korea” drones that look almost identical to American devices. This is what Kim Jong-un presented to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu during his visit to the Pyongyang arms fair organized by the communist regime. More precisely, two machines have attracted the attention of specialists: the first has exactly the appearance of the MQ-9 Reaper of the US Air Force and the second shares the same appearance as the RQ-4 Global Hawk of the US Navy.
The Wion News Agency reported that South Korean experts do not know how technologically advanced these copies of drones are. It can be assumed that their capabilities partially or fully approximate their original American models. As a reminder, the MQ-9 Reaper is the first drone to really be used offensively during American operations in Afghanistan. Versatile, it can carry out long surveillance missions. This device is 10 meters long and weighs almost 4 tons. Among other things, the Reapers can carry four GBU-12 laser-guided bombs. These machines weigh nearly 270 kilos and can reach a target within a radius of 13 kilometers. They are mainly used against lightly armored mobile targets such as 4x4s for example.
NEW: North Korea airs the first video footage of its two new military drones in action, showing a combat UAV firing missiles during flight. Read more about the unveiling here: https://t.co/AoOvLYVg2lpic.twitter.com/07uYQGJv3g
— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) July 27, 2023
For its part, the Global Hawk is capable of flying at high altitude for more than 30 hours. The latter is primarily designed to collect near real-time high-resolution images of large land areas in all weathers, day and night. These same intelligence-gathering capabilities also allow civil authorities to better respond to natural disasters, conduct search and rescue operations, and collect weather and atmospheric data to help forecasters predict the path of storms.
Beyond intelligence gathering, part of the Global Hawk fleet supported ground troops by acting as a communications relay. This drone has accumulated more than 320,000 flight hours, with missions performed in support of military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, North Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.
North Korea may have received foreign aid
Military analysts wonder how Kim Jong-un’s regime could copy such technologies when the country struggles to truly develop its own weapons. Specialists believe that North Korea may have received help from foreign countries and could have gotten their hands on some Reapers that have been shot down over the years. In 2019, Iran destroyed and then recovered one of these American devices over the Strait of Hormuz. Additionally, in September 2020, the US military reported that two more Reapers had been intercepted over Yemen.
The Wion agency indicated that the North Korean army “even carried out test flights with these two models”. This almost identical appearance could be the cause of serious misunderstandings between the two Koreas. Indeed, Seoul has RQ-4 Global Hawk that it bought in the United States. When flying over the Korean peninsula, it will be very difficult for anti-aircraft defenses to know whether a suspicious drone corresponding to one of these models belongs to Seoul or Pyongyang.
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2023-07-29 06:25:30
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