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North Korea's new warheads could penetrate missile shield, says Japan
Source: Reuters
North Korea's new warheads could penetrate missile shield, says Japan
Reuters
Wed 28 Aug 2019 02.08 BST
North Korea appears to be developing warheads to penetrate a missile shield defending Japan, the country’s defence minister has said.
Minister Takeshi Iwaya said on Tuesday Japan believed the rockets were a new short-range ballistic missile, pointing to their irregular trajectories, which theoretically could outsmart existing defence systems.
Recent short-range missile tests by Pyongyang have stoked alarm in neighbouring Japan even as US president Donald Trump has dismissed the launches as unimportant.
Japan and the US have Aegis destroyers deployed in the Sea of Japan armed with interceptor missiles designed to destroy warheads in space. Japan also plans to build two land-based Aegis batteries to bolster its ballistic missile shield.
Those defence systems, however, are designed to counter projectiles on regular and therefore, predictable, trajectories, and any variation in flight path would make interception trickier.
-snip-
Reuters
Wed 28 Aug 2019 02.08 BST
North Korea appears to be developing warheads to penetrate a missile shield defending Japan, the country’s defence minister has said.
Minister Takeshi Iwaya said on Tuesday Japan believed the rockets were a new short-range ballistic missile, pointing to their irregular trajectories, which theoretically could outsmart existing defence systems.
Recent short-range missile tests by Pyongyang have stoked alarm in neighbouring Japan even as US president Donald Trump has dismissed the launches as unimportant.
Japan and the US have Aegis destroyers deployed in the Sea of Japan armed with interceptor missiles designed to destroy warheads in space. Japan also plans to build two land-based Aegis batteries to bolster its ballistic missile shield.
Those defence systems, however, are designed to counter projectiles on regular and therefore, predictable, trajectories, and any variation in flight path would make interception trickier.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/28/north-koreas-new-warheads-could-penetrate-missile-shield-says-japan