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North Korea Missile Developments
North Korea's battlefield missile program probably began with
the reverse engineering of the FROG-5 and the mid-1970s
acquisition of local production of China's Samlet antiship
missile, a result of a long history of bilateral cooperation.
Egypt also has a longstanding bilateral relationship with North
Korea and became involved in the missile program as an outgrowth
of military and defense industry cooperation that dates back to
1973.
Between 1981 and 1985, North Korea is believed to have
reverse engineered the Scud-B using several Egyptian-supplied,
Soviet-made Scud-Bs. Production facilities are located on the
outskirts of P'yongyang, and missile test facilities are
concentrated at a few bases along the eastern coast north of
Wnsan. North Korea first test-launched the Scud-B in 1984 and,
with the help of Iranian capital investments, began production by
1987. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), North Korea provided
Iran with as great an amount of military supplies as the latter
was able to pay for. North Korea also is believed involved in
sales or technology transfer agreements associated with ballistic
missile developments with Egypt, Iran, Syria, and Libya.
Development of a follow-on, longer range Scud-C is believed to
have commenced around the same time; the first test launches
occurred in 1989.
In 1991 North Korea was developing a new type of ballistic
missile with a range in excess of 900 kilometers. The new missile
was tentatively called the Nodong 1 by Western sources after the
name of its test facility. The initial tests failed, but on the
basis of North Korea's development pace for the Scud series,
deployment would be possible by mid-decade. North Korea
successfully test-fired the Nodong 1 in May 1993. A follow-on
missile called the Taepodong 1 and the Taepodong 2 by the foreign
press, is being developed with a range of up to 6,000 kilometers.
Data as of June 1993
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