North Korea Test Fires Two More Short Range Missiles at Lower Trajectories

It seems besides the strategic messaging to Washington, that the Kim regime is continuing prove that their new missile can accurately fly at different trajectories:

North Korea on Wednesday launched two short-range ballistic missiles from its eastern coast, the second such test in six days. 

According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the missiles were fired at 5:06 a.m. and 5:27 a.m. from an area around Kalma near Wonsan, Kangwon Province. Both projectiles flew around 250 kilometers (155 miles) at an altitude of approximately 30 kilometers before landing in the East Sea, a JCS spokesman said. 

The first missile to be fired was spotted by Korea’s Master Control and Reporting Center (MCRC) and a Navy vessel equipped with the Aegis Combat System, while the second was detected by the MCRC, the ship and early warning radar. 

While it is not yet known what kinds of rocket were launched Wednesday, they may be similar to those fired on July 25, which are believed to be domestically produced variants of the Russian-made 9K720 Iskander missile system, code named KN-23 by South Korean and U.S. intelligence. (…..)

The significant feature of Wednesday’s test was the missile’s low peak altitude of 30 kilometers. South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo at a security forum Wednesday said that South Korean and U.S. intelligence saw in the North’s newest tests “different indicators” than before.

Analysts said Pyongyang may have deliberately chosen to test a variety of trajectories for its KN-23 missile system since May in order to send a message to Seoul and Washington that it possesses the capacity to evade their most sophisticated antimissile defense systems.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the article once again discusses how the KN-23 can fly lower than the engagement altitude of THAAD. The ROK military rightfully countered that they have Patriot missile batteries that can engage this threat.  

THAAD was never meant to be a magic bullet that engages all threats on the peninsula. THAAD engages targets at higher altitudes than Patriot. One of the main reasons it was deployed was because of the threat of lofted trajectory missiles that North Korea was testing that the Patriot batteries could not engage.