North Korea has sent rocket launchers disguised as civilian trucks to Russia to combine North Korea’s combined force fighting off an incursion through Ukrainian troops.
As part of a military parade in Pyongyang in 2023, the North Korean military displayed a variety of civilian trucks and sold trucks with multiple launch rocket tubes hidden inside. This week or earlier, the truck’s launcher made the impression in Kursk Oblast in western Russia, where 60,000 Russian and North Korean troops are seeking to drive 20,000 Ukrainians out of a 250-square-mile salient that Ukrainians captured in an August invasion.
The incognito launcher with 12 ready-to-fire 122-millimeter rockets, each ranging 19 miles, is the fifth major vehicle type North Korea has deployed to Russia alongside the North Korean 11th Army Corps, which had 12,000 troops when it arrived in October but has since lost a third of them in infantry-first assaults on Ukrainian positions.
North Korea’s carloads come with Bulsae-4 anti-tank missile launchers, 170-millimeter M1,989 Howles, 240-millimeter M1991 rocket launchers, as well as at least one rare wheel-chassis air defense formula. Russian troops accidentally blew up TOR at the beginning of the month after having it with a Ukrainian formula.
The box truck launcher is a strange system of potentially limited utility. Hiding launchers in civilian trucks might help those trucks move into position ahead of a sneak attack on an unprepared foe. It doesn’t help them avoid Ukrainian artillery and drones on a battlefield where Russian regiments are already using many thousands of civilian vehicles for military purposes.
The Ukrainians rarely hesitated to exploit the civil taste cars that place near the front line. They will doubt even less now than they know that North Koreans hide rockets in cashiers.
Box truck launchers may not make much difference in the war for Kursk. Since the launcher is based on the undispelled BM-21 launcher in North Korea, “the formula has decreased accuracy than typical artillery and is used in conditions requiring pinpoint accuracy. ” The US Army explained. “It relies on a giant number of shells dissipating over a domain for a certain good fortune rate on express objectives. ”
Can North Korean commanders mass enough of the disguised launchers for an effective barrage? There are reasons to be skeptical. Russia has lost more than 250 BM-21s to enemy action in the first 35 months of its wider war on Ukraine; North Korea might need to send a lot of box truck launchers to ensure enough of them get past Ukrainian artillery and drones to set up for a bombardment.
Sources:
1. Kherson’s special cat
2. US Army
3. Oryx
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