KF-21: South Korea’s Weapon Against North Korea’s Provocations – Part 2

KF-21, Various Domestic Missiles Can Be Equipped At Will

The most significant advantage of the KF-X project is that South Korea has opened the era of the first fighter jet they developed and that it is possible to equip various missiles and bombs that South Korea mainly imported from abroad with their domestic weapons at will. Until now, even if they made domestic missiles, they had to pay a tremendous system integration (Integration linkage) cost of tens of millions to equip them on F-15K and F-35 fighters imported from the United States.

More importantly, there is a problem in that they have to provide the secrets (source code, etc.) of advanced missiles they developed independently to the US side. However, by developing a domestic fighter, these problems of cost payment and technology exposure can be perfectly solved.

Various “Poison Stinger” weapons developed in Korea are expected to be equipped on the KF-21. The representative domestic “Stinger” weapons are supersonic air-to-ship, long-range air-to-ground, hypersonic, and ascent-phase missile interceptors. “Poison Stinger” weapons refer to weapons like the spines of a hedgehog that can respond to potential threats from neighboring powers such as North Korea’s nuclear missile threat, China, Russia, Japan, etc.

In particular, the domestic supersonic air-to-ship missile launched from a fighter jet in the case is a weapon that can sink aircraft carriers and surface ships of neighboring powers of China, Russia, and so on. It flies more than 2.5 times the speed of sound and can fly low above the surface, making interception difficult. It is expected to be developed by the end of the 2020s, with a diameter of about 400mm and a range of about 155 miles.

The most noticeable domestic weapon is the hypersonic missile.

Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong Doo first revealed the development plan at the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Agency for Defense Development (ADD). It can fly at more than Mach 5 and reach the sky over Pyongyang from Seoul in just 1 minute and 15 seconds. It is a highly threatening presence in enemy countries, as even military superpowers like the United States, Russia, and China do not have interception means. For North Korea, it can’t be any more so.

ADD believes that North Korea is developing an interceptor against a high-speed missile (interceptor) launched from the KF-21, which intercepts it in the ascending stage immediately after launch. The South Korean military’s missile defense network currently comprises Patriot PAC-3 missiles and improved KM-SAM II missiles.

These are designed to intercept North Korean missiles in the final stage before they fall on their land. Even if the interception is successful, fragments can fall, and the interception time is very short, so failure is possible.

Part 1…
Part 3…