North Korea Unveils New Ballistic Missile with 900% Standard Payload: Colossal 4500kg Warhead Deployed

North Korea has unveiled a new derivative of its KN-23 ballistic missile with an expanded 4500 kilogram warhead - one of the largest warheads ever integrated onto a ballistic missile. The missile was test launched on September 18 in response to a “grave threat from external forces,” according to local officials, with the launch taking place on the country’s east coast. Chairman of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party Kim Jong Un personally supervised the test, and reported regarding its conduct: “Such tests and the steady improvement of performance of weapons and equipment through them are directly related to the grave threat from external forces to the state security environment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” “Only when we have strong power, can we contain and frustrate the enemies’ strategic misjudgment,” the chairman added, stressing the need for continued modernisation of the missile arsenal. The missile, locally designated Hwasong-11-Da-4.5, has according to some reports previously been tested once on July 1. Although the baseline KN-23 has an engagement range of over 700 kilometres, the new variant with an enlarged warhead can reportedly only engage targets around 350 kilometres away.  

The size of the new warhead on the ballistic missile class allows it to deliver ordinance that would unusually require entire missile barrages, with 500 kilograms considered a standard payload for ballistic missile systems such as the North Korean Hwasong-6 or Russian Iskander-M. This payload will allow the new missile system to strike heavily fortified targets, and optimises it for attacks on concentrations of enemy forces. Russia has notably since early 2024 made growing use of extra high ordinance bombs carrying 3000 kilogram payloads to great effect against Ukrainian forces, although these must be delivered by aircraft and dropped just tens of kilometres away from the target. The new North Korean missile’s ability to strike targets with a 50 percent larger payload, and to do so from a respectable range for a tactical ballistic missile class, has significant implications for the country potential adversaries namely the United States, South Korea, and their Western Bloc allies. No equivalent to the Hwasong-11-Da-4.5 is known to exist anywhere in the world, with the missile’s high payload potentially allowing it to be marketed for export to Russia. The Russian Defence Ministry emerged in late 2023 as a major client for a range of North Korean tactical ballistic missile types including the KN-23B and KN-24.