MAPPED: North Korea – Hwasong-15 missile’s targets and the minutes warning we would get
BRITAIN would get a maximum of 30 minutes warning of nuclear attack from North Korea – and there is little that could be done to prevent it.
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As genuine fears of nuclear Armageddon raised their head for the first time since the dark days of the Cold War Express.co.uk has examined just where Kim Jong-un’s nuclear-tipped Hwasong-15 missiles could strike – and how much (or how little) warning we would get.
For the first time ever a second hostile nation has both the political motive AND the technical capability to strike mainland USA – including its political capital Washington DC and most populous city New York.
North Korea may well have USA allies in its sights – clearly including London and Seoul.
The following table of statistics – with time from launch at Pyŏngsŏng to target in brackets – makes for chilling reading:
New York – 6779 miles/ 10909 km (40 minutes 30 seconds)
London – 5378 miles/ 8655 km (32 minutes 20 seconds)
Washington - 6852 miles/ 11,028 km (41 minutes)
Moscow – 3981miles/ 6407 km (23 minutes)
Seoul – 132 miles/ 212 km (50 seconds)
Beijing – 506 miles/ 814 km (3 minutes)
Canberra – 5366 miles/ 8636 km (32 minutes)
Brussels – 5284 miles/ 8504 km (31 minutes 50 seconds)
Tokyo – 797 miles/ 1283 km (4 minutes 50 seconds)
Hiroshima – 496 miles/ 799 km (3 minutes)
Technical details of the Hwasong-15 are of course top secret.
But the engines are near replicas of Soviet RD-250 believed to have been smuggled into the hermit state either knowingly by the Kremlin and KGB or by Russian or Ukraine black marketeers.
On the basis of previous tests of the two-stage rocket Hwasong-14 and yesterday’s launch it is estimated the missile travels at a mean speed of around 268 km per minute – about 16,000 kmh.
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Yesterday, the Hwasong-15 was deliberately fired on a super-acute trajectory taking it 2,800 miles high but only 600 miles as the crow flies.
Under first strike conditions that trajectory equates to a range of more than 8,000 miles – putting almost all of the world’s major cities within range.
In a sinister state broadcast Korea's state-run news agency KCNA said the Hwasong-15 was capable of reaching the whole US mainland and carrying a 'super heavy nuclear warhead'.