A South Korean transporter erector launcher carrying a Hyunmoo-5 missile is paraded in Seoul for Armed Forces Day, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (Luis Garcia/Stars and Stripes)
South Korea late last year fielded its “monster” surface-to-surface bunker-buster missile for the first time, according to a news report from Seoul.
The Hyunmoo-5 — a 39-ton ballistic missile equipped with an 8-ton warhead — was deployed at an operational base and will be fielded in growing numbers during President Lee Jae Myung’s administration, the Yonhap News Agency reported Sunday.
The missile — reportedly the largest in South Korea’s inventory — is designed to destroy deeply buried, hardened targets such as command bunkers.
The country’s Ministry of National Defense has revealed few of the weapon’s details and has made no public announcements of test launches, according to an October report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
A ministry spokesman on Tuesday confirmed the Hyunmoo-5 is being deployed but declined to provide further details in response to questions from Stars and Stripes.
The nine-axle transporter and erector-launcher for the Hyunmoo-5 were first revealed by the South Korean military at Armed Forces Day in October 2024, according to published reports. The missile itself was not seen.
The Hyunmoo-5 is an element of South Korea’s Massive Punishment and Retaliation system.
That system is one of three — along with the Kill Chain preemptive strike platform and Korea Air and Missile Defense multilayered missile shield — designed to counter North Korean nuclear and missile threats, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The non-nuclear Hyunmoo-5 is “comparable in strength to nuclear,” South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back told Yonhap in October.
South Korea as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has no nuclear weapons.
“I firmly believe we should possess a considerable number of Hyunmoo-5 monster missiles to achieve a balance of terror,” Ahn said, according to Yonhap.
