The image above comes from the Boston Globe and demonstrates the DPRK’s “stealth” tactics described below.
According to the Choson Ilbo:
The North Korean military has developed various kinds of camouflage materials like stealth paint and set up fake facilities and equipment to cheat state-of-the-art reconnaissance satellites and aircraft, a confidential field manual obtained exclusively by the Chosun Ilbo shows.
The manual was smuggled out of the North by a source through a Christian organization called Caleb Mission.
So far information about the North Korean military’s camouflage tactics trickled out only piecemeal through testimonies of North Korean defectors, but this is the first time a confidential military field manual with details has been revealed.
The manual, printed in 2005, quotes leader Kim Jong-il as saying, “As I’ve said several times, modern warfare is stealth warfare. We can say that victory or defeat will be determined by how we carry out stealth warfare.”
The 80-odd-page booklet gives detailed instructions on how to make and apply stealth paint that absorbs radar waves and build various kinds of fake facilities, such as command posts, foxholes, runways, fighter jet and naval bases, and cave strongholds.
The manual also describes how to conceal real facilities or equipment and to make military units look as though they are moving when they are not to deceive South Korean and U.S. reconnaissance.
A South Korean intelligence expert who reviewed the manual said, “I was surprised to find that the North Korean military has done more intensive and careful research into stealth tactics than we thought. This is a useful piece of information that will be of great help to our military stepping up preparedness against the North.”
And according to the AFP:
North Korea has developed camouflage materials such as stealth paint to hide its warships, tanks or fighter jets from foreign reconnaissance satellites and aircraft, reports said Monday.
A confidential field manual used by the communist North’s military showed the isolated regime has also built a network of foxholes and caves, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.
The newspaper said the manual quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il as saying: “Modern warfare is stealth warfare. We can say that victory or defeat will be determined by how we carry out stealth warfare.”
The handbook, printed in 2005, was smuggled out of the North by a source through Caleb Mission, a South Korean Christian organisation.
It gives detailed instructions on how to make and apply the stealth paint, which absorbs radar waves, Chosun Ilbo said.
The South’s defence ministry confirmed the North’s military had used the manual for years.
“We have already acquired a copy of the manual and are fully aware of the North’s tactics,” a ministry spokesman told AFP, declining to give details.
The manual describes how to conceal facilities or equipment and how to make military units look as though they are moving when they are not, to deceive South Korean and US reconnaissance.
Chosun Ilbo quoted an unnamed intelligence expert as saying he was surprised to find that the North’s military has done “more intensive and careful research into stealth tactics than we thought”.
Yonhap news agency carried a similar report.
The handbook describes concealing long-range artillery equipment by applying radar-reflective materials, it said.
The North’s military was also ordered to pave fake aircraft runways to deceive foreign prying eyes, Yonhap said.
Read the full stories here:
N.Korea’s Stealth Warfare Manual Revealed
Choson Ilbo
8/23/2010
N.Korea develops camouflage tactics
AFP
8/23
