SpaceWar.com reports: “North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has toured a factory making new multiple rocket launchers that could target the South, touting their ability to ‘annihilate the enemy’ in a concentrated attack, state media reported Tuesday.

The country is still technically at war with the South and ‘saturation’ strikes by its vast artillery arsenal have long been believed to be central to its strategy should conflict break out.

A 2020 study by the RAND think tank assessed that North Korean artillery systems could inflict 10,000 casualties in just an hour if targeting major population centres like the South Korean capital Seoul.

Kim’s visit to the factory was reported a day after Pyongyang said it had carried out a test-fire of two strategic long-range cruise missiles in a show of ‘combat readiness’ against external threats.

Accompanied by top officials from North Korea’s missile programme, Kim said the new weapons system would serve as his military’s ‘main strike means’, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

He also said they could have uses in a ‘strategic attack’ — typically a euphemism for nuclear use.

Kim described the new multiple rocket system as a ‘super-powerful weapon system as it can annihilate the enemy through sudden precise strike with high accuracy and devastating power’, KCNA said…”