AIR raid sirens blared across Japan again today. Another North Korean missile streaked over the island nation’s skies. As startled citizens streamed into bunkers and shelters, Japan’s government went to great lengths to inform and reassure the public that it was doing everything possible to protect them.
Truth is, there is very little the Japanese military can do.
The launch was detected at 6.59am Japanese Standard Time. At 7.06am, the ballistic missile overflew the heavily populated island of Hokkaido. It was in Japanese air space for less than two minutes before it fell into the ocean some 2000km to the east at 7.16am.
Early reports indicate it was in the air for a total of just 17 minutes, during which it reached an altitude of 770km and flew a total of 3700km. This is characteristic of the nuclear-capable HS-12 intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM).
So why did Japan’s much-hyped interceptor missiles not attempt to take it down? They probably can’t.
ACTION STATIONS
The North Korean missile was detected within seconds of its launch. US early warning satellites have been keeping a close watch on North Korea for some time now. And there’s an extensive network of radars in South Korea, the Sea of Japan and Japan itself on standby for just such an event.
It would have taken just minutes to activate Japan’s automatic public alert system, with messages flashing up on mobile phones and recorded voices blaring over radios and televisions.
Every movement of the missile would have been precisely tracked. Computers would have been rapidly number-crunching
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Poster Comment:
I have had enough of this, I'm sure other have too, it is about time someone wacked Kim up the side of the head and said cut it out Dufus. There is supposed to be a war on terror going one, not very newsworthy these days since the US isn't leading, but isn't this terror? Just because he hasn't actually killed anyone doesn't mean it isn't terror. Clinton bombed Al Qaeda, Bush bombed the shit out of Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama bombed the shit out of Gaddaffi, and here we have Kim [playing it like he can do anything he wants
