North Korea
Kum Song Tractor Factory
Want to dive deeper?
About
The Kŭmsŏng Tractor Factory is the largest tractor factory in North Korea. According Joseph S. Bermudez, this plant produces tracked TELs for surface-to-ship cruise missiles.
Glossary
- Cruise missile
- An unmanned self-propelled guided vehicle that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path. There are subsonic and supersonic cruise missiles currently deployed in conventional and nuclear arsenals, while conventional hypersonic cruise missiles are currently in development. These can be launched from the air, submarines, or the ground. Although they carry smaller payloads, travel at slower speeds, and cover lesser ranges than ballistic missiles, cruise missiles can be programmed to travel along customized flight paths and to evade missile defense systems.
Sources
[1] Pukhan, November 1997, pp. 121-133, in “Defector Describes North Korean Transport System,” BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 7 January 1998, in Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, http://web.lexis-nexis.com.
[2] Joseph S. Burmudez, Jr., The Armed Forces of North Korea, (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2001), p. 284.
[3] ROK Ministry of Unification, Pukhan Kaeyo 2000 (Seoul: Ministry of Unification, December 1999), p. 355.