Foreign experts say North Korea’s intermediate-range Musudan missile may have a much shorter flying range than published estimates spanning two-thousand-500 to four-thousand kilometers. 

Ralph Savelsberg, a professor with the Netherlands Defence Academy and James Kiessling, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Defense, made the claim on the North Korea monitoring Web site 38 North on Wednesday.

In a coauthored article, they said that the Musudan missile, also known as “Hwasong-10,” has not been further enhanced from what is currently known.

They estimated the flying range of the missile at one-thousand-900 kilometers to two-thousand-350 kilometers if it is presumed that the missile carries a 650-kilogram warhead.

According to their analysis, a Musudan has a shorter range than the "visually similar" R-27 submarine-launched ballistic missile once held by the Soviet Union, which is known to be able to fly up to two-thousand-500 kilometers with a 650-kilogram warhead.

They pointed out that if the North had succeeded to send a Musudan missile to an altitude of one-thousand-413 kilometers in June as claimed, the missile could theoretically reach targets three-thousand-200 kilometers away.

However, they claimed the Musudan does not clearly change the nature of the North Korean missile threat to either the U.S. or Japanese targets, saying "the 'stretch' of the R-27 design may have been a political objective to convey a perception of threat."

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