North Korea Building Its Largest, Most Advanced Warship Ever

(CNN) New satellite images show what could be North Korea’s biggest warship ever – possibly more than double the size of anything in leader Kim Jong Un’s naval fleet.

Images taken by independent satellite providers Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs on April 6 show the ship under construction in the water at the Nampo shipyard on North Korea’s west coast, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwest of the capital Pyongyang.

Analysts say the pictures show ongoing construction of weapons and other internal systems of the ship, which is likely a guided-missile frigate (FFG) designed to carry missiles in vertical launch tubes for use against targets on land and sea.

“The FFG is approximately 140 meters (459 feet) long, making it the largest warship manufactured in North Korea,” an analysis by Joseph Bermudez Jr. and Jennifer Jun at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said.

For comparison, the US Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are about 505 feet long and its under-construction Constellation-class frigates will be 496 feet long.

The existence of the warship is not a surprise.

The Kim regime has been engaged in a rapid modernization of its armed forces, developing a range of new weapons and testing intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach almost anywhere in the United States.

Kim Duk-ki, a retired South Korean admiral, said he thinks Moscow may be providing the technology for the frigate’s missile systems.

Pictures of the vessel appeared in a report by state-run Korean Central Television released late last year on the ruling Workers’ Party’s end-of-year plenary session. The images showed leader Kim inspecting the ship’s construction.

The images shown in the KCTV video show the warship could have the kind of weaponry possessed by modern navies, including vertical launch cells that could be used to fire a variety of missiles.

Analysts also noted the ship seems to be set up to have phased-array radar, which can track threats and targets more quickly and accurately than previously displayed North Korean capabilities.

Despite those indications of advanced warfighting abilities, analysts urged caution in making assumptions.