Ukrainian guerrilla movement Atesh reports that the russian armed forces had begun training their personnel to use self-propelled artillery systems delivered from North Korea. The main training center is the recently re-established Higher Artillery Command School (VAKU) in Saratov.
Besides the fact itself, the partisans didn't add any details, neither about the estimated number nor the type (or types) of self-propelled guns that the russian servicemen are currently mastering, or at least the approximate number of personnel involved.
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Nonetheless, the insight is valuable in the context of war between Ukraine and russia where both sides heavily rely on artillery for achieving their objectives. In our turn, Defense Express can list down the types of self-propelled artillery systems the DPRK has, based on the features relevant to the Ukrainian battlefield.
A brief summary can be presented as follows: the North Korean army mainly uses self-propelled artillery of calibers that are standard for the russian army, and therefore theoretically not entirely foreign to the russian artillerymen, but there may be issues with the chassis because they rely on indigenous vehicles.
Assessing the number of systems potentially available is a whole different challenge. In the open data, we can find estimates only of the total number of artillery systems in North Korea's arsenal. Particularly, The Military Balance written assessment, issued by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, says the country has 8,600 units of self-propelled and towed artillery and provides the rundown of different models, but the number of systems of each type is unknown.
Regarding the variety, here's the list, sorted out by caliber and Western-assigned name. Note that usually, the Western approach to classification of North Korean self-propelled artillery follows the rule "M+index" (that is, the year of entry into service):
- caliber 122 mm: M-1977, M-1981, M-1985 and M-1991;
- caliber 130 mm: M-1975, M-1981 and M-1991;
- caliber 152 mm: M-1974; M-1977; M-2018;
- and lastly — caliber 170 mm, which is not standard for the russian army, but it applies to the legendary Koksan self-propelled artillery installation, also known as the M-1979 and M-1989.
Unlike the rest of North Korean artillery systems, the Koksan family has quite a rich combat history, a topic reserved for a separate in-depth article coming out soon.
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