Taurus missile test highlights South Korea's defensive prowess
South Korea conducted a successful test of the Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missile. The German-Swedish weapon was launched from an F-15K aircraft during the test in Korea and hit a target 400 kilometres away. Ukraine also wants to acquire this weapon, but Germany consistently refuses.
South Korea is one of the few Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missiles users, alongside Germany and Spain. The first batch of this type of weapon was purchased by Seoul in 2013 due to increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
In Korea, the missiles are carried by F-15K aircraft, with which the Taurus has been integrated, and in Europe by Spanish F/A-18 Hornets, as well as Spanish and German Eurofighters and Panavia Tornado aircraft. The Taurus has also been successfully tested with Swedish JAS-39 Gripen.
South Korea plans to use the Taurus KEPD 350 missile to destroy North Korean fortifications and hidden nuclear installations. The test conducted with the F-15K was the first test of the Taurus in Korea in seven years.
Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missile
The Taurus KEPD 350 missile is designed to destroy heavily fortified targets. It is just over 5 metres long and over 1 metre wide (the fuselage is close to a rectangular cross-section). The missile is made using stealth technology, moves at subsonic speed, weighs about 1,400 kilograms, and carries a warhead weighing 480 kilograms. Its range is estimated at approximately 500 kilometres.
Although similar in construction to the Storm Shadow missile, the Taurus has much greater capabilities for destroying heavily fortified, pinpoint targets. The German weapon's effectiveness is due to the use of a specific MEPHISTO warhead (Multi-Effect Penetrator Highly Sophisticated and Target Optimised).
While the BROACH warhead of the Storm Shadow missile can detonate with a delay (i.e., after penetrating, for instance, into the interior of a bunker), the user must calculate the time it takes to breach the obstacle and program how many milliseconds after impact the warhead should detonate.
In the case of the MEPHISTO warhead, detonation occurs after passing through a user-defined number of obstacles, regardless of the time it takes. In practice, this means a much greater chance of Taurus destroying a target located, for example, in a bunker with an unknown ceiling thickness.
For this reason, Kyiv has been seeking Taurus missiles for years, but Germany consistently refuses to provide this weapon to Ukraine.
