North Korea Makes A Splash

... out of it's Defense Minister.

The North Korean homicidal boy-President-for Life has a new toy - the ZPU-4.

A top North Korean defense minister was publicly executed by a firing squad using anti-aircraft guns before a crowd of hundreds, according to reports citing South Korean intelligence sources.

The news comes weeks after North Korea executed a group of 15 senior officials, in the latest sign that leader Kim Jong-un is cracking down on his internal ranks.

The brutal execution of Hyon Yong-chol — the head of the North Korea’s People’s Armed Forces and the No. 2 military official — came after he was seen falling asleep at a military event where Kim was speaking and refused to carry out Kim’s instructions, a senior intelligence official told the South Korean Yonhap news agency.  

The execution occurred on April 30 but was not revealed to South Korean members of parliament until Wednesday, Yonhap added.

Story here.

Satellite imagery seems to support the notion that North Korea is using soft, pink target material in training exercises involving large caliber munitions. 

Sometime on or about October 7th, 2014, some very unusual activity was noted on satellite imagery of the Kanggon small arms firing range. Instead of troops occupying the firing positions on the range there was a battery of six ZPU-4 anti-aircraft guns lined up between the firing positions and the range control/viewing gallery. The ZPU-4 is an anti-aircraft gun system consisting of four 14.5mm heavy machine guns (similar to a U.S. .50 caliber heavy machine gun) mounted on a towed wheeled chassis. It is neither safe nor practical to use such weapons on a small arms range, as the combined weight of fire from the six ZPU-4 (a total of 24 heavy machine guns) would quickly destroy the downrange backstop and necessitate reconstruction. A few meters behind the ZPU-4s there appears to be either a line of troops or equipment, while farther back are five trucks (of various sizes), one large trailer, and one bus. This suggests that senior officers or VIPs may have come to observe whatever activity was taking place. Most unusual in the image, perhaps, is what appears to be some sort of targets located only 30 meters downrange of the ZPU-4s.

The ZPU-4 has an effective range of 5 miles and can shoot over 3 miles straight up. But these "training" targets are located only 100 feet down range.