Lockheed promotional video: UCLASS concept

Interesting to note that at the end of the video there is a computer animation of a submarine launched UAV.

Author Bill Sweetman first wrote about this concept in "Lockheed Stealth" in 2004. The UAV is thought to be designed specifically for the Virginia Class submarine.

Pentagon now thinks North Korea has nuclear missile capabilities

WASHINGTON — A new assessment of North Korea’s nuclear capability conducted by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm has concluded for the first time, with “moderate confidence,” that the country has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile.

The assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been distributed to senior administration officials and members of Congress, cautions that the weapon’s “reliability will be low,” apparently a reference to the North’s difficulty in developing accurate missiles or, perhaps, to the huge technical challenges of designing a warhead that can survive the rigors of flight and detonate on a specific target.

It is unclear whether other American intelligence agencies agree with the assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has primary responsibility for monitoring the missile capabilities of adversary nations. In the case of Iraq, a decade ago, the agency was among those that argued most vociferously that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons.

Outside experts said that the report’s conclusions helped explain why the administration announced last month that it was bolstering long-range antimissile defenses in Alaska and California, designed to protect the West Coast, and was rushing another antimissile system, originally not intended for deployment until 2015, to Guam.

The existence of the assessment was disclosed Thursday by Representative Doug Lamborn, a Colorado Republican, three hours into a budget hearing of the House Armed Services Committee with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. General Dempsey declined to comment because of classification issues. The actual wording in the report was obtained by The New York Times.

The congressman’s spokeswoman, Catherine Mortensen, said the material he quoted during the hearing was unclassified. Pentagon officials said later that, while the report remained classified, the one-paragraph finding had been declassified but had not previously been released.

The report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency last month was titled “Dynamic Threat Assessment 8099: North Korea Nuclear Weapons Program." Its executive summary reads: “D.I.A. assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles; however the reliability will be low.”

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE AT THE NYTIMES

Breaking: North Korean missile in firing position

CNN) -- North Korea has raised at least one missile into its upright firing position, feeding concerns that a launch is imminent, a U.S. official told CNN Thursday.

This comes as the world continued to keep watch for a possible missile launch by the secretive government, and a day before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to arrive in the region.

In the latest daily tough talk from the North, a government agency is quoted by the state-run media as saying that "war can break out any moment."

The South Koreans -- who've heard the cross-border bombast before -- are taking the swagger in stride. Washington regards much of the North's saber rattling as bluster.


The official declined to specify what type of intelligence led the United States to conclude the medium-range missile -- a Musudan -- was in a firing position.

The Musudan is an untested weapon that South Korea says has a range as far as 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles).

It could reach as far as Guam, a Western Pacific territory that is home to U.S. naval and air bases, and where the United States recently said it was placing missile defense systems.

The United States and South Korean militaries have been monitoring the movements of mobile ballistic missiles on the east coast of North Korea.

Japan has deployed defense systems, as it has done before North Korean launches in the past, in case any test-fired missile flies near its territory.