North Korea reports another high-speed torpedo test and says its navy will get the weapon in early 2027

North Korea said on Tuesday 10 November 2026 that it had test-fired a new high-speed torpedo weapon system in the East Sea the previous day, and that the weapon would be issued to its navy from the beginning of 2027. The announcement came through the state Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), according to Yonhap News Agency, NK News and the Seoul Economic Daily.

According to KCNA, the test on Monday 9 November was carried out jointly by the Academy of Defence Science, the Missile General Bureau and a torpedo weapons research bureau, which the agency said verified the combat effectiveness of the system. The agency presented the firing as part of the routine obligations of defence research institutes to raise the technical level of weapon systems. Edaily read that wording as an effort by Pyongyang to signal that the test was not meant as a military provocation.

The state report gave very little else. Yonhap and the Seoul Economic Daily said KCNA disclosed no specifications or performance figures, and Yonhap's Korean service added that it named no launch platform and released no photographs. Yonhap also noted that the news ran only on KCNA, the outlet Pyongyang aims at foreign audiences, and did not appear in Rodong Sinmun or other domestic media that ordinary North Koreans see.

NK News described Monday's firing as the second publicly reported test of the weapon within a month, and said the latest report carried fewer details than the state media account of the first test on 15 October. It noted that North Korea had still not published any images of the torpedo. KCNA did not say whether the system tested on Monday was the same weapon it unveiled in October.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff responded by saying that the South Korean military was closely watching North Korean weapons development, according to Yonhap's Korean service. The Joint Chiefs did not release their own assessment of the test, such as where it took place, what launched the torpedo or how far it travelled.

The October test involved what North Korea called the Zam-2.0, a super-speed precision-guided torpedo. At the time, Pyongyang claimed that artificial intelligence had been applied to its target search and guidance functions, and that core propulsion technology had been proven through 180 tests over five years. Those claims have not been independently confirmed. Edaily recalled that a day before that test, on 14 October, North Korea said it had fired two types of strategic cruise missiles from a submarine in the East Sea, which South Korean reporting presumed to be the 3,000-tonne Hero Kim Kun Ok.

The torpedo work is one strand of a wider naval build-up. Yonhap said North Korea commissioned its first 5,000-tonne destroyer, the Choe Hyon, in the Yellow Sea in June and a second, the Kang Kon, in the East Sea in September. At the Choe Hyon ceremony, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the navy was becoming a full service armed with strategic weapons as its programme to arm the fleet with nuclear weapons proceeded on schedule. Yonhap's Korean service added that Kim had said at a destroyer launch ceremony in June 2025 that a range of new surface and underwater weapon systems was being developed.

Both Korean outlets framed the push as an attempt to narrow the gap with South Korea's larger and more modern navy. Edaily said Pyongyang was accelerating work on surface ships, submarines and underwater strike weapons together, and state media reported that Kim inspected the Nampho shipyard on 2 November. For South Korean and allied navies, a new torpedo entering North Korean service early next year would add to the undersea threats they already have to plan for in waters around the peninsula, although its real capability remains unknown without independent data.