The South Korean navy plans to deploy a new tactical ship-to-surface guided missile which can strike key facilities and military bases in North Korea, the ROK government’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) announced on Tuesday.

The ship-to-ground missile is now considered suitable for combat, six years after the South Korean Agency for Defense Development (ADD) began R&D in 2011. The development of the land-attack missile was completed in March, DAPA said in a written statement.

DAPA is due to produce the tactical ship-to-surface guided missile in 2018 and to deploy the missiles to the navy’s next-generation frigates starting in 2019.

The tactical ship-to-surface guided