The Yugo class submarine is a class of four

midget submarine A midget submarine (also called a mini submarine) is any submarine under 150 tons, typically operated by a crew of one or two but sometimes up to six or nine, with little or no on-board living accommodation. They normally work with mother ships, ...

s used primarily for infiltration and espionage by

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

. The Yugo class was given its name because it was built to plans supplied to North Korea by

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

in 1965.

Design

The Yugo class is a family of midget submarines that are not all identical. The displacement is either the standard 90 tons of the original Yugoslavian design for the early units or 110 tons for the later units. Armament is either a pair of 400 mm torpedo tubes (early units) or a pair of 21 in (533mm) short torpedo tubes (later units). All units have the same range: at on the surface and at submerged.

History

The final vessel was built in the 1980s, after which they were superseded by the

Sang-O-class submarine The ''Sang-O'' (''Shark'') class of submarines (Hangul: 상어급 잠수함) are diesel-electric coastal submarines in service with the Korean People's Navy, the navy of North Korea. They are the country's second largest indigenously-built subma ...

s. On June 12, 1998, one out of six submarines was captured by the South Koreans. In the early 2000s, Vietnam "gained experience" with these craft prior to ordering Russian Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines for denial of area capabilities, specifically against China's fleet per the Foreign Policy Research Institute. In March 2016, it was announced that the North Korean Navy had lost one of the ships during exercises.

Operators

* * : Purchased in 1997. These were used by

Vietnam People's Navy The Vietnam People's Navy (VPN; vi, Hải quân nhân dân Việt Nam), or the Naval Service (), also known as the Vietnamese People's Navy or simply Vietnam/Vietnamese Navy (), is the naval branch of the Vietnam People's Army and is responsi ...

for swimmer delivery operations aside from conventional submarine operations. The purchase was done by bartering. Kim Jong-il personally approved of the delivery to make amends for not paying Vietnam for purchasing 20,000 tons of rice. * : Classified as a 'Delfin-class submarine' and is rumored to have either been built in North Korea or locally assembled in Cuba with North Korean assistance.https://news.usni.org/2021/05/17/new-photos-reveal-details-of-cubas-tiny-lethal-attack-submarine

Design

History

Operators

References

See also