>>512256385
>Are naval battles a thing of the past? I don't see a reason for ships to get near each other and start blasting, considering the enormous reach of land-to-sea and air-to-sea weapons they have now.
Depends on the navy and where they are fighting and who they are fighting. But I assume North Korea's strategy would be to fire ballistic missiles then fuck off right back to safer northern waters. Picrel 500km from Seoul, 1000km from Tokyo, supposedly the Hwasong-11A can reach both. But yeah they'll fire their missiles then run back to their port where its safer.
But having a Navy now, and if they have about 8-10 Destroyers, will be a headache for South Korea and Japan and considering that Russia is also the main backer of North Korea, and both of them are building Geran-2 drones, or soon to be (NK opens up a factory next year) they'll likley be on the defensive. Russia also recently explored the idea of attacking Japan, and yeah its basically missile spam from the Far Eastern district, mainly Sakhalin, Primorye, the sea of Okhtsk. Though I am not sure what cruise missiles North Korea has, but Russia has the Oniks-M (super sonic cruise) and the Zicron (Hypersonic) missiles. Both have a range about ~1000km and can be launched by the same platforms, the Bastion-P.

But yeah, large Navy on Navy battles are dead, everything is about supporting each other now and being part of a network kill chain. Russia has been putting radars on the Forpost-R to support the killchain by finding targets and what not.
https://vpk.name/en/851469_they-have-set-up-an-outpost-drones-will-look-after-kamchatka-and-the-northern-sea-route.html