Manufacturer: Fujimi
Scale: 1/700
Additional parts: parts from a Trumpeter Slava kit and from the spare part box. PE parts.
Model build: Jul - Oct 2017
Korean Missile Cruiser 드래곤 숨 (Deulaegon Sum)
Fujimi
1/700
1/700
Breath of Fire (dark ambient)
Made with Suno
Breath of Fire (synthwave)
Made with Suno
Breath of Fire (industrial metal)
Made with Suno
Dragon's Breath: A Cold War Ghost Awakens
The year is 2017. The crisp autumn air hung heavy over the port of Nampo, North Korea. A hush fell over the gathered crowd of dignitaries and military personnel as a monstrous shadow emerged from the drydock. It was the Deulagon Sum, the "Dragon's Breath," a North Korean warship unlike any other.
This wasn't your typical, sleek modern destroyer. The Deulagon Sum was a Frankenstein's monster of a warship, its hull a testament to a bygone era. The once proud IJN cruiser Kinu, a relic of World War II, had been resurrected from the scrapyard, its bones grafted with modern weaponry. Its superstructure, a mishmash of Soviet and Chinese influences, bristled with radar dishes and anti-aircraft guns. But the true teeth of the dragon were sixteen massive launchers lining its deck, each cradling a SS-N-12 Sandbox anti-ship missile.
The man behind this unorthodox warship was Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. As a child, he'd dreamt of transforming the derelict Kinu into a weapon of immense power. Now, wielding the ultimate authority, he'd brought his childhood vision to life. The Deulagon Sum was a statement of intent, a tangible symbol of North Korea's defiance.
Captain Jin Lee, a veteran hardened by years of service, took the helm. A tremor of unease ran through him. The Deulagon Sum was a potent weapon, but its heart, the Kinu's salvaged machinery, was a ticking time bomb. He knew one wrong move, one unexpected storm, could send the vessel to a watery grave.
The Dragon's Breath's maiden voyage was a test of nerve and metal. Tensions crackled in the air as the warship patrolled the North Korean coastline, a shadow against the horizon. American and South Korean spy satellites tracked its every move, their governments scrambling to assess this new threat.
Captain Lee's worst fears almost materialized during a fierce nighttime squall. The aging engines sputtered and coughed, the hull groaning in protest. But Lee, his crew working in perfect unison, managed to nurse the Dragon through the storm.
News of the Deulagon Sum's successful patrol sent shockwaves through the international community. The world watched with bated breath, unsure of what this resurrected warship portended. Was it a mere show of force, or a harbinger of something more sinister?
Captain Lee knew the answer better than anyone. The Dragon's Breath was a gamble, a colossus built on the bones of the past. It was a weapon of immense power, but also a fragile reminder of the dangers that lurked in the cold waters off the Korean peninsula. The question remained: could this relic of a bygone era truly breathe fire, or would it become another forgotten ghost, swallowed by the sea it patrolled?
Chronicle of the “Deulaegon Sum” – The Forgotten Cruiser Reborn
When the Imperial Japanese Navy completed the light cruiser Kinu in the early 1920s, no one could have imagined the vessel’s bizarre and unlikely future. Official wartime records claim that Kinu was sunk by U.S. aircraft during the chaotic Battle of the Visayan Sea on 26 October 1944. Yet, those records were wrong.
The Escape and the Storm – 1944
Though heavily damaged by U.S. carrier strikes, the Kinu did not sink. Listing and burning, she fled northward. A violent storm then forced her off course, eventually driving the crippled cruiser into the port of Incheon, Korea, where she arrived in mid-November 1944. With Japan collapsing, few cared about an obsolete, battered cruiser on a remote Korean quay. When the war ended, Kinu simply remained—unclaimed and ignored.
Captured, Forgotten, Rediscovered – 1950s
During the chaotic opening days of the Korean War, North Korean forces overran Incheon and seized everything afloat, including the old Kinu. The goal was practical: scrap the hull for badly needed metal.
Yet North Korea lacked shipbreaking capacity. Projects stalled. In the late 1950s, as Pyongyang scrambled to build a navy strong enough to stand against the South, someone proposed restoring the cruiser. With help from Soviet and Chinese engineers, reconstruction began—slowly and painfully. By 1957, the ship returned to service, now bristling with mismatched communist weaponry.
The “new” vessel served little purpose. It spent most of its life tied to a pier, maintained enough to avoid sinking, but never trusted to sail far.
A Child’s Vision – 1991
On 11 November 1991, everything changed.
That day, a six-year-old boy—Kim Jong-un, son of the “Beloved Leader” Kim Jong-il—visited several naval facilities. When he first laid eyes on the peculiar old cruiser, something sparked. According to later propaganda, the boy “instantly recognized the ship’s untapped destiny.” With a pencil and scrap of paper, he sketched a fantastical warship, naming it “Deulaegon Sum”—The Dragon’s Breath.
Admirals chuckled. Engineers rolled their eyes. His father dismissed it as childish imagination.
But the boy never forgot.
The Great Rebirth – 2011–2017
When Kim Jong-un took power in December 2011, one of his very first personal orders shocked the naval establishment: reactivate and transform the old Kinu exactly as he had envisioned twenty years earlier.
The project became a national priority. Propaganda lauded it as a “sacred mission.” Thousands of workers toiled night and day, with discrete Chinese technical assistance smoothing the roughest edges. Foundations of the original Japanese cruiser were gutted and rebuilt; its superstructure reshaped into something menacing and angular.
By 2017, the Deulaegon Sum emerged—an improbable hybrid of 1920s steel and late-Cold-War missile technology.
The Dragon’s Breath Unleashed
The rebuilt ship carried:
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16 SS-N-12 “Sandbox” long-range anti-ship missiles
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A mix of Soviet-style naval guns and close-in defenses
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Crude electronic warfare gear
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A doctrine singular in purpose: destroy American aircraft carriers
State media boasted that even “the confused old man in the White House trembles at the Dragon’s shadow across the sea.” Whether anyone outside North Korea believed this is doubtful—but within the DPRK, the legend of the Deulaegon Sum took root.
Epilogue
Thus the humble cruiser Kinu—abandoned in 1944, captured in 1950, rebuilt in 1957, and reborn in 2017—became one of the most bizarre warships ever to sail.
Part relic, part propaganda symbol, part missile barge, the Deulaegon Sum remains a testament to how history can be rewritten not by governments or armies—but by the imagination of a child who grew up to rule a nation.
The model shows the Deulaegon Sum when it was put into service in October 2017.
The model is a 1/700 Fujimi Kinu CL with additional parts of a Trumpeter Slava kit form the spare box part. Main additions are the Sandbox missiles, Russian artillery and the radar equipment. The ship is pained with Revell Aqua Color and fitted Eduard PE parts (railing and crew)
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