North Korea has staged its largest-ever artillery firing drill to mark the anniversary of the founding of its military, according to reports.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the drill, celebrating 85 years since the North’s army was created, took place near the eastern port city of Wonsan. Dictator Kim Jong-un was presumed to have taken part, it said.

More than 300 large-caliber self-propelled guns were mobilized, state media said, as well as submarines armed with torpedoes and fighter jets.

“The combined fire demonstration of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) services in celebration of its 85th founding anniversary was staged on the largest-ever scale since the foundation of the armed forces,” KCNA reported in a Korean dispatch.

North Korea’s state media was defiant in a commentary marking the 85th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean People’s Army, saying its military was prepared “to bring to closure the history of US scheming and nuclear blackmail”.

“There is no limit to the strike power of the People’s Army armed with our style of cutting-edge military equipment including various precision and miniaturised nuclear weapons and submarine-launched ballistic missiles,” the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a front-page editorial.

It is believed the North has a large number of artillery pieces trained permanently on Seoul.