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The ROK Army is getting a defense upgrade with the introduction of the XK2 “Black Panther“:

Korea’s first domestically-made amphibious tank, featuring an auto loaded 120-mm cannon, rolled off the assembly line in Changwon, Friday (March 2).

The next-generation tank, code named “XK2” and nicknamed “Black Panther,” will replace the older K1 and American M47/48 tanks starting in 2011, defense officials said.

The new model features an auto loaded 120 mm cannon, can reach speeds of up to 70 km per hour, and can cross rivers as deep as 4.1 meters using a snorkle, according to its developer, the Agency for Defense Development (ADD).

At the launch ceremony for the tank, President Roh Moo-hyun stressed that Korea’s development of a top-tier weapon such as the XK2 with its own technology testifies to the country’s defense capability.

“The development of the world’s top-level tank–in both mobility and firepower–with our own technology shows the world our commitment to self-defense,” Roh said during the ceremony held at the ADD facilities in Changwon, Gyeongsang nam-do (South Gyeongsang Province).

This really does appear to be a great tank. The tank is a bit lighter than a US M1 and the armament and speed are slightly better. The tank can also drive underwater with a big snorkel which I would love to see a demonstration of how long it can stay underwater like that. You can watch this KBS video of the K1 in action which includes a demonstration of it underwater capability. The XK2 just like the K1 also maintains the hydraulic technology that allows the tank to fire down hill, which is extremely important in mountainous terrain like Korea.

The automatic loader feature of the XK2 is a great innovation, which means that the tank crew is one man less than a normal tank crew. It may not seem like a big deal, but when you start massing producing these tanks across the force that saved man power adds up. Additionally it has its own C4I technology which means that the tank commander has a screen where he can digitally see through GPS technology where friendly and enemy units are located at and send messages and issue orders through this screen to adjacent units. This is a great system if it works. What I’m curious about is if the C4I technology is compatible with US C4I? Would the ROK Army assets appear on US military C4I screens? I suspect not.

The air defense capabilities of the tank may be over stated. I have seen M1 tanks during National Training Center rotations shoot down helicopters plenty of times by massing fires on the target. US air defenders who used to man Bradley Stinger Fighting Vehicles would train shooting down helicopters using the Bradley’s 25mm cannon. So the fact that the XK2’s main gun can shoot down a helicopter is nothing new. What is interesting is that the fitted the tank with a Identify Friendly Foe (IFF) system that is used to interrogate aircraft to see if they are hostile or not. This tends to indicate that the tank may be used as a primary air defense weapon. It will be interesting to see how this plays out because if the tank can properly execute an air defense mission then that could save more man power by not needing as many air defense soldiers.

The importance of saving man power may not be important now for the ROK Army, but it will be important if the ROK decides implement an all volunteer force in the future. First of all you don’t have to recruit as many people and secondly you don’t have to pay to train or retain those soldiers that would normally fill that position. Over the long run that becomes a big defense savings. Additionally, countries that Korea may attempt to sell this system to, may have all volunteer forces which makes the system more appealing to them to purchase.

The price of the tank is steep though, costing about $8.5 million US dollars per tank. Compare that cost to a US M1 Abrams that the latest models cost around $4.3 million US dollars per tank. The bottom line is that the tank is slightly better than an M1 Abrams, but is it worth double the cost of buying a M1? That all depends on the size of the pocket book of countries interested in buying it. Especially when you factor things like how much does it cost to up keep the tank per year? Additionally, the availability of parts is another critical aspect of this tank for any international buyers.

I think it is important to realize that the production of this new tank is more likely driven initially by its export potential than President Roh’s claims to a “commitment to self-defense”. Take a look for example at Korea’s recent introduction of the K-9/K-10 “Thunder” self propelled artillery system.

The K9/K10 system is one of the best self propelled artillery system in the world and superior even to the US M109 “Paladin” system and vastly superior if equipped with the K10 package. However, before the system was even fielded to the ROK Army it was being sold and exported abroad. The first country the developer of the K9, Samsung Techwin, sold the system to was Turkey who received its first batch of K9s in 2004 and has since bought the license from Samsung Techwin to domestically produce the K9 in Turkey. Turkey is expected to field a force of 300 K9s by 2011. This total deal for Samsung Techwin was worth a reported $1 billion US dollars.

Samsung Techwin is continuing to test the system for potential international buyers such as Malaysia, Australia, and Spain to name a few interested countries. The K9 is expected to claim 31% of the world’s self propelled artillery market by 2015 making them the world’s leaders in this field over rivals such as Germany and Japan. While the K9 is being sold overseas to countries like Turkey, the ROK Army still hasn’t been fully fielded with the new K9.

I expect the XK2 will probably also be aggressively marketed overseas to potential buyers just like the K9/K10. This statement by ADD Direct Ahn Dong-man tends to support my thesis:

Having developed a tank, a land weapon symbol, based on independent technology, we not only can secure superiority over the panzer force of North Korea but also can export the tank since it has high-tech performance and price competitiveness.

You can read more here and here.

Great posting at DPRK Studies about how North Korea’s nuclear program is being dishonestly reported on in the US media.  I’m not sure if it is due to just complete journalistic incompetence or planned demagoguery on the part of the journalist, but read it and you be the judge. 

UPDATE #2:  More information is coming out from the Korean media about the deceased ROK Army soldier SGT Yoon.  SGT Yoon was sent to the United States by his parents to attend middle school and high school in Indiana.  After completing high school he attended the University of Indiana and studied business.  Yoon hadn’t been back to Korea for over 10 years when he decided to go back and complete his mandatory service commitment to the ROK Army.  He could have stayed in the US and applied for a Green Card, but he decided to serve his country instead. 

Yoon joined the ROK Army in 2005 and became a member of the Korean Special Forces and volunteered to deploy to Afghanistan last September against the wishes of his family.  In Afghanistan he was helping teach local Afghanis job trade skills.  He was scheduled to redeploy from Afghanistan in April of this year and complete his mandatory service in May. 

SGT Yoon’s parents and his two older sibling are understandably distraught over this tragedy and his dad condemned the terrorists for killing his son.  What I found kind of distasteful though was how the Korean media are just storming this poor family.  For the love of God give these people some space and let them grieve. 

I really have nothing but the up most respect for SGT Yoon.  He could of stayed in the US, made money, and avoided the mandatory service, but he decided to go back to Korea and serve his country where he was making probably less than $100 a month base pay for a conscriptee.

People in Korea should really reflect on this and ask themselves, like many in America do about our servicemembers, where does Korea find such great people like SGT Yoon?  Koreans should also take note that their military is filled with many other great soldiers like SGT Yoon and should be proud of the selfless service of all the men and women of the ROK Army as well as all those who volunteer to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan and soon in Lebanon as well.

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UPDATE#1:  Milblogger MAJ John stationed on Bagram has a good posting about the bombing that happened yesterday.  Apparantly the terrorists hid the bomb in a shipping container and as the truck got to the front of the gate to be searched the bomb detonated killing an American soldier and a Korean soldiers along with a host of kids and Afghan truck drivers.  Yes the big, bad Taliban is able to blow up a bomb that kills mostly kids and truck drivers and the media is of course hyping the resurgent Taliban threat because they can blow up kids and truck drivers. 

MAJ John also says that Vice President Cheney was over a mile away from the bombing and in no danger.  However, this hasn’t stopped the media from running irresponsible headlines of an assassination attempt on the Vice President.  Would it be an assassination attempt on President Bush if someone blew up a bomb at the front gate of the White House killing civilians and gate guards?  No it would be labeled as terrorism because that is what this was.  That bomb had no intention of ever getting into the airbase.  It was simply blown up to kill as many people as possible to make the very headlines these idiots in the news media are publishing. 

The conspiracy theorist in me also thinks this bombing was used to send a message to the Vice President.  Remember before visiting Afghanistan Cheney visited Pakistan and had some very strong words to say about President Musharraf’s less than agressive policy to fight the Taliban fighters hiding in western Pakistan.  The Vice President’s trip would be quite secret, but assuredly the Pakistan government would have known about it.  Could the Pakistan government had tipped off the Taliban about the VP’s visit and the Taliban rushed to set off an explosion to grab news headlines while at the same time Pakistan could use the bombing as a great big, –ck you to the VP?

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The ROK Army has suffered its first casualty in the War on Terror:

A suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, killing at least 14 people and wounding a dozen more. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney was the target.

Cheney’s spokeswoman said he was fine, and the vice president later met with President Hamid Karzai in the capital, Kabul, before leaving the country.

There were conflicting reports on the death toll. Provincial Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said 20 people were killed, while NATO said initial reports indicated three fatalities, including a U.S. soldier, a South Korean coalition soldier and a U.S. government contractor whose nationality wasn’t immediately known. NATO said 27 people also were wounded.

(…)

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said one of its troops stationed in Bagram, Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho, 27, was killed in the explosion. South Korea has about 200 engineers and medics in Bagram.

It just goes to show that no matter how bad the US-ROK alliance may appear to be politically, it doesn’t effect the relationship militarily between the US & ROK armies, as is shown with US and Korean soldiers dying together in Afghanistan.  I have always found soldiers from the ROK Army to be some of the best soldiers from a foreign military I have ever served with. 

SGT Yoon appears to be no different as he was a graduate of Indiana University in the United States and was serving as a translator a translator in Afghanistan.  Initially it was reported SGT Yoon and the other US soldier were working as guards at the entrance of the Bagram Base when they were attacked which I would find surprising to see a ROK soldier working such a dangerous job an entry point guard due to the Korean government’s extremely risk adverse stance with their soldiers in both Afghanistan and Iraq because of the fear of casualties.  However, Joong Ang Ilbo is reporting that SGT Yoon was actually at the entry point to meet some Afghans he was working with:

According to Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the attack took place at the front gate of the base. Mr. Yun, a sergeant with the Dasan unit, was killed instantly.
Sergeant Yun was on a mission right outside the gate, the military said, escorting residents of Afghanistan into the base for a technology training program.
No other casualties or injuries to the Korean contingent were reported, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding that the terror attack was apparently not targeting Korean troops.

The Taliban is saying that the bomber attended to assassinate Vice President Cheney who was visiting the base which is ridiculous.  More than likely the Taliban got word of Cheney visiting the base and sent this suicide bomber out to strike a soft target near the base to get international headlines of trying to assassinate the Vice President.  It just so happens the softest target around any military base is the entry point where people and vehicles are waiting in line to enter the base.  This cowardly suicide bomber probably simply walked to the front of the line and blew himself and the people around him up. 

What will be interesting to see is how the death of SGT Yoon will be portrayed in the Korean media.  Will his death be framed as an honorable and brave soldier serving his country or a needless death in support of an American cause?   Could this start a movement to withdraw Korean engineers from Afghanistan?  Initial reports are encouraging that the Korean government plans to continue with their reconstruction mission in Afghanistan:

Park said the incident is unlikely to affect Seoul’s plan to keep the troops in Afghanistan.

"In my personal view, it seems that there will be no change in the plan to retain the troops there by the end of this year, as set by the National Assembly," he said

Let’s hope the government of Korea honors SGT Yoon properly as a hero who tried to make life better for the people of Afghanistan instead of ignoring or marginalizing his sacrifice like the Korean government has done in the past with the six sailor killed in the 2002 West Sea Naval Battle. 

Rest in peace SGT Yoon and thank you for your sacrifice in support of the United States and most importantly the people of Afghanistan.

You can read more over at the Marmot’s Hole and OFK.

Perspective you will never get from the main stream media:

The total military dead in the Iraq war between 2003 and this month stands at about 3,133. This is tragic, as are all deaths due to war, and we are facing a cowardly enemy unlike any other in our past that hides behind innocent citizens. Each death is blazoned in the headlines of newspapers and Internet sites. What is never compared is the number of military deaths during the Clinton administration: 1,245 in 1993; 1,109 in 1994; 1,055 in 1995; 1,008 in 1996. That’s 4,417 deaths in peacetime but, of course, who’s counting?

You can view an entire break down of total US military casualties since 1980 here.  Personally I don’t like playing the body count game, but the media and the left continues to hammer the body count to the public.  It sickens me when I watch the news and the current total deaths of US service members in Iraq is treated as some kind of basketball score.  However, to those of us in the military the number of this basketball score includes real people that we in military know, worked with, were friends with, and respected.  The way the media and the left plays the body count game is disrespectful to those soldiers and families who have died for their country. 

What the US is doing in Iraq shouldn’t be judged by casualty totals, but even if it was the US’s casualties in Iraq are comparable to a peacetime army and well lower than any other major US military conflict in our nation’s history.  As I discussed before, it is a good thing the United States didn’t give up on South Korea based on casualty statistics from the Korean War. 

The bottom line is that being in the military is dangerous whether it is peace time or war time.  Soldiers die in training and work related accidents.  I can remember major training events in Korea where soldiers died during river crossing training across the Imjim River as well as when a M113 rolled over into a rice paddy.  I can also remember soldiers dyeing from flash flooding in Korea as well.  Also just like civilians, soldiers die in automobile accidents, suicides, sickness, etc.  However, when these things happened before the Iraq War it wasn’t treated like a running basketball score on every news channel. 

Instead of casualty totals the media should be judging Iraq by political progress, by provinces handed over to the Iraqi government, the number of Iraqi Army battalions fielded, the number of schools opened, staffed hospitals, unemployment numbers, crime & murder rates, college graduates, etc.  Hammer the US public with those numbers every day instead of playing the morbid body count game.  However, the news media won’t do this because, though progress has been slow, there has been clear signs of progress, thus the need to keep playing the body count game. 

If "progress" in Iraq is judged by a body count than the US military can show "progress" real easily by keeping everyone on base all day, but would a lower body count really mean "progress".  No it would not.  The things I mentioned above is how the US military judges progress in Iraq, while at the same time doing everything possible to protect soldiers’ lives while still accomplishing the mission.  The fact that our military leadership has been able to make steady progress while keeping casualties low enough to compare to peace time casualty numbers is really a testament to the great work done by our military leaders and service members in Iraq. 

If you look at the complete statistics I linked to above something else that is really interesting is the suicide numbers.  The peace time military of the Clinton years has a significantly higher suicide percentage than the war time military of today.  Yet what headlines do you hear about in the media today about military suicides?  They blast you with headlines that US military suicides have increased due to deployments, which the Reuters journalist had to conveniently manipulate statistics to show.  However, as I showed in this posting, the US military suicide rates have in fact stayed stable on average throughout the war in Iraq and are lower than when compared to civilian rates.  Young men and women today actually are more likely to commit suicide going to college than they are if they joined the military.  Even more telling is that a young man or woman joining the war time military today is less likely to commit suicide compared to the peace time military during the Clinton years. 

Statistics don’t lie, demagogues do and unfortunately more and more of our media is filled with demagogues. 

HT: Milblogs

This is a sad story:

Song will soon be able to get a divorce. The question is, will his wife ever find out?  Song is a 49-year-old defector from North Korea who left a wife and two children behind him, took up with a Russian mother of three and brought them to South Korea. But so impenetrable is the iron curtain between the two Koreas that there’s no way of communicating. There are no phone, mail or Internet connections.

This area of marital law is a legal minefield for South Korea which is likely to be cleared in March when a law is enacted permitting defectors to obtain a divorce from a South Korean court. But not all the mines will be defused.

Read the whole story on your own but basically this NK defector worked at as guest laborer at a lumber mill in Russia in 1998.  He was caught saying bad things about the NK government and was going to be arrested.  So he hid within Russia. While hiding in Russia he met an ethnic Mongolian Russian and she sold everything she had to flee with him and her kids to South Korea.  She has now given birth to their child, but is in South Korea on a tourist visa.  The defectors wants to get married so she doesn’t get deported, but first he must divorce his wife in North Korea.

According to the article 223 defectors have tried to get divorced in South Korea, but only one has ever been successful.  Hopefully for the sake of his new family he can get divorced and married before the authorities deport his wife and children.  

I know I have some school teachers that read this blog so I am particularly interested in what they have to say about this LA Times article about teachers in a Los Angeles high school doing everything possible to ban a JROTC program at the school.  Is this acceptable behavior for teachers in America’s high schools today?:

Last year, Jesse, the 11th-grader, a master sergeant and JROTC flag detail commander, was the only student wearing a JROTC uniform in Martha Guerrero’s first-period world history class. He said that Guerrero, who often wears a "War is not the answer" T-shirt and has a flag of the revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara hanging in her classroom, sometimes asked him pointed questions in the middle of class.

"Jesse, are you going to go to Iraq and die?" she asked. "Why are you wearing a uniform? Aren’t you embarrassed?" Jesse said he felt singled out by the question and told his JROTC instructor about it.

A Che Guevara flag hanging in a high school classroom!?  The Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom is not okay, but it is okay to have a Che Guevara flag?  Attacking a student for wearing a JROTC uniform?  How is this woman still employed?

This is what another teacher was doing:

 Lopez, the social studies teacher, keeps a stack of glossy brochures propped on his chalkboard titled "Don’t Die in a Dead-End Job! Information for Young People Considering the Military" that show a soldier saluting flag-draped coffins. Prominent on his wall is a poster called "Ten Points to Consider Before You Sign a Military Enlistment Agreement."  "I want to see more Latinos go to college," Lopez said.

I got news for teacher Lopez, I am willing to bet that the US military is able to get a higher percentage of Latinos a college education than what their high school is able to do.  Is it any wonder why this high school can’t get many Latinos through college when they are indoctrinating them with the teachings of Che Guevara? 

From Yonhap:

The United States has strongly indicated that it will allow South Korea to get back the wartime command of its troops, currently held by the U.S., around 2010, a couple of years earlier than the deadline agreed on between the sides, a Defense Ministry official said Monday.

Seoul and Washington agreed during annual defense talks in Washington last October that the transition of wartime control of South Korean troops will take place sometime between Oct. 15, 2009 and March 15, 2012.

The timing was a compromise between South Korea and the U.S., as the former wanted a delayed transfer, citing a possible power vacuum, while the latter pushed ahead with an earlier transition as part of its flexible troop deployment in which U.S. troops in the Korean Peninsula are supposed to be mobilized easier than before for other conflict regions.

"The U.S. side informed us during the Security Policy Initiative meeting in Seoul (this month) that three years is enough from now on," the official said, asking not to be named.

This is an issue that General Bell has been pushing hard on, that the Korean government has been hoping the US government would forget about with the departure of Secretary Rumsfeld. It seems the new Secretary of Defense has now finally started to put some emphasis on USFK related issues with this announcement.  I had hoped that October 16, 2009 would be chosen for the handover but January 1, 2010 is just as good. 

It will be interesting to see the Korean government’s reaction on this considering President Roh said the ROK Army could take operational control now if needed. As I have speculated before, President Roh is trying to drag out the handover, so that when it is implemented, he will have left office and any economic and political repercussions from the handover he will have successfully avoided.

Great article by Ralph Peters about the Congressional vote to undermine the US soldiers in Iraq.  The Dems have over reached so bad that even the Washington Post has condemned them. 

Can anyone guess who said this statement below:

"The people chose you [Democrats] due to your opposition to Bush’s policy in Iraq, but it appears that you are marching with him to the same abyss, and it appears that you will take part with him in the defeat."

Was it Cindy Sheehan or one of the other loons in the anti-war left?  You can find out by clicking here.

I guess if you are the one stuck with negotiating a sham agreement, you might as well look good doing it:

Little known in his home country, the boyish-looking U.S. nuclear envoy has become something of a celebrity in China’s capital for his role in talks on North Korea’s atomic weapons program.  "He’s so charming and attractive," said Li Kenna, a desk clerk at the five-star hotel where U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill stays. "He sometimes asks me how I am in the mornings. He’s one of our nicest guests."

(…)

His easygoing manner has also won over the media in comparison to the stonewall public relations efforts put forward by some of the other countries in the talks.  And with the negotiations taking place for hours on end behind closed doors, the idle time fuels speculation and jokes about Hill, including his clothes sense.

The Beijing winter means Hill has been wearing a winter jacket that looks like it had been bought from a discount store, one Japanese reporter said. But he said Hill still looks good in it anyway.  The interest in Hill may also stem from the fact that he speaks to the media every morning and evening, while his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan gives only the occasional chaotic news conference.

Hill, a Boston Red Sox fan, also won over the Japanese media by turning up for meetings in Tokyo wearing a Seibu Lions baseball cap. The Red Sox just signed pitching star Daisuke Matsuzaka from the Lions.

(…)

One bodyguard has been dubbed "Matrix" by Japanese reporters for his sleek sunglasses which look like they came from the science fiction movie. But even when the guard turned up in a new camel coat, he still did not outshine the boss’s jacket.

I don’t know about you all, but when I look at Christopher Hill, Keanu Reeves definitely does not come to mind.