Tag: ROK military

Considering all the past North Korean drone incursion issues the ROK has had they need to get better at detecting and countering these drones:

A pair of military exercises over South Korea emphasized air defense and ground support this week as 2024 nears its final days. The country’s military branches trained Thursday afternoon to improve the nation’s air defense response to North Korean drone intrusions, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The joint exercise, announced Wednesday, involved a simulated attack by multiple drones over the East Sea, or Sea of Japan, and the Yellow Sea, and rear areas, according to a news release by the Joint Chiefs. “This training will simulate responses to potential provocations involving multiple small North Korean drones infiltrating South Korean land and sea, including operating a large number of small drones as virtual enemy aircraft,” the release states.

Units of the South Korean army, navy and air force worked to detect, identify and simulate the downing of small drones, according to the Joint Chiefs.

Stars & Stripes

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Maybe South Korea should mass produce these missles and sell them to Ukraine?:

South Korea’s military test-fired a short-range ballistic missile Thursday to demonstrate it could “respond to any North Korean provocations” following the communist regime’s recent missile launches.

The South Korean Missile Strategy Command fired a Hyunmoo-2 missile from South Chungcheong Province, about 65 miles southwest of Seoul, to demonstrate the command’s ability to make “precision strikes against the enemy’s origin of provocation,” according to a news release Friday from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The domestically made weapon flew roughly 125 miles to strike a simulated target in the Yellow Sea, also known as the West Sea, the Joint Chiefs said.

Stars & Stripes

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I argue the ROK military is not seeing a rise in sexual misconduct, but instead a rise in females willing to report it:

The number of reports of sexual misconduct against female service members has surged in recent years, increasing by more than sixfold from 2020 to 2023, a lawmaker said Wednesday, citing data from the defense ministry.

The number of such reports stood at 135 in 2020 before reaching 366 in 2021, 673 in 2022, 867 in 2023 and 604 as of September this year, according to the data submitted to Rep. Hwang Hee of the main opposition Democratic Party. 

Of the total 2,645 cases over the period, 1,730 were reports of sexual harassment, while 915 were those on other sexual violence, such as rape and sexual assault.

Yonhap

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At this point you just have to assume that any Chinese made electronic device has the ability to spy on you and that includes the Chinese made smartphone in your pocket:

South Korea’s military has been forced to remove more than 1,300 surveillance cameras from its bases after learning that they could be used to transmit signals to China, Yonhap news agency reported.

The cameras, which were supplied by a South Korean company, “were found to be designed to be able to transmit recorded footage externally by connecting to a specific Chinese server”, the outlet reported an unnamed military official as saying.Korean intelligence agencies discovered the cameras’ Chinese origins in July during an examination of military equipment, Yonhap said.

While some of the cameras were near the border with North Korea, they weren’t monitoring it and were instead focused on training bases and fences, the official said.

South China Morning Post

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Drones are now an extremely important part of modern warfare and the ROK military is planning to purchase some of the most combat proven systems:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects what the North claims to be suicide drones at the Drone Institute of the Academy of Defence Sciences, Aug. 24, in this photo released by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency two days later. Yonhap

The South Korean military is set to purchase Polish loitering munitions within this year, a move experts believe will significantly bolster the nation’s ability to counter North Korea’s purported suicide drones. The Polish drones, proven effective on the battlefield in Ukraine against Russian forces, could be a game changer in airborne warfare, analysts said.

According to military sources, Tuesday, the Ministry of National Defense recently submitted a request to acquire military drones to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), which is now preparing to announce the bid.

Korea Times

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Fighter aircraft is the latest defense industry that ROK defense contractors are hoping to take market share of:

South Korea, an industrial and tech powerhouse, was once so poor that its citizens donated money so the government could buy five American fighter jets in case of a North Korean invasion. Now, South Korea is a global weapons producer and seller. It is the third-largest arms supplier to NATO countries, with affordable weapons for nations seeking to refill their stockpiles of K2 battle tanks, K9 self-propelled howitzers and other items.

Its ascent underscores the nation’s dramatic economic and diplomatic evolution since that 1975 national fundraising drive for the American F-4 Phantoms. South Korea retired those Cold War-era jets in June after more than five decades in use — making way for a new generation of homegrown fighter aircraft that will make South Korea one of the few nations to develop its own supersonic jet.

South Korea hopes its KF-21 Boramae will be a cheaper alternative to the U.S.-made F-35. The prototype was unveiled in 2021, and mass production is set to begin in 2026. “South Korea is making a big push to engage globally,” said Peter Layton, a military analyst and visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Brisbane, Australia. “They’re going from a big buyer to not just a maker but a designer of aircraft.”

Stars & Stripes

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