Category: ROK Military

There are claims being made that the Trump administration is pressuring the Blue House to buy F-35B’s:

Shortly after the Korea-U.S. presidential summit in April, the Blue House asked the military to consider the possible procurement of F-35Bs, a more expensive version of the stealth fighter jets Korea earlier purchased, an opposition lawmaker told the JoongAng Ilbo on Wednesday.

Rep. Baek Seung-joo of the Liberty Korea Party, who once served as vice defense minister, said the National Security Office of the Blue House discussed the purchase plan with an Air Force official on April 18. The summit between President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump took place on April 11 in Washington. 

In 2014, the Air Force finalized the first phase of a next-generation fighter jet project and confirmed the purchase of 40 F-35As, the most common version of the fighter jet built by Lockheed Martin. The deliveries are scheduled to be completed in 2021. 

The second phase of the project will start in 2021. The military is to spend a total of 4 trillion won ($3.35 billion) for five years to purchase 20 additional stealth fighter jets. Speculation was high in the military that Korea would buy more F-35As. 

Although F-35Bs have short takeoff and vertical landing features, which would allow deployment on a light aircraft carrier Korea is planning to build starting next year, military sources said the Air Force prefers F35-As. They said F-35Bs have limited weapons capabilities, operational scope and mobility compared to F-35As. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I think the fact that the Japanese announced in August they were buying F-35B’s to put on their helicopter carriers is the more likely reason. This could just simply be a case of keeping up with the Jones’s.

The real question is if the ROK military had early warning of an impending missile launch and were told by the Blue House to not deploy the Aegis ships to track the launches for fear of upsetting North Korea? With that said another possibility could be that the ROK military did not need the radar data because they were already getting it from their land based Green Pine radars:

South Korea’s key warships assigned to detecting North Korea’s missile launches have failed to detect and track them on five occasions this year.

According to Navy data obtained by Liberty Korea Party lawmaker Chong Jong-sup on Thursday, Aegis vessels failed to detect and track North Korea’s ballistic missile launches on May 4 and 9, July 25, Aug. 2, and Sept. 10. 

The North has launched new missiles or projectiles from multiple rocket launchers on a total of 11 occasions since May 4.

“No sailing orders were given to the Aegis vessels from the Joint Chiefs of Staff headquarters to monitor North Korea’s missile activities on time,” the Navy said. 

“Even if sailing orders had been given, the missile activities were out of Aegis radar range in some cases” or “it was possible to detect and track only one out of every two missiles, because the combat readiness system update was often delayed on the Aegis ships.”

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

There could be a steep drop in the number of ROK Army soldiers in the coming years:

The Army said Friday it plans to reduce the number of troops by around 100,000 over the next three years in the face of a shrinking population and as part of reform initiatives to create a smaller, smarter military.

By 2022, the number of soldiers will be slashed to about 365,000 from the current level of around 464,000, according to an Army report presented to the National Assembly.

This is in line with defense reforms under which the government seeks to reduce the number of troops to cope with fewer potential draftees and shorter mandatory service terms for conscripts.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Here is what President Moon had to say in commemoration of the 71st anniversary of the ROK Military:

President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday pledged to build an unassailable military force capable of supporting peace building on the peninsula in remarks at a ceremony to commemorate Korea’s 71st Armed Forces Day.

The ceremony took place for the first time at an Air Force base in Daegu, home to the Air Force’s main combat force of F-15K jets, and featured an unveiling of the country’s new F-35A stealth fighter jets recently acquired from the United States.

In an address, Moon commended the military for defending the freedoms of every South Korean to enjoy peace and prosperity and said it was this defensive might that would buttress the country’s efforts to build a permanent peace regime on the peninsula.

“Peace should not be something to maintain but to create,” Moon said, according to a Blue House translation. “The impenetrable security of our armed forces underpins dialogue and cooperation, enabling us to embark on a bold journey toward permanent peace.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Standards will soon drop for ROK Army conscription:

The South Korean military said Sunday it plans to lower the bar for the conscription of active duty soldiers, as the country’s population is widely expected to shrink drastically. 

The Ministry of National Defense and the Military Manpower Administration are currently in the process of revising related regulations to lower the physical requirements and standards for active duty troops.

The measure under review comes amid a precipitate fall in the country’s population. The phenomenon is likely to drastically cut the number of men in their 20s to less than 250,000 after 2022, compared to some 350,000 as of 2017, leaving far fewer able-bodied young men eligible for the mandatory military service. 

“The Military Manpower Administration and other related bodies predict a major problem in securing manpower (for active duty troops) from around 2021. They plan to revise (the conscription standards) next year,” a government official said.

Under the revised plan, the government will use a new set of medical standards that are less strict than those currently applied, such as those on body mass index and high blood pressure. 

The new standards are likely to be finalized in early 2021, and the military will continue to take steps to gradually further loosen the requirements, according to the official. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is good to see that more women are able to advance their careers in the ROK military:

When it comes to promoting gender equality in military barracks, some might think it is about giving preferential treatment to female personnel. 

Kang Seo-yeon, a chief petty officer of the Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy, realized this after an article spotlighting her service received comments to such effect online. 

“After all, we are all service members whether we are male or female,” Kang said. “Female NCOs in the military can often be seen as a special case when they should rather be seen as competent, just like their male colleagues.” 

For Navy service personnel, serving in a remote area or on a ship on a maritime mission helps their careers. While her husband is also a Navy chief petty officer serving on the ROKS Chungbuk (FFG-816) in the Second Fleet based at Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, Kang chose to serve at a naval base on Deokjeok Island off the western coast of Incheon this year ― her 11th in the Navy. Before enlisting in the Navy she served four years in the Army as she always wanted to be in the military after graduating from high school. 

Kang, now raising her four-year-old son on Deokjeok Island, said she can balance her work and childcare through the military’s childcare support policies. 

In South Korea, all able-bodied men must serve 18 to 22 months in the military but no mandatory military service is required of women. They can join the military as non-commissioned, or commissioned officer if they graduate from military academies or pass national qualification tests to join the military. 

Media focus on female personnel has often been on them taking certain positions for the first time that had not been “allowed” before, largely due to the perception that women would find it hard to serve on such missions. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link about various female servicemembers that have filled leadership roles for the first time in the ROK military.

This is pretty bad and he wasn’t the only KATUSA to use the Camp Humphreys relocation to go AWOL:

A Korean Augmentation to the United States Army (KATUSA) soldier allegedly went absent without leave (AWOL) and spent the last five months of his service at his home, but the Korean military authorities were unaware of this until another soldier made an anonymous complaint, sources said Wednesday. 

The former KATUSA sergeant, who was stationed at the U.S. Army Garrison (USAG) in Yongsan, central Seoul, was to be relocated to USAG Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, early this year. However, he did not follow the relocation order. 

Currently, over 90 percent of U.S. forces and KATUSAs who were stationed in and around Seoul have moved to the recently expanded USAG Humphreys, according to a U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) official.

The deserter took advantage of lax personnel management at the time when soldiers were being continuously relocated to Humphreys in large numbers and only a small batch of KATUSAs were left behind at Yongsan.

“The suspect allegedly told Korean Army officers in Pyeongtaek that he was part of a handful of KATUSA and U.S. troops left working in Yongsan, but they did not cross-check this with officers stationed in Yongsan,” a source told The Korea Times.

The man allegedly stayed at home while he was AWOL.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but he wasn’t the only KATUSA to use the relocation to go AWOL. Other KATUSAs did so as well, but when one of them got caught he blew the whistle on the KATUSA that went AWOL for five months.

The Ministry of Science does not want to give up their free labor to the Ministry of Defense:

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of National Defense have come into conflict over the latter’s move to reduce the number of military duty exemptions for science and engineering majors by half.

While all able-bodied South Korean men must serve in the military for about two years as the two Koreas remain technically at war, those with master’s degrees or doctorates in natural sciences or engineering have been allowed to spend their military service working at R&D departments of state-designated research institutes.

The defense ministry is claiming that downsizing such special exemptions, which were introduced in 1973, is necessary to make up for the expected shortage in the number of active-duty personnel amid a constantly declining population. 

But the science ministry as well as universities, research institutes and students are arguing that the exemptions have effectively contributed to the development of the nation’s R&D sector and thus must be retained.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

A cut of 118,000 servicemembers is going to be quite a reduction in the size of the ROK military by 2022:

Concerns are being raised over possible regional economic crises in cities near the inter-Korean border as they are seeing a considerable population outflow with military units in the region having been or set to be withdrawn or unified in the near future. This is in line with the country’s overall Defense Reform 2.0 troop drawdown plan.

Under the five-year plan announced by President Moon Jae-in last July, the military is seeking to be smaller but “smarter” to counter the demographic cliff the country is facing. The combined number of troops in the ROK Armed Forces ― the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines ― is currently 618,000 but the government is planning to cut this by 118,000 by 2022. 

Out of the eight corps currently being operated by the Republic of Korea Army, two ― VI Corps in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province and VII Corps in Yangyang, Gangwon Province ― will be disbanded, while the number of Army divisions will also see a reduction from 39 to 33, according to military sources. 

Korea Times

You can read the rest at the link, but the governments of the cities near the DMZ are concerned about the loss of population from the troop cuts and how it will effect regional economies. The governments are planning to turn towards DMZ eco-tourism to fill the economic gap the cuts in troops is going to cause.

In a fight with North Korea this gun will probably see more action supporting ground troops than shooting down aircraft:

South Korea successfully developed a 30-mm wheel-type anti-aircraft gun system that has a longer range and better mobility than the previous model, the arms procurement agency said Wednesday.
Under the 55-billion won (US$46.58 million) project launched in June, 2015, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) and Hanwha Defense Co. developed the anti-aircraft gun wheeled vehicle system, and final tests and evaluations proved that it met all the military requirements. 
As a system designed to ward off low-altitude attacks by enemy aircraft, the new weapon has an effective range of 3 kilometers, some 1.6 times longer than the 20mm Vulcan anti-aircraft guns, and its latest targeting systems allow it to have automatic tracking and self-targeting capabilities, according to the DAPA.
The adoption of the wheeled platform also enabled it to provide active mobile and localized support for troops, it added.

Yonhap