Tag: ROK Army

South Korea continues to increase its military engagement with Ukraine by providing some much needed mine clearing vehicles:

Fortunately for Ukraine, South Korean firm Hyundai produces a similar breaching vehicle: the K600. And Seoul just pledged two of the 62-ton vehicles to Kyiv. South Korea will deliver the K600s “as soon as possible,” a government source told Chosun.

Hyundai makes a two-person K600 by removing the turret from a K1 tank—a South Korean variant of the American M-1—and adding a plow, an articulated excavator arm and a device for safely triggering magnetic mines.

The K600 is compatible with two dozer blades, both made by Pearson. A wedge-shape blade works best for digging up and shoving aside buried mines. A straight blade works better for generic engineering tasks: filling in trenches, digging revetments, et cetera.

Hyundai delivered the first K600s to the South Korean army in 2020. The South Korean and Ukrainian governments began discussing a K600 transfer back in May; the South Koreans finally approved the deal this month. There’s one caveat. The Ukrainians must deploy the vehicles only in “humanitarian” roles.

The caveat is meaningless. Arguably any mineclearing operation—even one that occurs while the engineers are under enemy fire—is humanitarian.

Forbes via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

Since this incident apparently happened on Camp Humphreys back in 2018 it makes me wonder if this was a KATUSA soldier that was slapped?:

South Korean soldiers walk on the grounds of Camp Humphreys, South Korea, Friday, July 7, 2023. (Christopher Green/Stars and Stripes)

 A former South Korean army officer cleared of assault charges after slapping a subordinate on a U.S. military base in 2018 must stand trial again after the country’s highest court reversed an appellate court’s ruling.

The officer — identified as a colonel in South Korean media reports — was convicted in a military court of assault for lightly slapping a soldier five to eight times for failing to salute, according to a June 15 decision by the Supreme Court of Korea. The conviction carried a maximum two-year prison term. 

The decision sends the case to the Seoul High Court for retrial. 

Both soldiers served in the same unit that supported the U.S. armed forces, according to the supreme court decision. The incident occurred at an unspecified base in Pyeongtaek, home of the U.S. Army’s Camp Humphreys and the Air Force’s Osan Air Base.

Names, ranks and other information about the soldiers were redacted in the court filing. Except in extreme cases of “cruel” crimes, South Korean law protects the identity of the accused.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but back in the day physical punishment for infractions like this was common which is probably why this Colonel thought it was okay to slap the soldier. I once did combined training with a ROK Army unit and at morning formation a ROK soldier ran to formation a few seconds late and the platoon sergeant slapped him, pushed him to the ground, and kicked him. No one ever showed up late to formation the rest of the exercise.

Fortunately this did not lead to a bigger incident:

A South Korean soldier has mistakenly fired a machine gun during training near the border with North Korea, and the military has immediately informed North Korea that the shooting was not intentional, military officials said Sunday.

The South Korean military said four live rounds were fired from the machine gun during a training session by an Army unit along the inter-Korean border in the eastern province of Gangwon at 6:27 p.m. on Saturday.

All of the bullets landed in the southern side of the Military Demarcation Line and no damage was reported. No firings were planned for the training.

The military unit immediately informed North Korea via broadcasting on several occasions that the firings were not intentional and stepped up emergency readiness posture, the officials said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.