Tag: ROK Army

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.

It is good to see the ROK Army now increasing their training readiness that had been impacted by COVID restrictions:

The South Korean Army flexed its combat power during a large-scale air drill held at two Army facilities in Icheon and Yangpyeong in Gyeonggi Province on Monday.

A total of 34 helicopters, including 16 Apache Guardians, 13 Black Hawks and five Chinooks were mobilized for the largest-ever exercise of its kind conducted by the Army, simulating a scenario in which troops are required to infiltrate enemy territory by air and secure a target.

In the training, the Army’s key asset, the Apache attack helicopters, executed sharp descents after soaring vertically, a maneuver intended to minimize exposure to hostile fire.

The choppers also fired some 150 2-point-75 inch rockets and 450 rounds from a 30-millimeter machine gun in a display of firepower.

KBS World News

You can read more at the link.

This should have been a great event for the U.S. troops involved in this training:

South Korea and the United States have been conducting combined military drills, involving a high-tech training system, Seoul official said Monday, amid the allies’ stepped-up efforts to sharpen deterrence against North Korea’s evolving security threats.

The 11-day training got under way at the Army’s Korea Combat Training Center (KCTC) in Inje, 165 kilometers east of Seoul, on July 11. It involved 4,300 South Korean troops from the 51st Brigade of the 12th Division and 81st Brigade of the 28th Division, as well as 300 U.S. troops of the 1st Armored Brigade.

It marked the first time that U.S. troops have been assigned to the South’s two separate brigade combat teams fighting against each other under a KCTC training program, according to Army officials.

During the troops, the South Korean and U.S. militaries mobilized some 100 pieces of battle equipment, including tanks, armored vehicles, self-propelled howitzers, attack helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles.

“Through high-intensity combat training, I have felt a sense of comradeship,” a South Korean participant was quoted as saying. “I will continue to engage in training programs to build strong combat capabilities to be able to fight and win right away in a battle against the enemy.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like that the ROK and U.S. militaries have decided to join the North Koreans in waging war on the East Sea’s fish:

South Korean and US forces fired eight missiles Monday in response to North Korea firing the same number of missiles a day earlier, the allies said Monday. 

For about 10 minutes from 4:45 a.m. Monday, the South Korean military and the US Forces Korea fired eight surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile System missiles into the East Sea as a response to North Korea’s military provocation made Sunday.

The exercise used one missile from the US Army and seven from the South Korean military. 

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Not only is this officer likely going to jail, but the cryptocurrency he received has dropped by more than half its value now:

A special operations officer in the South Korean army allegedly traded military secrets to a North Korean hacker in exchange for nearly $70,000 in cryptocurrency, according to a South Korean military affidavit.

The army captain, identified in the redacted affidavit only as Kim, his surname, was arrested April 6 and charged with violating the National Security Act, military prosecutors state in the document.

The allegations against Kim are “absolutely shameful,” said a former South Korean special forces officer and former commander of a joint support group.

“In my 19 year-career in the military, this is the first time I’ve heard this kind of news,” Lee Kwan Woo, a former commander in the Eighth Army’s U.S.-South Korea joint support group, told Stars and Stripes by phone Wednesday. “Special forces officers and noncommissioned officers are trained on security — all of those members are trained very seriously to keep security.”

Kim attended South Korea’s school of infantry in 2015, according to military records cited in the affidavit. He then served as a platoon leader for a reconnaissance company in 2016 and five years later became a company commander in the 13th Special Mission Brigade, according to Lee a special operations group specifically trained to capture or kill leaders in North Korea.

In March 2020, an unidentified former classmate approached Kim with an offer of money in exchange for military information for a third party, according to the affidavit. Kim declined the offer, saying such an act is illegal, the affidavit states.

Around six months later, Kim, now in financial straits due to online gambling, accepted his classmates’ offer, the affidavit said. The classmate introduced Kim to Boris, a man who claimed to be an ethnic Korean living in China.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but it is not surprising that the North Koreans were targeting someone with a bad gambling habit. It makes me wonder how they knew he had a bad gambling habit? Did they hack into the online gambling websites to monitor who has gambling problems that they might be able to exploit?

I would not be surprised if this is an old landmine that may have been washed out of the ground by rain:

A South Korean soldier in a frontline Army unit was wounded due to an unidentified explosion during a border defense mission earlier this week, officials said Wednesday.

The blast occurred Tuesday when the soldier was conducting a land clearing operation to ensure visibility near a general outpost of the Army’s First Corps that lies just south of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

He is currently receiving treatment for an injury to his toes, the officials said.

The military authorities are trying to ascertain the exact cause of the explosion, including the possibility of a stray landmine blast.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.