South Korean Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

South Korea says likely North drone flew over Seoul's presidential palace
Thu, Apr 3 2014
SEOUL (Reuters) - A drone found last week while probably returning to North Korea had flown over the presidential palace in the South before crashing near the border, but would not have been able to carry a bomb, an official said on Thursday.
The drone was the first of two unmanned aircraft found in a span of a week, with the second found soon after a three-hour artillery barrage between the neighbors in waters near a disputed maritime border.
South Korea's military has been criticized for apparently failing to spot or stop the unidentified aircraft that entered its airspace and flew over its capital amid a tense standoff with the North, as both countries remain technically at war.
Nearly 200 aerial photographs were recovered from a camera carried by the drone, including some taken directly above the presidential Blue House, but the aircraft had no equipment to transmit the images, defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.
"It is of primitive standard, and it would not have been easy to use it in an act of terror, or more precisely, it would not have been possible," he said when asked if it could carry a bomb.
But the North was clearly working to improve the technology, he added. The 1950-53 Korean War between the two countries ended in a truce and no peace treaty has been signed since.
The aircraft was a lightweight model of less than 2 m (6.6 ft) in length or width, news reports said. It was carrying a camera of a kind widely sold commercially for about 1 million won ($950) and equipped with a basic non-zoom lens, Kim said.
South Korea believes it was launched by the North on the grounds that it flew in from the north and over Seoul before turning back, with enough fuel left when it crashed to carry it back to North Korea.
Images of Monday's drone crash showed the wreckage of a light-blue aircraft with paintwork and markings similar to North Korean drones displayed in a Pyongyang parade last year.
Those drones were larger aircraft modified to crash into pre-determined targets, but are not believed to be capable of air strikes or long-range surveillance flights.
North Korea's state media said last year that leader Kim Jong Un had supervised a drill of "super-precision" drone attacks on a simulated South Korean target.
Although the North has one of the world's largest standing armies, much of its equipment consists of antiquated Soviet-era designs. It has focused resources on developing nuclear and long-range missile programs.
($1=1056.5500 Korean won)
(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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North Korea says U.S. 'hell-bent on regime change'
Apr. 4, 2014 - 01:12PM |

By Cara Anna
The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS — North Korea on Friday accused the United States of being “hell-bent on regime change” and warned that any maneuvers with that intention will be viewed as a “red line” that will result in countermeasures.

Pyongyang’s deputy U.N. ambassador Ri Tong Il also repeated that his government “made it very clear we will carry out a new form of nuclear test” but refused to elaborate, saying only that “I recommend you to wait and see what it is.”

His comments came at North Korea’s second press conference at the United Nations in two weeks, a surprising rate for the reclusive Communist regime.

Ri blamed the U.S. for aggravating tensions on the Korean Peninsula by continuing “very dangerous” military drills with South Korea, by pursuing action in the U.N. Security Council against his country’s recent ballistic missile launches and by going after Pyongyang’s human rights performance.

Ri also accused the U.S. of blocking a resumption of six-party talks on its nuclear program by settling preconditions and said Washington’s primary goal is to maintain tensions and prevent denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea walked away from the six-party nuclear disarmament talks in 2009 over disagreements on how to verify steps the North was meant to take to end its nuclear programs. The U.S. and its allies are demanding that the North demonstrate its sincerity in ending its drive to acquire nuclear weapons.

Since pulling out of the six-party talks, the North has conducted a long-range rocket test, its second-ever nuclear test, and most recently short-range rockets launches.

Using the initials of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s official name, Ri said, “The DPRK has been making strenuous, hard efforts, very generous, toward easing the tensions on the Korean Peninsula, but ignoring all this generous position of the DPRK and its proposals, the U.S. went ahead with opening the joint military drills, very aggressive nature, and they’re now expanding in a crazy manner the scale of this exercise.”

He also rejected as “illegal” a Security Council statement last week that condemned North Korea’s test-firing of two medium-range ballistic missiles as violations of council resolutions.

The deputy ambassador did not answer questions on detained American Kenneth Bae or on his country’s drone program, which it has been promoting recently. South Korean experts this week claimed that two small, camera-equipped drones had been flown across the border by the North, calling them crude and decidedly low-tech. Both drones crashed in South Korea.

———

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed.

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North Korea tells world 'wait and see' on new nuclear test

8:07am IST
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea said on Friday that the world would have to "wait and see" when asked for details of "a new form" of nuclear test it threatened to carry out after the United Nations Security Council condemned Pyongyang's recent ballistic missile launch.
North Korea fired two medium-range Rodong ballistic missiles into the sea on March 26. Its first firing in four years of mid-range missiles that can hit Japan followed a series of short-range rocket launches over the past two months.
Members of the Security Council on March 27 condemned the move as a violation of U.N. resolutions and that it would continue discussions on an "appropriate response.
North Korea (DPRK) reacted on Sunday with a threat to conduct what it called "a new form of nuclear test.
"The DPRK made it very clear, we will carry out a new form of nuclear test. But I recommend you to wait and see what it is," North Korea's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Ri Tong Il said on Friday during the normally reclusive state's third U.N. news conference this year.
Ballistic missile launches are banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions adopted in response to North Korea's multiple nuclear tests and rocket firings. The council expanded its existing sanctions after Pyongyang's February 2013 atomic test, its third nuclear detonation since 2006.
The Security Council's sanctions on Pyongyang target the country's missile and nuclear programs and attempt to punish North Korea's reclusive leadership through a ban on the export of luxury goods to the country.
Ri accused the United States of being "hell bent on regime change" in North Korea by blaming its leaders for human rights violations. He also said Washington was blocking a bid for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula by ignoring North Korean proposals, so it can maintain military presence in the region.
U.S. 'GOING AROUND CRAZY'
"The U.S. is hell bent on eliminating the DPRK politically, isolating DPRK economically and annihilating the DPRK militarily," Ri told reporters. "There is a great question mark why the U.S. is hell bent on increasing the tension, ignoring the DPRK proposals, very important for peace and security."
A U.S. diplomat said that Washington had long made clear that it was open to improved relations with North Korea if Pyongyang lived up to its international obligations.
"North Korea's nuclear programs will not make the country more secure. The only way for North Korea to achieve the security and prosperity it seeks is by complying with its international obligations and commitments," the diplomat said.
Nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in the United States, said North Korea's reference to a new form of nuclear test could mean simultaneous detonation of two or more devices as part of a program of more intense testing expected over the next few years.
Lewis said he thought it unlikely North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would move for the moment from underground to atmospheric testing - something he might do to demonstrate an ability to deploy nuclear armed missiles or artillery - for fear of inflaming Chinese public opinion.
"He's only likely to do that ... if he no longer cares what Beijing thinks," Lewis said. "Still, it is useful to remember that Kim Jong Un has a number of other unpleasant provocations from which he might choose."
While North Korea has detonated several nuclear devices, analysts have expressed doubt that it currently has the technical capability to reliably mount a nuclear warhead on a missile.
Senior officials of the United States, Japan and South Korea will meet in Washington on Monday to seek ways to persuade North Korea to give up its atomic weapons program. The discussions precede a visit to Asia by Obama from April 22, which will include stops in both South Korea and Japan, where the North Korea issue will be high on the agenda.
U.N. rights investigators said in February that North Korean security chiefs and possibly Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un himself should be tried for ordering systematic torture, starvation and killings, saying the crimes were "strikingly similar" to those committed in World War Two.
"There is no human rights situation existing in the DPRK," Ri said. "The DPRK has the best social system in the world, it is based on one family as a country, fully united around our leadership, the people and the party."
"The U.S. is behaving as if it is a human rights judge while it should be subjected to the International Criminal Court more than anybody else. They made a lot of crimes," he said, citing U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ri criticized military drills by the United States and South Korea, called Foal Eagle and due to end on April 18. North Korea has traditionally called for the joint exercises to be called off, seeing them as a prelude to invasion.
"The U.S. is now going around crazy with these joint military drills without caring about peace and security on the Korean peninsula," Ri said.
The annual drills have been conducted for decades without a major incident. The United States and South Korea stress that the exercises are purely defensive and aimed at testing readiness against any possible North Korean aggression.
(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON; Editing by Grant McCool)

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South Korea extending ballistic missile range to counter North's threat
Photo
Fri, Apr 4 2014
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea has test-fired a new ballistic missile with a range of 500 km (310 miles) and will try to extend the range to 800 km so it can strike any site in North Korea, its defense ministry said on Friday, days after Pyongyang fired a mid-range missile.
The new missiles are intended to counter the threat from North Korea's missile and nuclear programs, ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said, but the move is likely to rattle the North, hit with U.N. sanctions for its own missile tests.
South Korea adopted a voluntary ban on developing ballistic missiles with a range of more than 300 km, under an agreement with the United States, but the allies agreed in 2012 to allow the South to develop 800 km-range missiles.
"We test-fired it, and we succeeded," Kim told a briefing, when asked if the military had recently conducted a 500-km missile test. "And we're going to make 800-km missiles."
The new missiles will be used to strike the North's weapons and military installations in the furthest part of the country from anywhere in the South if needed, he added.
The two Koreas are technically still at war, since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, rather than an armistice.
North Korea last week fired a mid-range ballistic Rodong missile that fell into the sea off its east coast after flying about 650 km and short of its maximum range, thought to be about 1,300 km, and enough to hit much of Japan.
North Korea this week fired more than 500 rounds of artillery into the sea off its west coast near a disputed maritime border in the latest sabre-rattling under its young leader Kim Jong Un, who has vowed to build nuclear weapons.
More than 100 rounds landed in the waters of the South, prompting it to fire back more than 300 rounds into the North's waters.
South Korea is also investigating two drones that crashed near its border with the North which it believes were flown by Pyongyang. One was recovered with evidence of having flown directly over the South's presidential palace.
North Korea's state media said last year that leader Kim Jong Un had supervised a drill of "super-precision" drone attacks on a simulated South Korean target.
Although the North has one of the world's largest standing armies, much of its equipment consists of antiquated Soviet-era designs. It has focused resources on developing nuclear and long-range missile programs.
(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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North Korea launches unprecedented personal attack on South Korea leader
Photo
Fri, Apr 4 2014
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea published comments on Friday attacking South Korean President Park Geun-hye, descending to unprecedented levels of personal insult by describing her as a "repulsive wench" who had failed to marry or bear children.
The brutal denunciation, going far beyond previous criticism in the reclusive authoritarian state's media, was certain to deepen animosity amid growing tensions on the world's most militarized border.
The KCNA news agency carried what it said were comments by a private citizen criticizing Park's offer last week to help the impoverished North's women and children as "foul-smelling vituperation uttered by human scum.
"Park Geun-hye is but an unseemly wench who has never had a chance to marry or bear a child," the citizen, Kim Un Kyong, was quoted as saying by KCNA.
Park, the citizen said, had no right to talk about the children of North Korea.
"A repulsive wench such as Park Geun-hye is an incoherent existence who has long given up trying to be a woman of Korea and who makes a mockery of sacred motherhood, mad with the pursuit of national confrontation."
North Korea tightly controls the content of its media, frequently dominated by articles lionizing past and present leaders. Dispatches often quote people said to be private citizens or obscure foreign groups to attack the South and the United States.
North Korea has steadily raised the level of insult against Park in recent weeks, after accusing the South of breaking an agreement to work to improve ties by stopping statements slandering of each others' leaders.
In late March, a North Korean agency that handles ties with the South criticized Park's comments at a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calling on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.
North Korea accused the South of "gangster-like" behavior after the South returned a fishing boat that had strayed into its waters last week near a tense disputed naval border.
It then fired more than 500 artillery rounds off its shore on Monday, landing more than 100 in South Korea's waters. The South responded by firing back 300 rounds into the North's waters.
(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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April 11, 2014, 4:55 PM KST
South Korea Says More Evidence Drones Came From North
ByJeyup S. Kwaak


An unmanned drone lies on a mountain in Samcheok, South Korea, Sunday, April 6, 2014.
Associated Press
South Korea said Friday that it found additional evidence pointing to North Korea as the sender of surveillance drones found in recent weeks near the inter-Korean border.

While cautioning that its interim report wasn’t conclusive, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said that it was “practically impossible” that the aircraft came from anywhere farther than North Korea, given the engine capacity, the fuel tank sizes and weather conditions at the suspected hours of flight.

The ministry also hasn’t found evidence to support a launch inside South Korea. The designs of the drones differed from privately-operated unmanned aerial vehicles in the country, the ministry said.

South Korea discovered three drones crashed in three separate spots near North Korea, hundreds of miles away from each other. The first was discovered in Paju, north of Seoul, on March 24 and the second a week later on Baengnyeong Island in the Yellow Sea. The third was found on Sunday on a mountainside in Samcheok, 290 kilometers (180 miles) east of Seoul.

The findings have raised questions about South Korea’s ability to deter North Korean incursions into its airspace.
Photos stored inside a camera attached to one plane showed military facilities inside the South, the ministry said. A national newspaper reported earlier that another drone took photos of the Presidential Office and residence, which the ministry confirmed on Friday.

North Korea has denied involvement since the drones’ discovery and the South defense ministry said it hasn’t found definitive evidence. Internal parts were found to have come from several countries, including the U.S., Japan, Czech Republic and even South Korea, ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.

Investigators found six different fingerprints each on two drones and couldn’t find them in the South Korean registry. Every South Korean citizen has their fingerprints registered in the national system.

“If these acts are ultimately found to be North Korea’s doing, we will sternly respond to the serious provocation of invading South Korea’s airspace,” Mr. Kim said.

The unmanned aerial vehicles likely flew at between 180 and 300 kilometers per hour, the ministry said.

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April 14, 2014, 2:32 PM KST
North Korea Denies Drone Involvement
ByKwanwoo Jun

North Korea on Monday denied having sent drones to South Korea, claiming the recent discovery of unmanned aerial vehicles in the South was a part of Seoul’s smear campaign against Pyongyang.

In a first direct denial of its involvement in the drone case, the North’s state Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea handling cross-border issues said in a statement that the South is “fabricating the ridiculous drone incident in the smear campaign” against the regime in Pyongyang.

South Korea has pointed to North Korea since it discovered three crashed drones—one of which had flown over the presidential office in Seoul—in southern territory beginning late last month. As a strong piece of evidence, Seoul disclosed that a battery used for one of the drones is inscribed with a Korean dialect usually used in the North.

The defense ministry in Seoul said again in an interim report on Friday that North Korea was presumed to have sent the drones, presenting additional “circumstantial” evidence—including their engine capacities, fuel-tank sizes, flight hours and designs—to indicate they belong to Pyongyang.

Seoul vowed to continue and widen the probe to find more relevant evidence.

After weeks of vaguely indicating that it had nothing to do with the aircraft by accusing Seoul of fussing over unspecified drones, Pyongyang on Monday flatly denied its involvement.

“The [South’s] defense ministry at all unveiled its vicious attempt to fabricate another Cheonan incident by saying ‘the North is presumed to have been responsible’… even though it admitted to having found no decisive evidence in its April 11 interim report,” said the North’s statement, issued Monday.

The Cheonan incident refers to the sinking of a South Korean navy corvette, killing 46 of its crew, in 2010 near the disputed inter-Korean sea border in the Yellow Sea. Seoul has held Pyongyang responsible for the tragedy after an international probe, but the North has denied its involvement.


In this handout image provided by the South Korean Defense Ministry, the wreckage of a crashed drone is seen on a mountain on April 6, 2014, in Samcheok, South Korea.
Getty Images
Seoul’s Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok on Monday immediately rebuffed the North’s denial that it had sent the drones south across the border. “It is almost certain to everyone that North Korea is responsible for having sent the three drones that have crashed since March 24. It is not right to deny it while slandering the Republic of Korea (South Korea),” Mr. Kim told a regular briefing.

Meanwhile, the KCNA also ran an English-translated copy of the CPRK statement, also full of threats and criticism targeting South Korean President Park Geun-hye, but made no reference to the drone case.

South Korea discovered the first suspected North Korean drone in Paju, north of Soul and south of the inter-Korean border on March 24, the second a week later on Baengnyeong Island near the sea border in the Yellow Sea and the third on Sunday in Samcheok, 290 kilometers (180 miles) east of Seoul.

Despite its rudimentary designs and functions, the suspected North Korean drones have raised concerns about the South’s air defenses. Local media say Seoul is pushing to purchase advanced radar systems to detect drones or smaller aerial vehicles that fly low. In March, the South confirmed an $817 million plan to buy Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles from Northrop Grumman Corp.

Follow Kwanwoo Jun on Twitter @Kwanwoo

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Equation said:

Thanks Jeff, any news if the SKorean are planning to build any more LHD Dokdo class type?

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asif iqbal said:

Yes they have plans to add more in addition to some larger flat top with a Ski Jump they outlined thier plans a while back I am sure you can find the details back in this very thread

Problem here is this, North Korea is known to be sneaky and cheeky at pulling stunts always going to be and they have had years and years to prepare for it and have deep under ground tunnels and deep trench cover

They are going to have a advantage in stationary combat I do not believe they have enough resources to use a mechanised military very successfully

For South Korea needs to take that advantage away and forcing the North to come out and fight anc expose themselves and one way they can do that is by using a large LHD force and outflanking the North Korean and doing a full scale Amphibous landing at the side or rear of a North Korean land army

This will force the North to split its defences and launch a counter attack which can be picked off by air cover which South enjoys, such a move would weaken the North and make them fight a war on two fronts

This is the Beauty of a LHD or a Amphibous landing you can land from over the horizon maintain the element of suprise and force a line to collapse

So in short South Korea defintaly needs more flat tops!

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

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