The Korean Marine Corps is set to run its first landing drills at the division level without U.S. support. So far, the Marines used equipment from U.S. forces including landing craft and conducted drills at the battalion and regiment levels. Backed up this time by the nation¡¯s own Army, Air Force and Navy, the Marines will practice landing and inland penetration on Oct. 20-27 in the vicinity of Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province.
 |
|
Troops in armored amphibious vehicles cross the Yeomha River between the Gimpo peninsula and Ganghwa Island during a joint Korea-U.S. landing exercise in Ganghwa-gun, Incheon on Thursday.
|
 |
|
This drill will make use of Hyangrobong, Birobong and Kojoonbong landing ship tanks along with destroyers, escort ships and around 40 aircraft including the CH-47 Chinook, UH-60, UH-1H to capture inland airspace, and some 70 Korean Amphibious Assault Vehicles with near 10,000 troops. The Landing Platform (Experimental) Dokdo, the largest amphibious ship of its kind in Asia, is also expected to lend its commanding form to the proceedings. To help alleviate the lack of landing craft, civilian cargo boats will be brought into the mix to analyze the feasibility and effectiveness of employing civilian resources in wartime.
¡°If the Marines intend to launch a sudden attack behind enemy lines, there needs to be at least a division¡¯s worth of troops, but as this is next to impossible without the support of the U.S., we have always run the large-scale landing drills with the U.S. Navy,¡± a Marines officer said. ¡°But we want to get rid of the idea that it is impossible to do without the U.S., so we will conduct these drills independently while carefully observing the capabilities and any problems we run into. We intend to raise the bar for landing operations.¡± Beginning on Oct. 20, troops and munitions will be loaded onto ships that will then stage a landing at Dokseok-ri and Hwajin-ri on Oct. 24. Inland penetration practice follows through Oct 27.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
