September 22, 2017 09:39
An artillery unit from the U.S. mainland practiced firing precision-guided munitions in South Korea on Thursday.
The 18th Field Artillery Brigade based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina staged the live-fire drill in Daecheon, South Chungcheong Province on Thursday, according to the eighth U.S. Army.
On being flown in by transport plane, the unit fired long-range munitions. The weapons they came with were two HIMARS light multiple rocket launchers. Each HIMARS launcher carries six 227 mm rockets with a range of more than 70 km or an ATACMS missile with a range of 300 km.
HIMARS provides a counterweight to North Korea's long-range artillery pieces and is so light that it can be deployed rapidly anywhere by C-130 transport aircraft.
Guided rockets fired from the HIMARS launchers hit the target some 60 km away.
The launchers had been deployed for live-fire drills here several times before. Thursday's drill was a show of force after North Korea's latest nuclear test and launch of Hwasong-12 ballistic missiles over Japan.
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