“Warrior Strike”: US troops train to take out North Korean WMD’s
Timing of drills follows reports of North Korea’s plans for anthrax-loaded ICBM’s.
There have been some interesting developments related to North Korea this week.
The U.S. military is conducting a series of drills with South Korea’s military. The training is intended to boost tunnel-warfare capabilities.
Hundreds of troops from the U.S. and South Korea conducted a joint training exercise dubbed “Warrior Strike” last week, South Korean military sources told the country’s Yonhap News Agency.
The drill, which lasted four days, saw soldiers from the military unit known as the “Black Jack Brigade” train in a “subterranean tunnel,” according to the division’s Facebook page.
Images posted from the drill showed the soldiers using high-tech equipment, including scoped rifles and night-vision goggles.
The U.S. military has not commented on the specifics of the drill but Lt. Col. Christopher B. Logan told Business Insider that “exercises are vital to the readiness of the U.S. and our allies, and ensure we are ready and trained for combined-joint operations.”
GALLERY | Texas-based soldiers test new technology to clear tunnels in South Korea https://t.co/WY8vlQJRiu pic.twitter.com/kY3QagSMlN
— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) December 19, 2017
Stars and Stripes had additional details:
On Friday, the Texas-based “Black Knights” from the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment air-assaulted from Black Hawk helicopters to Camp Stanley in pre-dawn darkness, linked up with South Korean forces, and entered the bunker in an exercise dubbed Warrior Strike.
The soldiers negotiated a half-mile long, horseshoe-shaped tunnel and numerous alcoves that look like the sort of place an enemy might hide chemical weapons.
…During the Camp Stanley training, troops were equipped with gear that the Korea-based 2nd Infantry Division has on hand to boost tunnel-warfare capabilities. These include a new radio device — the Mobile Ad Hoc Networking Unit, or MPU5 — which acts as a WiFi-like node and creates a peer-to-peer radio relay, allowing the transmission of text and imagery between troops in the tunnel and to a commander on the surface.
The timing follows reports that North Korea is strapping anthrax to ICBM’s and is testing ways to deliver the biological payload without incinerating the pathogen.
The Hermit Kingdom is beginning experiments to test out if anthrax can endure immense heat and pressure it will have to endure when loaded into an ICBM and launched toward the earth’s atmosphere, Japan’s Asahi newspaper reported, citing an unidentified person connected to South Korea’s intelligence services.
“North Korea has started experiments such as heat and pressure equipment to prevent anthrax from dying even at a high temperature of over 7,000 degrees generated at the time of ICBM’s re-entry into the atmosphere,” the report stated. “In part, there is unconfirmed information that it has already succeeded in such experiments.”
Finally, another North Korean soldier has walked across the border to defect to South Korea. This one arrived uninjured, unlike the soldier who crossed last month with a body full of 5 bullets and worms.
A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea by crossing the border in thick fog, triggering gunfire from both sides this morning.
The ‘low-ranking’ soldier in his 20s was spotted by South Korean soldiers using surveillance equipment as he crossed the land border near Yeoncheon and made his way to a guard post.
There were no shots at the time but about an hour later South Korean troops fired 20 rounds from a K-3 machine gun to warn off Northern guards who approached the border apparently looking for their comrade.
The first defector is slowly recovering and enjoying South Korean girl bands and a lifetime supply of chocolate covered biscuits called Choco-pies.
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Comments
sounds more like psy-ops to me. An actual attack on tunnels is nonsensical – all the defender has to do is bury 1,000 pounds of explosives every 100 feet.
The way to attack tunnels is the way the we did it with the MOAB in Afghanistan earlier this year. Of course we know that, because we did it already, which is why this story is just for PR.
did someone say “PSYOPS”?
two can play that game… 😎
https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/us-military-issues-alert-after-north-korean-propaganda-found-on-multiple-bases-1.503554
Correct. The only reason we’re hearing about this is because the Pentagon wants it to be heard.
Imagine preparing a tunnel for an assault by placing thousands of pounds of explosives in it. Then hit it with a bunker-buster and stand back and watch the secondary explosions!
In fact, the tunnels in Afghanistan produced multiple secondary explosions after the MOAB was set off.
This sabre rattling has me slightly rattled. The Marine Corps. Gen. addressed 300 marines in Norway and said we could go to 3000 over night or even go to 30,000 if necessary. Marines in NK have been photographed in the snow half naked training for a possible invasion and or attack. Gen. Mattis has also been speaking although guardedly speaking of the current situation. I am not sure who exactly said it but someone that means something said NK is not going to invade during the Olympics and have the entire world against them.
Not really worried at all, however; I will breathe a little easier after Christmas and New Year’s Eve passes, the commies have a history of party crashing.
SK Marines have been similarly pictured in snow doing same thing. Considering the combat history of South Korean troops in Viet Nam….no sane person would pick a fight with either. Let’s hope a whole bunch of North Korean generals choose the good life and Un is sent to join his ancestors.
True but mopping up or crucial Intel recovery would be considerations. Still sailing a thermobaric down the tunnel saves lives…ours.
/me throws the BS flag on the photo
what is that, MOPP 3.25?
no booties, and what’s the one person doing wearing outdated desert cammo fatigues w/o over garments, just to mention the two most glaring WTF?s…
i’d love to see the original, if it’s a bigger file, to look closer at a few other things.
this all smells of PSYOPs, or whatever else they call it these days.
You can view the photo by clicking on the Stars and Stripes article and/or tweet embedded in the post.
when i posted that, i hadn’t seen your whole article, just the photo, and hit the comment button, bypassing the details… and i agree, that looks like a impromptu photo to keep the PAO happy and out of everyone’s way.
they are likely the most useless strap hangers in the military, generally speaking.
(sorry, SG, but that’s been my experience %-)
More like “Hey, Stars and Stripes is here to take some photos. You, you, you, and you, go pose for them. Oh, and take the PAO so we don’t leak anything classified. We’ll keep running the rest of the planned exercise, and the four of you can catch up when you’re done. Make us look good.”
The network widget looks cool, but what would really crank up the cool factor would be an IR scanning 3d mapping setup tied into it that would map out the tunnel system as it is explored (like self-navigating cars use IR lasers to scan the environment and build an internal map) and able to talk back and forth between nodes. None of this hand-drawn scribbles and vague descriptions when the team comes back. You’d have a 3-d Autocad drawing. Better yet, real-time access so there’s no chance of getting lost or stumbling into another team and misidentifying them. “Siri, take us back to the entrance.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-hails-breakthrough-technology-in-discovery-of-hamas-attack-tunnel/
The NORKs have been digging tunnels under the DMZ for decades. I certainly hope a little intelligence sharing is going on. For the sake of the infantry.
The NORKs are proud of the Pueblo. They like showing it off. The thing is the USN didn’t repeat that mistake. Well, not after the Liberty. I guess twice is enough and now they put SIGINT vans on destroyers. No more with the lightly armed auxiliaries.
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Signals_intelligence_collection%2C_ship-based
“United States: Ship Platforms
…After two international incidents, US doctrine is to conduct ship-based SIGINT missions with warships, which can protect themselves as the Pueblo and Liberty could not. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, in 1964, involved two-destroyer DESOTO patrols equipped with intercept vans, backed up with carrier air patrols. Why this level of protection was not available in 1967 is difficult to understand. One exception, the purpose-built SIGINT auxiliary, the ARL-24 Sphinx, generally stayed off the Nicaraguan coast.
Current USN warships carry some version of the AN/SLQ-32 electronic warfare system, which has ESM capabilities.
In addition to the AN/SLQ-32, Arleigh Burke class destroyers are in the process of evaluating an open-architecture Integrated Radar/Optical Sighting and Surveillance System (IROS3) and Ship Protection system, currently including an AN/SPS-73 radar, an electro-optical/infrared sensor, acoustic sensors and spotlights, coupled with remotely controlled machine guns. [7]
Standardized USN systems go beyond simple direction finding and into COMINT. The AN/SLR-25 is a passive cryptologic exploitation system principally for tactical use, but that can make contributions to higher levels of intelligence. The SLR-25(V)1 Advanced Cryptologic Carry-on Exploitation System (ACCES) is a portable version of the SLR-25(V)2 SSEE (Ship Signal Exploitation Equipment) without dedicated SIGINT spaces. Coupled with an AN/SSQ-120 Transportable Radio Direction-Finding system, the ACCES provides a complete SIGINT collection system.[7] The AN/SSQ-120 has HF, VHF, and UHF antennas and direction-finding logic [8].
The area in which the SIGINT systems are operated is called the Ship Signal Exploitation Space, and is a sensitive compartment information facility (SCIF) also used for the ship’s compartmented security communications.
More capable than the AN/SLR-25 with AN/SSQ-120 is the AN/SSQ-137 Ship Signal Exploitation System, an open-architecture system for command & control as well as intelligence… “
Don’t articles like this just tell NK what we’re up to? While we know next to nothing about how NK operates … we shoot out mouth off about everything we do. It’s reckless …
Short answer: They lie like (censored) and assume we do too.
Post Cold War wall falling, some former USSR intel officers (defecting variety) were given an unclassified look at the abilities of many of the mainstays of the thankfully-didn’t-happen war, such as the M1 tank, F-15 fighter, etc… They were flabbergasted, because they always thought the capacities of our weapons were vastly overhyped, like the Soviets did routinely.
We actually have a pretty good idea of how the NORKs will operate.
And in a conventional war they’d get annihilated. Eventually. It would be a tough slog. They’d open a second front, concentrating on the Southeast of the Korean peninsula. The NORK air force in general isn’t too much of a worry to the ROKAF. But it does have it’s strong points. Probably their biggest concern is their fleet of AN-2 Colts. Which might seem surprising. They have a handful of more modern aircraft. On paper their most capable aircraft are some 35 MiG 29s. The AN-2 is a Soviet 1940s era piston-engined biplane, for crying out loud. But it’s rugged and hard to detect. It’s build mostly of fabric and wood. It was for the same reason that Japanese cruiser and battleship biplanes were the most effective Kamikaze aircraft. You just don’t get much of a radar return on these birds. Even with modern 3D radars. They fly at such low altitudes to take advantage of the terrain and at such low speeds (less than 120 knots) that most radars just won’t pick them up. They’re below the “velocity gates” of most ground based and aircraft radars. You can adjust the velocity gates and improve your chances of detecting them. But that will result in more clutter, which also works to the AN-2’s advantage. And precisely because of it’s primitive nature it’s the best maintained and most heavily operated aircraft in their Air Force. Most of their pilots don’t get more than 20 hours of flight time in a year. Which means the more modern aircraft aren’t going to be flown by pilots that can put up a decent fight. But the NORKs work the AN-2 hard. All these factors add up to one thing. The ROK military does not take the AN-2 lightly. They bought a few Boeing E-737s starting back in 2011; the AWACS system on a 737 airframe, mostly because they were worried about coping with the AN-2 Colt threat.
The part of the peninsula the NORKs will want to infiltate is the Southeast. It’s mountainous and relatively lightly populated. It’s what they did in the first Korean war. The last guerillas weren’t cleaned up until the mid-1960s. But the NORKs will also insert SOF into critical infrastructure such as military and naval bases, C2 nodes, etc.
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/aug/24/news/adfg-lastg24
“…Her life on the run ended in a shootout with police in the rugged Chiri Mountains on Nov. 12, 1963 — a decade after the Korean War ended. “Disoriented communist bandit caught!” read a headline at the time.
…With her arrest, South Korea finally declared an end to drawn-out operations against peasant “partisans” who fought the pro-U.S. government in Seoul long after the war. For Chung, the war never ended.
“All my life, I have been a unification warrior who struggled to free the fatherland from the Americans,” she says at the hospital in Incheon, west of Seoul, where she lives.
Released from prison in 1985, Chung was a disabled outcast, disowned by her family because of her tainted past. Police followed her, and she held only menial jobs.
She associated with former rebels, but in 2000 the last of her comrades were allowed to go to North Korea, where they got a hero’s welcome.
Chung was barred from joining them because South Korea returned only “unconverted” guerrillas. Faced with miserable prison conditions, Chung had signed a letter disavowing communism in hopes of getting better medical care and a reduced sentence.
She now regrets signing the paper. All she has left are her political beliefs and hatred of Americans…”
Naturally they’ll also use surface craft and submarines to infiltrate SOF into the south. Probably the greatest threat in this regard are they’re hovercraft which can accommodate platoon size forces. Their 50 knot speed and ability to operate not only at sea but in tidal areas and on mud flats make them a challenge to combat.
Unless of course we destroy them first. Which won’t be easy either as like all NORK forces they operate from bases that are hardened against air attack. Still, there are ways…
I say let’s leave Korea to the Koreans.
Fair enough … if they weren’t threatening the US and our allies.