[Yang Nak-gyu's Defence Club] 250 Special Forces Conduct Joint Training Off Mainland

[Asia Economy Reporter Yang Nak-gyu] Special Forces soldiers, who are the first to infiltrate enemy lines in emergencies, will conduct large-scale ROK-US joint exercises on the U.S. mainland this year. It is practically the first time that more than 200 special operations soldiers will fly directly to the U.S. mainland to conduct joint exercises, which is interpreted as an effort to strengthen and replace the three major joint exercises abolished immediately after the North Korea-U.S. summit with battalion-level training.

According to the military on the 3rd, our forces will be dispatched three times this year?in March, May, and October?to the National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert. In March, about 50 personnel, including observers, controllers, and training analysts, will be dispatched to analyze the educational effectiveness of the NTC. Then, in May, only 30 Special Forces soldiers will be sent to conduct joint exercises with U.S. Special Forces soldiers. In October, about 200 soldiers, including approximately 140 from the Special Assault Unit and 50 from the Special Forces, will be sent to conduct large-scale training with the U.S. military on infiltrating enemy lines.

The NTC at Fort Irwin covers an area of about 3,100 km². Opened in 1981, this training center has increased its focus on guerrilla warfare and urban combat training. The NTC has 18 simulation sets built for training deployment units for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Most of these virtual city sets borrowed technology from Hollywood. Paramount Pictures participated in the set construction, and the explosions were created by special effects teams. The NTC is considered the top training ground in the U.S., making it ideal for our Special Forces and Special Assault Unit soldiers to train on infiltrating enemy lines first during the early stages of war to strike key facilities and command centers.

The Army participated in training at the NTC for the first time in June 2014. At that time, about 170 personnel, including one mechanized infantry company and one Special Forces team, conducted two weeks of attack and defense training. In January last year, about 10 Korean military officers who would serve in the rotational brigade of the combined division visited the site.

Based on the results of this year’s joint exercises, the Army plans to transport armored unit equipment next year to conduct realistic training with the U.S. military in the Mojave Desert where the NTC is located. If this plan is implemented, it will be the first time in the history of the Army that Korean military equipment is transported long distances to the U.S. and used for training. The Marine Corps annually transports eight amphibious assault vehicles to the multinational Cobra Gold exercise held in Thailand for training. The Ministry of National Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff previously pursued a plan to transport Army equipment to a 406 km² United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) training ground west of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, but the plan was suspended.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.