South Korean and US troops this week held joint future combat drills involving drones, an uncrewed vehicle and wearable laser sensors as part of efforts to modernize their militaries, Seoul’s army said yesterday.
The training came as South Korea’s military conducts a series of annual Hoguk autumn exercises aimed at improving responses to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
More than 120 soldiers from both sides joined forces to fight against a trained team of opposing forces in a mock-up town that appeared similar to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, built at the Korea Combat Training Center in the mountains in the eastern city of Inje.
Photo: AP
The drills also mobilized high-tech weapons systems aimed at beefing up combat capabilities, with the troops wearing multiple integrated laser engagement systems (MILES), which use lasers to simulate actual battle.
Several drones were flown for reconnaissance purposes, some also firing an assault rifle, while South Korea dispatched a multipurpose uncrewed vehicle to carry wounded personnel.
Choi Jeong-il, a captain of the South Korean Army’s 25th Infantry Division, nicknamed the TIGER brigade, said the uncrewed assets and the MILES gear helped identify enemies and gauge the allied troops’ casualties.
“We were able to confirm the enemy’s movements using the drones, and hit them with the cutting-edge strike equipment, which allowed us to maximize the results of the operation while minimizing damage to our forces,” he said.
First Lieutenant Derek Chen from the Second Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the US Fourth Infantry Division said the drills offered an “eye-opening experience.”
South Korea’s army launched the TIGER brigade last year as a pilot unit for future warfare operations using artificial intelligence-powered drones and highly mobile fighting vehicles. It aims to transform all combat units based on that model by 2040.
The army also held what it called its first international future warfare competition for five days until yesterday, in which about 300 troops from five countries including the UK, Uzbekistan and Cambodia participated.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS