Korean Marines Display Their Joint Operations Capability in Thailand

Tak­ing part in the ‘2012 Cobra Gold Exer­cise,’ a multi­na­tion­al com­bined exer­cise, which is focused on human­i­tar­i­an aid and dis­as­ter relief mis­sions, the Kore­an marine ‘Cobra Gold Exer­cise Group’ helped the Kore­an mil­i­tary force dis­play its excel­lent abil­i­ty to car­ry out com­bined oper­a­tions on Feb. 10 through a mas­sive com­bined land­ing drill.

The Kore­an marine corps mem­bers move toward the tar­get area, along with Kore­an-made amphibi­ous assault vehi­cles, dur­ing the “2012 Cobra Gold Exer­cise,” a com­bined land­ing drill, which was con­duct­ed off the coast of Hot Yao, Thai­land on Feb. 10. Pro­vid­ed by the unit Source: MND, Repub­lic of Korea

The troops par­tic­i­pat­ing in the exer­cise con­duct­ed off the coast of Hat Yao, Thai­land, were com­prised of a Kore­an bat­tal­ion, a U.S. marine reg­i­ment, and a Thai marine squadron and each unit’s land­ing boats and amphibi­ous assault armored vehicles. 

The exer­cise began with the U.S. marine FA-18 fight­er aircraft’s air bom­bard­ment of a sim­u­lat­ed ene­my range. The Kore­an marine search team stole into a coast to clear the shore obsta­cles for the com­bined land­ing teams to come along­side the coast. Mean­while, the Thai search team con­duct­ed high-alti­tude infil­tra­tion, using para­chutes, into the enemy’s rear area. 

The exer­cise was fol­lowed imme­di­ate­ly by the “deci­sive action” in which a com­bined force, con­sist­ing of the Kore­an, the U.S. and the Thai marine teams, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly land­ed the same coast with each team divid­ed into two waves. 

Short­ly after the multi­na­tion­al land­ing group’s armored amphibi­ous vehi­cles land­ed the coast lay­ing down smoke screen, the artillery-armored land­ing craft came along­side the shore one after anoth­er. Upon land­ing, the com­bined exer­cise team quick­ly moved into the ene­my area to seize the tar­get and secure a bridge­head, which brought the exer­cise to an end. 

Through their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the three-dimen­sion­al land­ing drill that resem­bled close­ly real war­fare, the exer­cise teams had a good chance to share their own tac­tics and warfight­ing skills with each oth­er. Fur­ther­more, they came to recon­firm how to use effi­cient­ly artillery and equip­ment mutu­al­ly and to achieve excel­lent results in terms of max­i­miz­ing joint­ness, inte­gra­tion, and simul­tane­ity in mil­i­tary oper­a­tions training. 

“We took this land­ing exer­cise as a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to help us improve our joint oper­a­tions capa­bil­i­ties among our allies,” said Lt. Col. Choi Min-oh, head of the Kore­an exer­cise team. “The exer­cise also served as a chance for us to demon­strate our abil­i­ty to exe­cute long-dis­tance and amphibi­ous operations.” 

Com­plet­ing the exer­cise, the land­ing group moved to anoth­er train­ing area where they con­duct­ed var­i­ous mil­i­tary activ­i­ties until Feb. 17, which includ­ed live fire exer­cise, search, recon­nais­sance, and sur­viv­abil­i­ty train­ing in the jun­gles, and ground force’s field tac­ti­cal exercise. 

The Kore­an marine exer­cise group dis­patched 14 offi­cers to Sat­tahip and U‑Tapao to let them par­tic­i­pate in the multi­na­tion­al com­bined staff group’s com­mand post exer­cise, which had been car­ried out there. The exer­cise was designed for the trainees to inspect multi­na­tion­al mil­i­tary activ­i­ties and prac­tice all the pro­ce­dures to end conflicts. 

Source:
Min­istry of Nation­al Defense[MND], Repub­lic of Korea