[Yang Nak-gyu's Defence Club] US Special Operations Aircraft Unveiled

Special Operations Aircraft AC-130J Firing Video
Powerful Firepower Unleashed as Special Forces Advance
Full-Scale ROK-US Joint Exercises Begin This Month
All Surveillance and Reconnaissance Equipment Deployed Against North Korean Provocations

From this month, the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises will officially begin. The South Korea-U.S. special operations forces have also revealed the joint special operations training, known as ‘Teak Knife,’ which has been underway since the end of last month, sending a warning signal to North Korea.

On the 2nd, the Joint Chiefs of Staff released footage showing the U.S. Air Force special operations aircraft AC-130J providing fire support to special forces conducting ground operations during the joint special operations training.

The AC-130J is also called the ‘Flying Battleship.’ It is a powerful attack aircraft that supports ground special forces. Its basic armament includes a 30mm cannon and an M102 105mm howitzer, and it can also launch precision-guided munitions such as the GBU-39 SDB and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. The AC-130J supports U.S. special forces under the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), such as Delta Force and Navy SEALs.

The training, which is being conducted until early next week at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, and Osan Air Base, is designed to master a series of special operations in which special forces infiltrate enemy territory with air support. The detailed components include close air support (CAS), air control, humanitarian crisis response, and hostage rescue. The operation to infiltrate special forces and eliminate enemy leadership is also part of the Teak Knife training, which is why it is sometimes referred to as a ‘decapitation operation,’ although the military does not use this term.

Since the 1990s, South Korea and the U.S. have conducted the Teak Knife joint training annually, but due to the sensitive nature of special forces infiltrating enemy territory, it is often conducted confidentially. The U.S. Special Operations Command Korea (SOCKOR) revealed footage last year of the Teak Knife training conducted alone amid North Korea’s ‘sonagi provocation.’

After this training concludes, the annual joint exercise ‘Freedom Shield’ (FS) will be conducted on a large scale, accompanied by numerous field training exercises (FTX). The South Korean military plans to conduct more than 20 joint field training exercises at the level of the past ‘Foal Eagle’ (FE) exercises, including expanding the brigade-level ‘Ssangryong’ joint amphibious landing exercise to a division-level scale in connection with the first half of FS.

North Korea usually condemns South Korea-U.S. military exercises as ‘preemptive invasion war exercises,’ so it is likely to express strong dissatisfaction with this training and may carry out retaliatory provocations. If North Korea’s provocations reach the ‘highest level,’ it could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at a normal trajectory, dropping it into the Pacific Ocean over 10,000 km away, or conduct its seventh nuclear test. Should such a scenario materialize, the deployment of U.S. strategic assets on the Korean Peninsula and unprecedented military responses by South Korea and the U.S. are expected.

In fact, to respond to North Korea’s missile launches, the advanced U.S. reconnaissance aircraft ‘Cobra Ball’ (RC-135S) and the U.S. Navy ballistic missile tracking ship ‘Howard Lorenzen’ (T-AGM-25), equipped with state-of-the-art radar, were deployed over the East Sea on the 1st (local time).

The Cobra Ball is one of only three special reconnaissance aircraft worldwide, capable of detecting missile launch signs from hundreds of kilometers away using infrared sensors and other equipment. It also tracks the flight trajectory and warhead impact point of launched missiles. The X-band and S-band radar systems aboard the Lorenzen are known to accurately distinguish and track North Korea’s missiles, from medium-range ballistic missiles to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).