Tomorrow, North Korea Small Drone Defense Drill

JCS Conducts Exercise with Participation from Army, Navy, and Air Force

The Joint Chiefs of Staff will conduct a fourth-quarter joint air defense exercise on the 19th to prepare for the infiltration of small North Korean drones.

Yonhap News

According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the 18th, this exercise assumes multiple provocations by North Korean small drones using land and sea, and will be conducted in the East and West Seas as well as rear areas. The Army Ground Operations Command, 2nd Operations Command, Navy Operations Command, and Air Force Operations Command?all three branches of the military?will participate, detecting, identifying, and shooting down enemy small drones through joint ground, sea, and air air defense forces.

However, no live firing will take place; the exercise will be conducted as a simulated shootdown drill. The military explained that it is cooperating with local governments and providing guidance to residents to prepare for possible inconvenience from noise in the training area and false reports.

Our military plans to be the world’s first to deploy laser air defense weapons in actual combat. In July, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration announced the start of mass production of the Laser Air Defense Weapon Block One (Block-Ⅰ), the first project of the ‘Korean-style Star Wars Project.’ This weapon reportedly achieved a 100% hit rate during a test evaluation last April by firing lasers 30 times at 30 drones 3 km away and hitting them all. The Laser Air Defense Weapon Block One can precisely strike small drones and multicopters at close range.

In particular, it is invisible to the eye, produces no noise, requires no separate ammunition, operates as long as electricity is supplied, and costs only about 2,000 won per shot. With future power improvements, it will be capable of countering aircraft and ballistic missiles as well.

The laser air defense weapon, which began development in August 2019, involved a budget investment of 87.1 billion won. The Agency for Defense Development led the system development, and Hanwha Aerospace participated as the prototype company. It succeeded in 100% shootdown during live-fire tests, received combat suitability certification last April, completed system development, and through this mass production contract, it is scheduled to be delivered to the military starting this year for full-scale operational deployment.