Army Facing Lack of Training Ground

“It’s outrageously noisy. Stop the exercise right now and go away.”

Some 30 tanks belonging to a mechanized unit of the army suddenly stopped all at once on September 4 while moving toward an antitank artillery firing range in Gangwon Province. It was because some 50 local residents blocked the road with their cars, tractors and cultivators in protest against causing damage with accidental firing and noise.

Officers of the armed unit repeatedly tried to convince the local demonstrators, it was no avail. The troops could finally manage to get into their drill field after much ado with the help of the police.

An army unit even had to go back to their camp in mid-June in the middle of shooting exercise from an artillery drill field in Gyeonggi Province due to a fierce demonstration from local residents.

The air-to-ground firing range of the U.S. Air Force in Korea is recently drawing great public attention due to an ultimatum-like remark from Lieutenant General Gary R. Trexler, commander of US 7th Air Force Air. However, the Korean public is showing no interest at all in their own military’s difficulties in securing training areas.

“Although the government decided to spend 300 billion won ($300 million) out of its budget to solve the problem of the U.S. air force’s firing range, training conditions of our military are becoming worse due to shortage of the budget and opposition from local governments and residents,” an official of the military said. “Some residents take very extreme or dangerous measures during a protest. Some just lie down in front of a tank heading towards a firing range or try to enter a range without permission.”

The army has secured only 64 percent or 427 million sq. meters of required training area (707 million sq. meters). Only 53 percent of firing ranges have been secured for heavy weapons like the K-9 self-propelled howitzer and the multi launch rocket system(MLRS).

The army can secure only some 2.3 million sq. meters of drill field with its annual budget of 27.5 billion won ($27.5 million) designated for securing drill fields. The conflict between civilians and the military has been worsening as much of military reservation zones have been converted as commercial land in the last several years, allowing residential or commercial buildings to be built very close to firing ranges.

“The land price is soaring even for the land near the demilitarized zones due to recent development trend. We are having difficulties in securing land for drills as local people are refusing to sell their land,” an official of the army said. “Military exercise field is now considered as one of the most undesirable facilities.”

The situation is not much different for the air force. Among the eight air-to-ground firing ranges that the air force is operating, the ranges in Yeoju in Gyeonggi Province and in Nakdong in South Gyeongsang Province require 8.5 million sq. meters each, but the air force has only secured 4.6 million sq. meters for each firing range.

The firing ranges in Gangneung in Gangwon Province and Chungju in North Chungcheong Province have long been lost its function due to safety problems as firing ranges as they are too close located to runaways of air force units. The Gangneung firing range is expected to close soon.

The increase in the complaints of local residents over noise is also hindering flights and firing exercises. Just a decade ago, jets were allowed to fire over 10 missiles for each low-altitude firing exercise at an air-to-ground drill field. However, it has been limited up to three now. Moreover, the pattern of exercises has been simplified as many of the new densely-populated areas near the firing range limit exercises.

This has been tremendously hampering low-flying exercises that aim to simulate destroying key strategic enemy structures by avoiding the enemy’s radars and air defense systems or low-altitude, high-speed strategic take-off and landing in case of a surprise attack by North Korea’s special forces. The air force has been able to conduct less than the number of summer midnight exercises than it initially planned.

In the meantime, military officials are raising strong criticism in regard to the lack of exercises. They argue sufficient exercise is absolutely necessary to have a strong army even if various advanced weapons are introduced for the transfer of wartime command control as it requires time to be able to handle the new weapons properly. “Although we are increasing mock exercises using simulators, it has a limit in training pilots,” an official of the air force said.