Osan Air Base, South Korea

In the shadow of continuing North Korean provocations, U.S. and South Korean military leaders are reassessing missile and air defenses on the peninsula and planning which warfighting capabilities to improve next. Critical fixes are needed in close air support, training ranges, digital communications, interoperability and the introduction of precision weapons and advanced sensors, say top officials here.

“My first concern is training,” says Gen. Mike Keltz, 7th Air Force vice commander. “As the U.S. and South Korean air forces start employing advanced weapons, we will need instrumented ranges big enough to accommodate the greater speeds, altitudes and distances they require so that units can become more mission capable. A new world-class training range also should be [capable of hosting] high-intensity, air-to-air training.”

Another worrisome issue for forces on the peninsula is integrating U.S. and South Korean close air support. Programs are in place to search out Koreans with good English skills to man and train new Joint Tactical Air Controllers (JTACs) for a long-term commitment as specialists instead of as one-time, temporary assignments.

South Korea F-4 and F-5 pilots are given Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) assignments as a one-year additional duty tour. As a result, air controllers are just getting proficient when they rotate. The shortage of trained JTACs is evident in the current manning level of only two TACP teams per division and none at lower levels. That shortage would be compounded in wartime by broken, mountainous terrain that restricts line-of-sight communications and creates gaps between units. U.S. officials are trying to promote the idea of pushing TACPs down to battalion level at least.

“We need true, combined, packaged training because the first 72-hr. of the fight will be critical,” Keltz says.

Another associated need is for an electronic warfare range. It will be an important element as South Korea starts buying EW training systems and, in about 2½ years, starts introducing non-kinetic weaponry (such as jamming and electronic attack devices)and integrating their use with precision kinetic bombs such as JDAM.

The targets for South Korean and U.S. pilots – addition to tactical and ballistic missiles – would be North Korea’s huge collection of large caliber artillery and artillery rockets.

A key, first-day-of-the-war mission for JTACs in a major conflict with the North is called XATK (pronounced X-attack).

“It is a mission designed to destroy long-range, North Korean artillery,” says Maj. Brian Hobbins, director of operations for the 607th Air Support Operations Group (ASOG) at Osan AB.

“We’ve got a very good idea of where most of their pieces are,” says Col. Rick Forster, commander of the 607th ASOG who also serves as the senior air liaison officer (ALO) and JTAC in theater. “We’ve had 60 years to watch [the emplacement of North Korean artillery] and they can only put them in so many places.

“Some are big tube and some are multiple launch rocket [240-170mm artillery] systems,” he says. “Some roll out of concealment areas on railroad tracks and some are self-propelled. There are hundreds of them that can rain huge volumes of fire and they’re pretty much targeted on Seoul and its defenses.”

Most are capable of firing non-conventional munitions such as chemical and biological agents. The primary threat, chemical warheads, include blister and nerve gas. Another concern, given the poor test results of North Korean nuclear weapons, is the use of dirty bombs that spread radioactive material with conventional explosives.

Analysts in South Korea say that if North Korean were to go down the path of large scale war, “they would throw everything at once, and we would have a lot of crazy problems in a short amount of time.” Some of the 22 tunnels estimated to extend under the DMZ, some as much as 100 meters deep, might contribute a fast start to the offensive.

Masses of infantry would go overland, free of logistics tails and the road system. Moving on captured vehicles and supplies, the offensive would probably last about a week before running out of offensive steam. It wouldn’t have enough momentum to surround Seoul, analysts predict.

“The center of gravity [for a successful defense of South Korea] would be airpower with the help of digitally-aided close air support and combined arms forward air controllers,” Keltz says. “Signals intelligence would be collected by various platforms. Tunnel entrances, cell phone facilities and fiber optic communications would be targeted by bombers with a variety of munitions. Fighters would provide suppression and destruction of air defenses, interdiction and counter-air. Patriots would contain the tactical ballistic missiles. The attack would be holistic – targeting antennas, fiber optic nodes and electric grids.”