Additionally, from what I’ve read in Jane’s Defense, recently, the Korean AEGIS systems aren’t fully functioning yet due to poor C4I infrustructure. Of course that’s an outside civilian course so I can’t say for sure. At any rate, for all of its bluster South Korea is currently not in any condition to “make waves” at sea.

Years ago, I had the shameful task of representing one of these Korean defense-industry “prime contractors” in discussions precedent to an international arbitration over the breach of its sub-contract with a major US defense company providing the C4I infrastructure. The Korean company was a horrible client; I used to muse that if the prime contractor handled its defense contracts like it handled its legal disputes, those of us depending on the quality of the product were in big trouble.

The major problem was — surprise, surprise — corruption. After the bid was awarded and the US sub-contractor brought on board, the prime contractor mysteriously and abruptly received a command from the Korean Air Force to change the specification of the underlying computer server system to require a certain technical feature that only one supplier claimed was “soon to be delivered” on its vaporware feature list (both suppliers were foreign makers). This threw off the development schedule quite a bit, because the US sub-contractor had made its bid on the basis of expected re-use of work already tailored to another computer system. (Incidentally, the vaporware “feature” never materialized anyway.) The prime contractor was in no position to resist the Air Force’s unreasonable demand, but refused to accept the slippage in the delivery date, nor was the prime contractor willing to address increased costs.

There was no legitimate technical reason for the new “requirement” (it had to do with PCI bus bandwidth, yet the expected data throughput was nowhere close to saturation of the bus). It was a pure and simple case of “wiring” the specification after the fact in order to favor one supplier over the other. And the only explanation for that could be bribery, a fact which cursory investigation confirmed. Yet still the Korean prime contractor could not admit the facts and eat the cost of not standing up to the Air Force’s corrupt procurement.

In long-range engagements the ships themselves can’t fire their missiles at maximum range they’re built for. They need to work in conjuction with aircrafts for targetting, and for that reason Korea is lacking in that department, they don’t have enough planes with that capability. The KDX-3 can still fire its missiles without, but it would have reduced range due to less aircraft support.

Nice rundown on the military numbers. As far I knew, of the AEGIS DDGs you referred to 4 are Arleigh Burke Flight I - Equivalent and the 5th (which isn’t actually commissioned yet) is actually a Japanese variant of the Arleigh Burke Flight II with significant upgrades. It alone can monitor the entire SoJ water and air-space and together with Link-11 / Link-14 capabilities it can coordinate any defense of its waters. Th JMSDF has actively trained on protecting a radius of 1,000NM of Sea LoC.

I heard somewhere that the F-15J numbers were going to be reduced but haven’t seen anything to indicate that that has happened. You know anything about the status of that?

Additionally, from what I’ve read in Jane’s Defense, recently, the Korean AEGIS systems aren’t fully functioning yet due to poor C4I infrustructure. Of course that’s an outside civilian course so I can’t say for sure. At any rate, for all of its bluster South Korea is currently not in any condition to “make waves” at sea.

And Baduk, the first time a civilian ship hits a South Korean mine that was laid to “protect” its self-indulged EEZ extension, it will do wonders for their relations with other countries. I can just imagine a Chinese or Russian ship being the lucky one (especially since they have the worst mine-countermeasures in the region). That was very well thought out; a round of applause!!

The problem is it isn’t, and the ROK’s military capabilities wouldn’t be as effective in the future as Roh Moo Hyun is gutting away whatever potential capabilities there are.

I realy think that it would be better if Korea had fought an independence war and gained independence or that this independence was gained because of a huge independece movement like in India (having an internationaly famed and recognised hero like Mahatma Ghandhi would be even better).

Maybe it is not bad to rename the “Sea of Japan” but not to “East Sea”.

Asian Sea maybe?

I think it is a good time for Korean Navy to put some sea-mines around the EEZ line. Not the wimpy present EEZ, but on the newly-proposed (by Korean) EEZ that is calculated from Dokdo, not Ulengdo.

What about civilian shipping and sea transport? Besides, isn’t the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force especially known for its mine countermeasures capability? Were you a supply officer in the Navy or something?