South Korean Guns Fire For 90 Minutes

More details on the recently completed South Korean live-fire exercise.

South Korea conducted a live-fire drill from Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea starting at 2:30 p.m. yesterday for about an hour and half, which ended with no apparent retaliation from the North.

The drill was delayed three times from its scheduled start at 11:00 a.m. apparently due to fog that blanketed the area from early yesterday morning.

“Our troops are still on alert for any emergencies that may occur and we are maintaining a status of direct response while observing the movements of the North’s military,” said a Joint Chiefs of Staff official after the drill. “Our military will keep defending the border islands in the northwest.”

According to the official, there were no unusual movements by the North Korean military except for troops on the western shoreline adopting a battle posture.

In the late afternoon, North Korea’s official news service said the drill wasn’t worth reacting to.

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The Ministry of National Defense said the troops on Yeonpyeong utilized all the firepower they had, including K9 howitzers, 105-millimeter towed field guns, Vulcan guns and 81 millimeter- and 60 millimeter-mortar guns.

South Korean military officials pointed out that shells fired in exercises usually fall 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) south of the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas.

Yesterday’s exercise employed guns pointed southwest from Yeonpyeong Island toward an area in the sea that measures 40 by 20 kilometers.

The Defense Ministry said the Marine base on the island would fire roughly 2,000 shells leftover from the firing exercise on Nov. 23, which sparked the North’s bombardment of Yeonpyeong. In that drill, the military had planned to fire 3,657 shells with 11 types of guns but was forced to halt when North Korea started firing at the island.

Preparations against a North Korean retaliation or a possible exchange of fire were also made on a large scale.

South Korean military forces put F-15K fighter jets on standby in midair. And the Navy sent 10 ships to the waters around the island, including the 7,600 ton-Aegis class destroyer King Sejong the Great.

By: Shelldrake