The South Korean Army is about to receive from the US one hundred MRAP armored vehicles (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) to improve the protection of the troops deployed along the border that divides the Korean peninsula 'due to the increase in tensions between north and south'.
Although South Korea previously decreed that MRAPs - widely used by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan - were unsuitable for their military, now 100 MRAP units and a minor version known as M-ATVs are departing from United States.
The armored vehicles, equipped with the characteristic V-shaped hull, will be delivered by March. Their operational use is already planned during the joint exercises between the USA and South Korea, scheduled for next month.
These special armored vehicles have been developed specifically to protect personnel from mines, IEDs and other types of bombs. This characteristic makes them fundamental on a battlefield - like any Korean scenario - during any offensive or counteroffensive maneuver.
South Korea and the North are divided along the entire peninsula by the so-called DMZ (Demilitarized Zone): a strip of land around 200 kilometers long and wide 4 where millions of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines are buried.
Both countries remained 'technically' at war after the armistice following the conflict between 1950 and 1953, but the tension is always at the limit, especially following the repeated nuclear tests wanted by the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
According to Park Hwee-rhak, former colonel of the ROK Army, "The army needs to prepare for the worst case scenario (...) The DMZ is littered with mines of all kinds. This is why a vehicle like the MRAP, unlike what we thought in the past, is necessary".
(source: Stars and Stripes / photo: US Army)
