, The Korean military will revive next year a project to replace hundreds of aging attack helicopters to beef up its defense readiness just several years ahead of the retake of wartime operational control of the its troops from the United States, defense official said Friday (Jan. 19).
“We aim to start the work next year for the production of the helicopters through the introduction of foreign technologies,” an Army official said. “We are in talks with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration for details, including the deadline.”
Military officials expect the project to manufacture 274 advanced attack choppers to replace 500 MD and other outdated models will cost 5-6 trillion won, but some experts say the cost may double.
Initially, the military planned to develop 299 transport helicopters and 178 attack helicopters by 2010 in a project code-named “KHP.” But it decided to reconsider whether to develop attack helicopters after completing the transport helicopter project, due to budget constraints.
“Many of the existing attack helicopters will be nearly 30 years old in 2010,” the Army official said. “The development of new helicopters is needed also to prepare for the increased role of the Korean military after the transfer of wartime control.”
Korea voluntarily put the operational control of its military under the American-led U.N. Command (UNC) shortly after the three-year Korean War broke out in 1950.
In 1994, peacetime control was handed back to Korea, but wartime control remains in the hands of the top U.S. commander in Korea, who heads both the UNC and the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC).
Korea has been seeking to exert the independent command of its 680,000 troops during both peacetime and war. Last year, Seoul and Washington agreed to a timeline for the transition of control between 2009 and 2012.
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