Korea Crisis: US Urges China To Step In

The US is urging China to use its influence over North Korea to defuse the crisis sparked by its shelling of an island in the Yellow Sea.

South Korea's defence minister Kim Tae-young has resigned following criticism of his handling of the attack.

He quit after the government announced it would be stepping up its military presence on Yeonpyeong and four neighbouring islands.

Two South Korean civilians and two marines died in the bombardment of Yeonpyeong, which lies near the disputed Yellow Sea border.

The attack, in which at least 18 people were injured, was the first of its kind since the 1950-53 Korean War.

TV pictures showed neighbourhoods reduced to rubble with shops and homes burnt and destroyed.

The US, which is due to hold joint military drills with the South from this Sunday, has called on China to take a tougher stance with its ally.

"China does have influence with North Korea and we would hope and expect that China will use that influence," said a State Department spokesman.

"First to reduce tensions that have arisen as a result of North Korean provocations and then secondly [to] continue to encourage North Korea to take affirmative steps to denuclearise."

Japanese officials have also encouraged China to take the lead with Pyongyang.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said: 'We regret the casualties and property losses, and are concerned about the situation.

"We strongly urge both sides retain calm and restraint and engage in talks as quickly as possible in order to prevent similar incidents from happening again," he added.

Many believe the attack was meant to highlight the military credentials of North Korea's leader-in-waiting - president Kim Jong-Il's little-known, 27-year-old son Kim Jong-Un.

source: http://news.sky.com/

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China 'Regrets' N. Korea Shelling Casualties, Urges Talks

BEIJING - China on Nov. 24 expressed regret over the casualties of North Korea's deadly bombardment of a South Korean island and urged the two sides to start talks to avoid any further such incidents.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Beijing was "concerned" about the situation on the Korean peninsula, echoing remarks he made a day earlier.

"China pays close attention to the incident. We regret the casualties and property losses, and are concerned about the situation," Hong said in a statement reported by the official Xinhua news agency.

"We strongly urge both sides to retain calm and restraint, and engage in talks as quickly as possible in order to prevent similar incidents from happening again."

China opposed any activity that harmed the peace and stability of the peninsula, Hong said, adding that Beijing was ready to make joint efforts with the two sides.

North Korea, a close ally of China, fired a deadly artillery barrage on the South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong on Nov. 23, killing two marines and two civilians in one of the worst incidents since the Korean war.

While world powers have criticized Pyongyang over the incident, Beijing's muted reaction has echoed its response when the North was blamed for torpedoing a South Korean warship in March, killing 46 sailors.

source:Defence News

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DTV Shredder

Don’t lie, you know you’d love to take the DTV Shredder for just a little spin.  I remember having a scooter that had a similar shape, but somehow this Shredder just completely obliterates any minor qualities mine may have featured.  I’m sure this has some very practical military uses, but I can’t say that any of the uses that are rolling through my brain would be considered practical.

The DTV Shredder is powered by an on-board 15 horsepower motor and can transport up to 1,200 pounds of equipment.  It’s not the fastest thing out there, but it’ll get you where you’re headed at a max speed of 30 mph.  The design itself doesn’t come without benefits, the big one being that it’s capable of handling 40 degree slopes.  It’s made for reconnaissance, rescue/recovery, mobile surveillance and medical evacuation operations.  Like I said, there are practical uses for this big boy toy.

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Marines Unsure of New Rifle Plan

The general in charge of training and equipping Marines for the future fight said Nov. 16 that it is still unclear how infantry units will need to adjust to replace their light machine guns with the service's new automatic rifle.

Lt. Gen. George Flynn, who heads the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, told reporters at a Washington, D.C. breakfast that the service plans to finish outfitting five battalions with the new M-27 Infantry Automatic Rifle next month and then will observe how those Marines use it on deployment before changing the organization, training, and tactics of infantry units around the new weapon.

But Flynn pushed back at critics of the M-27, saying the improved accuracy of the Heckler and Koch-made automatic rifle makes up for a lower rate of fire compared to the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon it's being fielded to replace.

"The initial feedback was that the IAR performed pretty well," Flynn said of early evaluations of the M-27. "Accuracy has a suppressive power all by itself."

The introduction of the M-27 is a return to the roots of the Marine infantry squad, Flynn argued, which featured an "automatic rifleman" that eventually evolved into a light machine gunner with the introduction of the SAW in the 1980s.

The Corps' adoption of the IAR has been fraught with controversy, with critics arguing the limited firepower of an M-27 -- which shoots a 30-round magazine -- would leave Marines vulnerable. The lead-spitting power of the M-249 and its 200-round drum helps keep bad guys in place while grunts maneuver in for the kill, skeptics argued.

In March interview with Military.com, then Commandant Gen. James Conway cast doubt on the utility of the IAR, saying the service had to wait and see whether it should be adopted. But field tests performed in Twentynine Palms, Calif., last summer turned skeptics into converts.

At a recent "town hall" meeting at Quantico, incoming Commandant Gen. Jim Amos raved about the M-27, saying it's in the running to replace all SAWs in the inventory.

"I fired the [IAR] ... and this thing could -- notice I didn't say 'would' -- could replace the SAW," Amos said. "Any of you grunts in here who have not fired that weapon, you need to fire that weapon."

"Fighter pilot old man here fired it and I put it in about [six inches] at 500 yards," Amos added. "It's an incredible weapon."

Flynn said the plan is to outfit infantry companies with both the IAR and the SAW and leave it to the discretion of commanders on how their grunts are outfitted.

"We'll still leave the light machine gun in the company. But they won't be there in the same numbers," Flynn explained.

The Corps says that the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines; 1st Battalion, 9th Marines; 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 1st LAR and 1st Battalion, 25th Marines will get the initial fielding of about 450 M-27s for real-world testing on deployments. Corps planners will then decide what the best mix of IARs will be and how best to train and use them.

"We're going to be anxious to see what the feedback is from when the battalions actually take it out on deployment," Flynn said.

SOURCE: http://www.military.com/

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