via Donga.com
Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) explains that the contract was signed since the manufacturer Lockheed Martin promised to resolve the engine defect until the delivery of F-35A and the U.S. government also guaranteed. However, it is still hard to understand why DAPA was in such a hurry to conclude the contract despite an obvious quality issue. As it requires spending enormous tax money, whopping 121 billion won (114.15 million dollars) per unit, DAPA should have pointed out issues for improvement and led the contract to our advantage. As FX project changed from tri-party competition system to a single-party negotiation, did it put the Korean government to an inferior position where it couldn’t say anything to the U.S.?The S. Koreans spend a whopping 14.4 percent of their entire budget on defense? Amazing. If the Europeans spent just half that percent then nut jobs world wide would tremble in fear of the free countries of the world.
Let’s see the K2 (Black Panther) that DAPA calls a "high-end battle tank." Hard-kill anti-missile system that detects and hits attack from the enemy has been developed, but it cannot be deployed since it has a collision with the soft-kill anti-missile system, which is already equipped. During the recent parliamentary audit, lawmakers pointed out that the state-of-the-art submarines cannot operate under water for sufficient time due to fuel cell issues, and the spare ammunition will run out within a few days in case of war. It is quite worrisome to see the waste of budget and also the loophole of defense.
This year’s budget for defense is 35.70 trillion won (33.68 billion dollars), accounting for 14.4 percent of the entire government budget. If the government fails to secure efficient weapon system after spending enormous money, how will it explain to the public? Thorough investigation must be carried out into whether there might be any corruption by "Military-mafia," aiming rake-off from the weapon trades behind the scene.
I really need a definition of what they're calling hard and soft kill systems. I'm assuming that its a Trophy type system for hard kill and maybe some type of spoofing/smoke grenades for the soft kill. I'll have to dig into that one.
Onto the sub issue. This is interesting. That means that the S. Korean Navy probably isn't as formidable as I thought it was.
It appears that DAPA has serious problems and they might extend to the S. Korean military.
